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In Honor Of The 92nd Anniversary Of The Bolshevik Revolution.
Book Review
The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-1923, Volume One, Edward Hallet Carr, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1951
In early reviews of books on the Russian Revolution, including Leon Trotsky’s seminal study of the revolutionary seizure of power itself, “The History Of The Russian Revolution”, I used the following paragraph to introduce the reviews. I am reposting it here because it is appropriate to place the work of the British master bourgeois historian of the whole early period of that revolution, Edward Hallet Carr:
“This year is the 90th Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution (2007, Markin). I have endlessly pointed out that the October Revolution in Russia was the definitive political event of the 20th century. The resulting change in the balance of world power with the demise of the Soviet Union in the 1990’s is beginning to look like a definitive political event for the 21st century, as well. I have urged those interested in the fight for socialism to read, yes to read, about the Russian Revolution in order to learn some lessons from that experience. Leon Trotsky’s three volume “History of the Russian Revolution” is obviously a good place to start for a pro-Bolshevik overview. If you are looking for a general history of the revolution or want an analysis of what the revolution meant for the fate of various nations after World War I or its affect on world geopolitics look elsewhere. E.H. Carr’s “History Of The Bolshevik Revolution” offers an excellent multi-volume set that tells that story through the 1920’s. Or if you want to know what the various parliamentary leaders, both bourgeois and Soviet, were thinking and doing in 1917 from a moderately leftist viewpoint read Sukhanov’s “Notes on the Russian Revolution”. For a more journalistic account John Reed’s classic “Ten Days That Shook the World” is invaluable. Forward to new October Revolutions.”
Needless to say E.H. Carr, as noted above, is in some pretty good company and properly belongs there as well. I noted that his work entails a several volume effort. The present review is of Volume One of his three volume “History Of The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-1923”. A review of the other two volumes will follow as will other volumes on the Stalin-Trotsky struggle for the direction of the revolution and the eventual Stalinization of the Bolshevik Party, the Communist International and the Soviet state.
Naturally, Carr in setting up his historical narrative of the immediate post- Bolshevik seizure of power period must spend some time in the first volume going over, briefly, the pre-revolutionary struggles among the various anti-Tsarist democratic and socialist factions. He does this in order to explain the issues which brought forth the Russian revolutions (1905, as well as 1917), especially the struggle within the Russian social democracy between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Here Carr does an adequate, no, much more than an adequate job for a non-revolutionary historian, on the issues and personalities. He then spends some time of the actual revolutionary period and the beginning of the consolidation of Bolshevik state power. Again, he does a far more than an adequate job of sifting through the welter of issues and personalities in that turbulent period. However, what sets Carr apart for the average bourgeois historian , and what he excels at in this volume is the constitutional codification of the revolution and the Bolshevik policy (or rather policies) on the socialist concept of the national right to self-determination. That was a key question in an empire that had previously, correctly, been describes as the “prison house of nations”. Those sections are what made Carr’s work valuable when it came out in 1951 and what make it valuable for today’s student of revolution seeking to learn the lessons of history.
I will not spend much time on the question soviet constitutionality as it is less important, and pressing, as a topical question today than the always thorny one of the right to national self-determination. Carr distinguished, again correctly I believe, between the rather minimalist bourgeois approach to the national question as codified in the express right to national self-determination and the more nuanced, socialist perspective of the Bolsheviks, especially in the early days. I used the term policies when I spoke of Bolshevik policies on this question. Carr makes that distinction as well. That distinction reflected the different aspects of the question in the expansive former Tsarist Empire where some regions were more capable of creating viable, independent states, in the western sense, like Poland, Finland and the Baltic states to the more agrarian Ukraine and Trans-Caucasus areas where the question was more iffy to the much more primitive Siberian backwoods where in effort, at best “shadow” national-states existed.
Some of these states, at least at the time, went their own way; others reintegrated (one way or another) into the central Soviet state apparatus to form what constitutionally became the Soviet Union by the end of the period under review. If you want to do a comparison and contrast between a revolutionary policy (warts and all) pursued by the Bolsheviks and the contemporary bourgeois policy exemplified by the nefarious doing at the League of Nations Carr’s work is the place to start. He, more than most historians has attempted to understand what the Bolsheviks were trying to do without letting his own British foreign service background (a plus here for analytical purposes) color his narrative too much. That should be considered high praise coming from this quarter. In any case I have not done justice to Carr’s extensive gathering of materials, his copious use of sources, his plentiful footnotes and bibliography so you are just going to have to read this book (and the other volumes).
