A review by sophronisba
A Concise History of the Russian Revolution by Richard Pipes

3.0

On the plus side, this book is well-written and well-researched. I learned a ton. On the minus side, though, Pipes does struggle with restraining himself from interjecting his own political opinions: by which I mean that he is conservative to the point of frequently sounding wistful for a tsarist autocracy. He also harbors a disdain for "intellectuals" which I found puzzling for someone with degrees from Harvard and Cornell. More puzzling still, at the end of a book spent fulminating against what the "intelligentsia" had wrought in Russia, he writes in the conclusion that "The less one knows about the actual course of the Russian Revolution, the more inclined one is to attribute a dominant influence to Marxist ideas." So it wasn't the intelligentsia's crazy ideas that caused all the trouble then? It sounds contradictory to me.

Still, I do recommend this book, with the qualification that it's not going to feel like a neutral narrative. I am at some point going to seek out another account that will balance out the scales a bit.