Russia Books

Bruno S. Sergi had an idea. He wanted to outline the future through examining history of the economics in Russia. His examination of the evolutionary processes and the functioning of Russia's economy in the past should best serves understanding the present and outlining the future guidelines. As Aristotle has said in the ancient Greece, "if you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development." The principal idea of Sergi's book on Communist Economics in Russia is thus observing the past and building the future. However, as the Irish writer Oscar Wilde wrote, "any fool can make history, but it takes a genius to write it." And, Sergi wrote it, he wrote a history rich of lessons, and he did so in a fascinating way.

This book is constructed in such a way that presents a deep and thorough narrative of the history of Russian economics. His story is exceptionally striking, perhaps the most comprehensive and in-depth academic endeavor on the Russian economics we ever had in our hands. His book starts with a chapter on "Ideology and Symbols in Russia" and ends with "The Evolving Russia: From the 1990s to Putin." Other periods examined in this book include: The Tsarist Russia and Lenin, De-Stalinization and Economic Reforms, "Gorbachev, the Man with Iron Teeth", and Russian and Western Actions.

Once he identifies certain symbols, political and economic, which have followed the historical configurations of the Russian economics and politics, Sergi analysis the logic of various Russian leaders in handling the economy. He addresses the role of communist power and the way it was used by various leaders in the course of Russia's history, and the reactions of Presidents Yeltsin and Putin after the collapse of communist system. He further highlights a number of causes and problems the post-communist Russia is facing, such as the rise of corruption, of the so-called oligarchs. The author also lays down a set of recommendations and proposals for reforms. Those with an interest on Russia should definitely have this book in their personal libraries.

Political analysis of the now defunct USSR, in particular the Brezjnev period: all the power lay in the hands of the highly centralized communist party: no political parties, no market, no autonomous organizations in the social and cultural fields.
The most importants jobs were occupied by Russians.
The top was a coherent team, that recognised the aspirations of the nomenklatura.
The population knew that mass revolts were nearly impossible and that the party had the military power to crush them. On the other hand, the party made it perfectly clear that the unpredictable atrocities of the Stalin era would not come back.
It showed the satellite states that no foreign power would support effectively their nationalist ambitions.
The opening to the West gave new oxygen to a faltering economy and permitted to import much needed technology, while on the other hand the party continued to help their sister parties all over the world.
As always, a perceptive and thorough investigation of a political system by the author who correctly predicted that the USSR would fall apart, if the power of the communist party would be broken.
A must or historians and for those interested in the history of the USSR and Russia.

"The Conscience of the Revolution" is Robert Daniels's thorough history of the internal debates and struggles within the Bolshevik (later Communist) Party, from its 1903 establishment under Lenin until the late 1920s, when "the last voices of real opposition were stifled by Stalin" (vii). It focuses especially on two periods: the controversies and crises of the Civil War period (such as the Nationality Question, the Trade-Union Controversy, and the 10th Party Congress of 1921) and opposition (by Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin, and others) to the developing Stalinist dictatorship following the death of Lenin. Of course, other issues, such as debates over whether, when and how to seize power in 1917, are also discussed. The final chapter on "Why the Opposition Failed" is especially impressive, synthesizing objective factors such as the Civil War and Russia's relative backwardness with the personal failings of opposition leaders such as Trotsky.

I read "The Conscience of the Revolution" some years ago and I remember being impressed by the wealth of detail on many conflicts and disagreements among Russian Communists. Though the writing is somewhat dry and academic (the book actually got its start as Daniels's 1950 Harvard Ph.D. dissertation), it is clearly written and very well-organized, and anyone with an interest in the subject will find it engrossing and far from tedious. Everything is extensively documented, with over 100 pages of appendices, notes, bibliography and index. I was pleased to find that the appendices include early examples of two-dimensional graphical political analyses of the type recently popularized by the "Political Compass" (politicalcompass.org), which plot actors' programs ("mass-interest" vs. "class-interest") on the horizontal axis and methods ("hard" vs. "soft") on the vertical.