In Honor Of The 92nd Anniversary Of The Bolshevik Revolution.
Book Review
The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-1923, Volume One, Edward Hallet Carr, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1951
In early reviews of books on the Russian Revolution, including Leon Trotsky’s seminal study of the revolutionary seizure of power itself, “The History Of The Russian Revolution”, I used the following paragraph to introduce the reviews. I am reposting it here because it is appropriate to place the work of the British master bourgeois historian of the whole early period of that revolution, Edward Hallet Carr:
“This year is the 90th Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution (2007, Markin). I have endlessly pointed out that the October Revolution in Russia was the definitive political event of the 20th century. The resulting change in the balance of world power with the demise of the Soviet Union in the 1990’s is beginning to look like a definitive political event for the 21st century, as well. I have urged those interested in the fight for socialism to read, yes to read, about the Russian Revolution in order to learn some lessons from that experience. Leon Trotsky’s three volume “History of the Russian Revolution” is obviously a good place to start for a pro-Bolshevik overview. If you are looking for a general history of the revolution or want an analysis of what the revolution meant for the fate of various nations after World War I or its affect on world geopolitics look elsewhere. E.H. Carr’s “History Of The Bolshevik Revolution” offers an excellent multi-volume set that tells that story through the 1920’s. Or if you want to know what the various parliamentary leaders, both bourgeois and Soviet, were thinking and doing in 1917 from a moderately leftist viewpoint read Sukhanov’s “Notes on the Russian Revolution”. For a more journalistic account John Reed’s classic “Ten Days That Shook the World” is invaluable. Forward to new October Revolutions.”
Needless to say E.H. Carr, as noted above, is in some pretty good company and properly belongs there as well. I noted that his work entails a several volume effort. The present review is of Volume One of his three volume “History Of The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-1923”. A review of the other two volumes will follow as will other volumes on the Stalin-Trotsky struggle for the direction of the revolution and the eventual Stalinization of the Bolshevik Party, the Communist International and the Soviet state.
Naturally, Carr in setting up his historical narrative of the immediate post- Bolshevik seizure of power period must spend some time in the first volume going over, briefly, the pre-revolutionary struggles among the various anti-Tsarist democratic and socialist factions. He does this in order to explain the issues which brought forth the Russian revolutions (1905, as well as 1917), especially the struggle within the Russian social democracy between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Here Carr does an adequate, no, much more than an adequate job for a non-revolutionary historian, on the issues and personalities. He then spends some time of the actual revolutionary period and the beginning of the consolidation of Bolshevik state power. Again, he does a far more than an adequate job of sifting through the welter of issues and personalities in that turbulent period. However, what sets Carr apart for the average bourgeois historian , and what he excels at in this volume is the constitutional codification of the revolution and the Bolshevik policy (or rather policies) on the socialist concept of the national right to self-determination. That was a key question in an empire that had previously, correctly, been describes as the “prison house of nations”. Those sections are what made Carr’s work valuable when it came out in 1951 and what make it valuable for today’s student of revolution seeking to learn the lessons of history.
I will not spend much time on the question soviet constitutionality as it is less important, and pressing, as a topical question today than the always thorny one of the right to national self-determination. Carr distinguished, again correctly I believe, between the rather minimalist bourgeois approach to the national question as codified in the express right to national self-determination and the more nuanced, socialist perspective of the Bolsheviks, especially in the early days. I used the term policies when I spoke of Bolshevik policies on this question. Carr makes that distinction as well. That distinction reflected the different aspects of the question in the expansive former Tsarist Empire where some regions were more capable of creating viable, independent states, in the western sense, like Poland, Finland and the Baltic states to the more agrarian Ukraine and Trans-Caucasus areas where the question was more iffy to the much more primitive Siberian backwoods where in effort, at best “shadow” national-states existed.
Some of these states, at least at the time, went their own way; others reintegrated (one way or another) into the central Soviet state apparatus to form what constitutionally became the Soviet Union by the end of the period under review. If you want to do a comparison and contrast between a revolutionary policy (warts and all) pursued by the Bolsheviks and the contemporary bourgeois policy exemplified by the nefarious doing at the League of Nations Carr’s work is the place to start. He, more than most historians has attempted to understand what the Bolsheviks were trying to do without letting his own British foreign service background (a plus here for analytical purposes) color his narrative too much. That should be considered high praise coming from this quarter. In any case I have not done justice to Carr’s extensive gathering of materials, his copious use of sources, his plentiful footnotes and bibliography so you are just going to have to read this book (and the other volumes).
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