Some time ago I promised to some of my readers that I will write on my impressions from the monumental history of Russian revolution written by Richard Pipes. The time has come to do so.
I have to say in the first place that I read the Russian edition of the book, which means that the phrases marked by quotation signs below are not real quotations from Pipes, but from the Russian translation. Also, the Russian three-volume edition includes "The Russian revolution" in two volumes and a separate volume of "Russia under the bolshevik regime". Hence, I will speak of the two books as one.
In the foreword to the first Russian edition, Pipes says: “The book
will disappoint two categories of the readers: those who think that
the events of 1917 were inevitable and positive, and those who see
them as an unnatural deviation from the Russia's true historic
way. But it will be accepted by those whose thinking is not
constrained by the fetters of the socialist or nationalist
orientation. For many years of the work at this book I was convinced
that the described events were not inevitable, but the sentiments
behind these events could not remain without consequences.”
Least of all I would like to think of myself as of a socialist or,
even less, a nationalist, but, paradoxically, I tend to belong to
both categories of Pipes' readers who are supposed to disagree with
him. I will explain my view on Russia, her history and some
patterns behind the history a bit later. Now, I will concentrate on
the book.
When Pipes explains the concept of the "patrimonial" state which
becomes the basis of his "theory of Russia", he makes some
characteristic errors.
In Pipes' opinion, “Muscovy was ruled as a private patrimony: its
population, territories and everything upon it were the property of
the throne.” This is wrong. S.F.Platonov, whose course in Russian
history I translate and post at this blog, describes the state
system of the Muscovite Russia and, in particular, the freedoms of
the Russian peasants:
“All other people living in the knyaz's appanage, were called simply
"Christians" (hence the Russian word "krestyánin", the peasant) and
were not knyaz's subjects. In the posads (towns) and in villages
they organized communities. The peasants' community was called
mir. So, if the knyaz knew that some krestyáne (peasants) live
in a certain region of his appanage, say, in a valley of a river, he
ordered to count the number of the peasants' houses and obliged them
to pay tallage. On a certain day (on Christmas or on St.Peter's
day) the pesants had to bring the tallage. People came to this
region and left it without the knyaz's permission. The local mir
accepted them and let them go, it also defined their part in the
mir's tallage. The elected elders gathered the tallage and took
it to the knyaz. And so it went on, year after year, till the knyaz
noticed that the number of peasants in this region increased or
decreased. Then, after the new census the knyaz changed the amount
of tallage. The peasants didn't even know their knyaz and the knyaz
did not have to worry when some peasants left his lands. The
krestyáne had the same freedom also on the boyars' lands. When
they came to the new landlord, they signed the contract where their
duties and payments were determined. When they wanted to leave,
they renounced the land by an established procedure. According to
the law and the tradition the usual day for leavin the landlord was
the autumn St.Yuri's day (Yuriev day, 26 November). If we say
also that the transfer from one social group to another (from
peasants to the town's population, or to kholops and back) was
easyly available for anyone, we'll understand how weakly delimited
the society was.”
Beg your pardon for this long quotation, but it should explain why
I think Pipes was wrong here.
A similar error was made when Pipes enumerated the features of the
Russian absolutism, mentioning among them "the monopoly on economic
resources and wholesale trade". While in some areas of the economy
the control of the state was more or less firm (depending on the
epoch in history, of course), in most industries the merchants and
entrepreneurs were quite free. In the medieval period they were
even more free than their European colleagues, whose activity was
strictly watched and limited by guilds.
Another group of errors made by Pipes is explained by the false
assumption that the shape of the European society was "correct" and
that the needs typical for the Europeans were also typical for other
societies: “How do we reconcile high level of industry and culture
with the political system that deems its own citizen incapable of
self-government? Why do Serbs, and Finns, and Turks have both the
constitution and the parliament, and Russians don't?”, asks Pipes.
The assumed answer is because the absolutism didn't let them. But,
probably, because they didn't need it? Exactly because the
self-government on the local level was so efficient. “Outside the
cities, the central government relied on only 1582 pristavs and
6874 gorodovois for 90 million people of rural population,” writes
Pipes. How could the police forces that small manage the country,
had it not been for the self-government? “The power of the imperial
government affected only 89 cities,” confirms Pipes. "In 1763 in
Prussia there were 100 times more officials per sq.km. than in
Russia. By 1900 the number of officials per capita in Russia was 3
times less than in France and 2 times less than in Germany." And no
self-government? Of course, there was, and Pipes even says: "As a
matter of fact, the village was governed autonomously by the rural
communities, who carried collective responsibility for the
collection of taxes and the draft of recruits, and by volosts,
which performed simplest judicial and administrative functions."