Though I imagine some might be inclined to sneer at "The Conscience of the Revolution" as a study of petty factionalism and sectarianism on the left, Daniels argues eloquently that studying the Communist opposition sheds light into both why Stalinism emerged from the October Revolution and that there were other alternatives, even after the Bolsheviks had established their single-party "dictatorship of the proletariat". He describes the basic conflict as that between "Leninist" and "Leftist" communism, the first devoted to power ("revolutionary pragmatism") and the other to principle ("revolutionary idealism") (4). The tension between these two wings "was resolved in the victory of the Leninist current of Communism over the Leftist, the triumph of reality over program" (5). Daniels's goal is to explain this struggle and its results, as well as to rescue the idealists from the obscurity into which they were cast by the triumph of Stalin's will.

My only objection to Daniels's work, not sufficient to justify the removal of a star, is its exclusive focus on opposition from within the Communist Party. For instance, the Kronstadt Revolt of 1921, despite being "the most serious internal political crisis ever faced by the Soviet government" (143), receives a scant three pages. I would have appreciated more information on left-wing opposition outside the party, among anarchists, Mensheviks, left SRs and others, especially in the period before the Bolshevik dictatorship had been consolidated and all external opposition suppressed. But since Daniels's focus is on tensions within Bolshevism itself, the omission of this topic is reasonable, and doesn't significantly detract from a classic study.

Contents:
1. The Formation of the Bolshevik Party
2. The Bolshevik Factions in the Revolution of 1917
3. The Brest-Litovsk Controversy and the Left Communists
4. War Communism and the Centralization Controversies
5. The Trade-Union Controversy
6. The Crisis of 1921
7. Leninism Restored
8. The Interregnum
9. The New Course Controversy
10. The Party after Lenin
11. The Zinoviev Opposition
12. The United Opposition
13. The Right Opposition
14. "Enemies of the People"
15. Why the Opposition Failed

Inspiring:
This biography is full of amazing anecdotes and experiences from the life Eldress Rachel and some of her spiritual children. The stories span her long life, from shortly after Napoleon's invasion of Russia to the atheist Bolsheviks. Her devoted, self-less life of spiritual effort leaves the reader enthused.

Encouraging:
She also leaves the reader filled with hope and a desire to be a better Christian and the belief that this is possible.

Intimidating:
The above statements notwithstanding, the book is not just pious pablum. There are powerful narratives that posit a subtle, lingering, sense that being a better Christian is not just a nice option, but a real imperative. It helps motivate honest self-reflection, and one would hope, true repentance.

It's captivating, too, the kind of book that is hard to put down once you start reading it.

The book is written with an easy reading style, and although there are some technical/foreign terms, these are printed in italics and a glossary offers definitions for these words.

One weak point is the issue of how long she lived. While this is not a fundamental issue -- she lived over a hundred years either way -- there is a footnote on p. 161 which introduces a possible age, while comments on p. 17 (mention of her birth) and p. 99 (her own words) both indicate another. As I said, it's no big deal for the over-all impact of the narrative.

In summary, I would say that it is an enjoyable, useful, edifying, and easy to read book.

Writing from Moscow to Quaker colleagues at home in the disastrous winter of 1921, Anna J. Haines specified what kind of emergency relief workers were needed to cope with civil war, famine and a paranoid Bolshevik government: "In general the people who will be able to accomplish the most will be those who can win rather than fight their way. One need not be a Communist, but one should be capable of an open mind and a closed mouth. No one of the dreamy parlor-Socialist type should be considered; sensation hunters equally undesirable...."

With many such vivid archival excerpts, this fascinating book illuminates an episode of Friends service that deserves to be far better known. In two separate but related waves of involvement - for a three-year period bracketing the revolutionary year of 1917, and during the famine and reconstruction period of 1921-27 - teams of British and American Friends operated food, clothing and medical distribution networks in Moscow and in the famine-stricken Samara region, a thousand miles to the east. At their peak, these activities were keeping as many as 397,000 people alive in the area between Samara and Orenburg, centering on the town of Buzuluk. Friends ran a thousand feeding centers, a hospital, over 40 malaria clinics, and a number of children's homes; they negotiated with their own governments, with the shifting cast of Soviet bureaucrats, with local officials; they taught tractor mechanics, bought and sold horses, organized employment, and advocated passionately for Russian relief among variously supportive and skeptical home-office Quaker leaders, all in the service of (in the words of the AFSC's director, Wilbur Thomas) "a Christian message of goodwill...."

