Synopses & Reviews
The Russian Revolution had a decisive impact on the history of the twentieth century. Now, following the collapse of the Soviet regime and the opening of its archives, it is possible to step back and see the full picture of this event for the first time.
Impeccable in its scholarship and objectivity, this superb volume tells the gripping story of a Marxist revolution that was intended to transform the world, but instead visited enormous suffering on the Russian people, and, like the French Revolution before it, ended up devouring its own children. The author offers insightful descriptions of the February and October Revolutions of 1917, the Civil War, the interlude of NEP, Stalin's "revolution from above," the various Five-Year Plans, and the Great Purges--all treated as discrete episodes in a twenty-year process of revolution. The book incorporates data from archives that were previously inaccessible not only to Western but also to Soviet historians, as well as drawing on important recent Russian publications such as the memoirs of one of the great survivors of Soviet politics, Vyacheslav Molotov. In the Select Bibliography, the author highlights the most important of the recent scholarly works, directing readers to the burgeoning Western scholarship on the Russian Revolution in the last ten to fifteen years.
Shelia Fitzpatrick is an internationally known expert on Soviet history. This lively and readable Third Edition uses newly available Soviet archival material and the latest Russian and Western research to provide an authoritative, compact account of one of the key events of modern history.
Review
Review from previous edition "A lucid and indeed instantly classic explanation of the revolutionary spirit in its pre-1917 and Lenin-then-Stalin dominated stages."--Tribune
"A succinct, insightful, and highly original interpretation of the Russian Revolution as a process of social transformation lasting from 1917 to 1937... Fitzpatrick gives us a challenging rethinking that will shape our discussions for years to come."--Ronald Suny, University of Michigan
"A beautiful little introduction to the topicEL This is a fine work for introductory students, as well as for general readers looking for a window into the Russian enigma'"--Robert V. Daniels, University of Vermont
Synopsis
This provocative and eminently readable work looks at the many upheavals of the Russian Revolution as successive stages in a single process. Focusing on the Russian Revolution in its widest sense, Fitzpatrick covers not only the events of 1917 and what preceded them, but the nature of the social transformation brought about by the Bolsheviks after they took power. Making use of a huge amount of previously secret information in Soviet archives and unpublished memoirs, this detailed chronology recounts each monumental event from the February and October Revolutions of 1917 and the Civil War of 1918-1920, through the New Economic Policy of 1921 and the 1929 First Five-Year Plan, to Stalin's "revolution from above" at the end of the 1920s and the Great Purge of the late 1930s.
Lucid and concise, this classic study makes comprehensible the complex events of the revolution.
Synopsis
The Russian Revolution had a decisive impact on the history of the twentieth century. Now, following the collapse of the Soviet regime and the opening of its archives, it is possible to step back and see the full picture of this event for the first time.
Impeccable in its scholarship and objectivity, this superb volume tells the gripping story of a Marxist revolution that was intended to transform the world, but instead visited enormous suffering on the Russian people, and, like the French Revolution before it, ended up devouring its own children. The author offers insightful descriptions of the February and October Revolutions of 1917, the Civil War, the interlude of NEP, Stalin's "revolution from above," the various Five-Year Plans, and the Great Purges--all treated as discrete episodes in a twenty-year process of revolution. The book incorporates data from archives that were previously inaccessible not only to Western but also to Soviet historians, as well as drawing on important recent Russian publications such as the memoirs of one of the great survivors of Soviet politics, Vyacheslav Molotov. In the Select Bibliography, the author highlights the most important of the recent scholarly works, directing readers to the burgeoning Western scholarship on the Russian Revolution in the last ten to fifteen years.
Shelia Fitzpatrick is an internationally known expert on Soviet history. This lively and readable Third Edition uses newly available Soviet archival material and the latest Russian and Western research to provide an authoritative, compact account of one of the key events of modern history.
About the Author
Sheila Fitzpatrick is Bernadotte E. Schmitt Professor of Modern Russian History at the University of Chicago. A past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies and a co-editor of
The Journal of Modern History, she is the author of many other books and articles about Russia. She lives in Chicago and Washington, DC.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. The Setting
2. 1917: The Revolutions of February and October
3. The Civil War
4. NEP and the Future of the Revolution
5. Stalin's Revolution
6. Ending the Revolution
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index