When Pipes declares his political position in the foreword, he says
that had he lived in 1917 Russia, he would be an "oktyabrist". It
seems to me that he goes so far that he even adopts the prejudices
typical for this circle of people, especially in his description of
Russian intelligentsia, “usually defined as a category of educated
urban citizens, mostly from upper and middle classes, who are always
in opposition to the monarchy.” And then Pipes blames
intelligentsia for the revolution and all the crimes committed in
the course of the Civil war. As a matter of fact, he repeats
Lenin's erroneous idea that the workers who are not led by a group
of intellectuals are unable to revolt. On the other hand, Pipes is
too eager to accuse the intelligentsia. Intelligentsia formed also
the most active part of the supporters of liberalism. Pipes gives
many examples of the university opposition to the bolsheviks, among
both students and teachers.
I think Pipes did not really understand what intelligentsia is. He
defined it as "a category of educated people, usually from upper and
middle classes, in permanent opposition to the tsarism". He was
mistaking. A noble, no matter how well educated, like Bakunin or
Tolstoy, would never be called "intelligentsia". It was a privilege
of middle and lower classes. Which means that the revolution was not
led by the forces foreign to the Russian peasants and workers, but
by those of them who managed to receive a more or less good
education.
Another, and the most annoying, group of errors made by Pipes may be
properly called "cheating". They appear when Pipes gives way to his
personal feelings, which leads to absolutely anecdotical situations.
So, in chapter 10 of the second volume (The Red terror), Pipes
colorfully describes Lenin's fears:
“Not a single tsar, even in the periods of the revolutionary
terrorism – was not afraid for his life, and didn't possess the
guard so strong as Lenin did… Lenin sat behind the brick walls of
Kremlin, guarded by the Latvian riflemen day and night. When from
time to time he dared to go to the city, it was never
announced. Since he moved to Moscow in March 1918 till his death in
January 1924 he visited Petrograd, the stage of his revolutionary
triumph, only twice, and never made any trips to see the country or
to talk to the people. His boldest voyages were rare trips to Gorky
near Moscow in his Rolls-Royce.”
And then, only one page later, Pipes writes: “The bolshevist
leaders, including Lenin, used to participate in meetings in various
places of Moscow in front of workers and party members every Friday
afternoon. Lenin's arrival was not usually known in advance. On 30
August, Friday, he intended to visit two meetings (my emphasis,
DM)… Worried (by the murder of Uritsky), his kins asked Lenin to
cancel the meeting, but, unnaturally for him, he refused.” This
controversy is one of the best examples of the Pipes' bias.
Another example where Pipes' antipathy is seen too clearly is in
Chapter 4 of "Russia under the bolshevik regime". “The suspicion
(that Lenin wanted to establish the hegemony of Moscow over the
Western socialist parties) is substantiated by the letter written by
Stalin in 1924 to a German communist publisher: ‘The victory of the
German proletariat will doubtlessly shift the centre of the world
revolution from Moscow to Berlin.’” How does this sentence
substantiate the suspicion, may I ask?
In the end of chapter 5 of "Russia under the bolshevik regime",
Pipes says: "We have mentioned the high estimations given by
Mussolini to Lenin and his praise to Stalin." I paged back through
the chapter, but the only words of Mussolini about Lenin I could
find are: "I reject all forms of bolshevism, but if I had to choose,
I would choose the bolshevism of Moscow and Lenin, for its giant,
barbarian, universal scale." Is this what Pipes calls "high
estimations"? I would say that this chapter, "Communism, fascism
and national-socialism", is one of the worst and least convincing
parts of the book, and the third volume in general, "Russia under
the bolshevik regime", is the weakest one.
In the same chapter Pipes makes a really outstanding claim, saying
that Hitler had plans to make Stalin his deputy after the conquest
of the USSR. He even gives the source of this information: an
article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. I tried to find this
article, but could not. Still, I'm very skeptical about this
sensational bit and I'm inclined to think that Pipes made this
unsubstantiated claim just because he wanted so much to equal Stalin
and Hitler.
Sometimes the choice of words itself demonstrates the intentions of
the author. When Pipes tells about the Soviet propaganda art, he
says that the enemies of the Soviets were represented as worms and
the workers and the Red Army soldiers had "Aryan" facial
features. This word, "Aryan", is an awkward attempt to produce an
impression of deeper links between bolshevism and nazism.
And the fourth group of errors is simply the repetition of some old
myths still popular among the Western specialists. One of them is
illustrated by the phrase written by Pipes in the first chapter of
"Russia under the bolshevik regime": “A Don cossack who sympathised
the Russians…” Clearly, Pipes assumes (or wants his readers to
assume) that Cossacks were not Russians. This assumption was
refuted by Cossack Gregory Tschebotarioff in a brilliant book of
memoirs written especially for the Western audience, "My native
land".
The books of Pipes are an amazingly well written and thrilling piece
of literature. I enjoyed reading them. But those interested in
Russian history definitely need a better reading, not as illogical
and incoherent as this monumental
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