A number of fascinating individuals come alive in the pages of Constructive Spirit, particularly the imperious and irrepressible Nancy Babb, a one-woman relief and development agency who practically rebuilt the community infrastructure in a hard-hit district of 43 villages and 63,000 people, and who "had a reputation," according to the authors, "of being hard to work with." Anna Haines, the meticulous and thoughtful co-leader of Quaker relief activities in Russia, provides a study in contrast; thanks to her careful notes, we learn much about the daily realities of the work, the persistent diplomacy required, and the visions of the field staff for their ongoing work in Russia.

Some of the behind-the-scenes incidents in this book illustrate perennial dilemmas for emergency relief and development work. The complicated personal relationship between American Friends Service Committee chairman Rufus Jones and American Relief Administration director (and later U.S. president) Herbert Hoover affected more than one dilemma of the time. First of all, Friends were properly concerned to remain clear of government entanglements. Secondly, in the USA, much of the financial support for Russian relief came from leftist and progressive groups, while Hoover and many other leading Friends of the time had no sympathy for such groups. And, thirdly, these complications in turn sometimes aggravated relationships between the British and American service bodies. Constructive Spirit also details the lively discussions between those advocating concrete relief-oriented services and those who advocated a more spiritually-oriented Quaker center or "Quaker Embassy" approach to the ministry of presence.

Sergei Nikitin, formerly on the staff of Friends House Moscow, contributes a helpful introductory chapter to Constructive Spirit.

Ultimately, Quaker efforts to play a role in Russian reconstruction could not make a lasting transition from emergency conditions to long-term ministry. Home-country Quaker politics (and perhaps a consequent failure of vision) and shifting policies in the Soviet Union combined to bring even a nominal Friends international presence in Russia to an end by 1931, not to be revived on an ongoing basis until the establishment of Friends House Moscow only a decade ago.

Containing Coexistence studies what has to be one of the most interesting and least addressed questions related to the early years of the Cold War: how Finland managed to remain neutral and unoccupied. Jussi Hanhimaki has written a detailed, cogent account of the interactions of Finland, the United States and the Soviet Union, with particular emphasis to the changing American assessment of Finland's position in the Cold War.

Probably the part of the book most relevant to students of the Cold War is the first section, which explains how Finland became the sole success story of Yalta. Soviet foreign policy toward Finland is assessed as having been primarily driven by security concerns.

I personally wonder if Hanhimaki gives Finland's leadership too much credit for avoiding absorption into the Soviet bloc. It would seem that the weakness of Finland's communists, the Soviet choice not to advance into Finland in 1944, and the consolidation of Cold War tensions in Central Europe probably did more to shape Moscow's policy than did President Paasikivi's prudent policy. Clearly Helsinki played its cards very carefully and with real success, but I wonder to what extent the outcome was already determined by external events.

In any case, this is an excellent book by a capable and eloquent scholar. It might have benefited from more evidence on the Soviet side, but this is understandly harder to secure.

This book fills an obvious gap in contemporary east-European political literature. Unlike other books on Belarus, the strong point this book has is that is written primarily by young Belarusian scholars who have studied both within Belarus and in the west and thus gives a far more even account of the true nature of this interesting nation.

This book is required reading for any serious scholar of east European politics, economics, culture or society.

What a great book to give the reader a background about the history of the Adirondack. It not only tells you how to build a Guideboat blut it explains why it part was designed the way it was. It is truly a must read for anyone who is interested in Adirondack history, small wooden boats or woodworking. I can not recommend this book any higher.

O'Rourke has managed to take a confusing part of Russian history and not only clarify it but turn in into a compelling story. The book brings to life in vivid detail some of the most important Russian and Ukrainian Folk heros. It read like a novel; I couldn't put it down.

"Cries in the New Wilderness" is a subtly laugh-out-loud experience. Epstein has the most incredible imagination I have ever encountered. I have no idea how he dreamed up all the various religious sects described in the book while managing to balance them so perfectly between plausability and utter absurdity.