A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution

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It is probably the most complete and comprehensive book on the history of Russian Revolution.

The book is a detailed and comprehensive history of the Russian Revolutions, narrated like a novel with a thorough analysis of the causes which brought to the 1905 and later to 1917 revolutions in Russia. It is very pleasant to read in spite of the length of the book. I had been looking for Figes book in my language (Italian) for a long time but couldn't find it or any other work similar to it. I have therefore decided to order it on Amazon in English, since I wanted a complete report of this historical period. I must say I have made the right decision and I have not been disappointed from such brilliancy of analysis and ability to present the revolution from all points of view, be it the peasants, the Tzarist regime, the working class etc, as well as private stories which allow you to "feel" the atmosphere and the daily toil simple citizens had to face during that period....

This book has displaced "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" as my 'favorite' history book of all time. I say "favorite" because this book is not for the faint of heart: it is massive, dense and harrowing. The author brings an incredibly confusing and brutal revolution to life with very lively writing. By the time the revolution finally broke I had some sense of the absolutely crushing impossibility of the situation. Burning everything to the ground and instituting random terror as a government policy made "sense" in context of the situation.

You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs and the Russian Revolution was one bloody big omelet. Orlando Figes does an admirable job of providing a look at the big picture of the Revolution--taking us back a good two decades before it began and bringing us up to Lenin's death, about a decade after. The advantage of this perspective is that it gives the reader an historical context for the events that eventually brought down centuries of tsarist rule and raised up the Bolsheviks. The obvious disadvantage of such an approach is that a certain amount of detail is unavoidably lost. Still, for a one-volume treatment of the subject, you can't go wrong with this book. Comprehensive and informed, it is a generally lively read, as history books go. Figes tries to balance the personalities, the politics, and the events of the Revolution to bring it to life without sacrificing facts. It is a compelling period filled with fascinating characters--Rasputin, Tsar Nicholas, Kerensky, Lenin, Trotsky, Lvov, Gorky and that's just scratching the surface. Figes, not quite agreeing with the Marxist/Hegelian view that men don't make history, effectively shows the importance of the personalities of the Revolution's cast of characters and how a different man in the same place at the same time could have easily changed everything. Figes tries to remain balanced in his account by pointing out where "right wing" historians and "left wing" historians often interpret events differently. His own view, in the end, is that the Bolshevik revolution was an idealistic concept that was doomed to fail when applied by and applied to imperfect human beings. The result was the erosion of idealism to totalitarian terror. If you are a committed Marxist, chances are you'll find yourself opposing the tone of this book. If you are a commie-basher, it'll probably suit you better, but Figes sympathy towards the more genuinely committed communists will probably aggravate your intolerance. For the rest of us, without a particular ideological axe to grind, Figes comes off about as fair and balanced as a thinking individual with the capacity for informed judgment can be. This book is long, dense, and it'll take a while for you to read, but if the subject interests you at all, it's well worth the time and effort. It's also essential reading to understand how and why the Soviet experiment degenerated into the nightmare that were the Stalin years. With so much talk lately about America's turn towards "socialism" and the rising level of vitriolic and polarizing discontent with our government, *A People's Tragedy* offers unexpected contemporary insight into the dynamics of political and social change that should give us all pause. Even if we're condemned to repeat history, at least we can be prepared for it.