Reddit reviews A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924

Addition: if you want to read in amazing detail how horrible the Bolsheviks revolution was, read A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924 by Orlando Figes. I was always of the opinion that Lenin and Trotsky were alright guys (partially because of Animal Farm), but after reading it... holy shit.

In short: no. If you want to know what really happened, read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Tragedy-Russian-Revolution-1891-1924/dp/014024364X/

read almost any book about any of the communist revolutions. Landlords were dispossessed en masse, workers seized factories. This did not usher in the new socialist man, the killing just lead to more killing as the revolution consumed its own, as they always do. The stories are depressingly repetitive.

I'm really into the late Roman Republic, naval history (especially the period between the US Civil War and the First World War, and the Second World War), and Russian history, especially the late Romanov/early Soviet era and the Cold War. Book recommendations:

• Naval history. Just take a look here and go nuts. :P
  
  
• Roman Republic. This may sound strange, but my favorite books about the late Republic aren't actually history books, they're the Masters of Rome series of novels by Colleen McCollough. They're really only semi-fictional, in that they take real events, real people, and the society they lived in, and fill in the gaps of what we don't know with (very plausible, well-written, and exhaustively researched) fictional narratives. The First Man in Rome is the first, and still my favorite out of all of them.
  
  
• Russia. Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy (Russian Revolution, Civil War/War Communism, and early Soviet era). John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History. Both really great.

I took a course in college on the Russian Revolution. The picture was in one of the books. http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Tragedy-Russian-Revolution-1891-1924/dp/014024364X

A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924

Seems like you were asking more for contemporary history, but A People's Tragedy is a really good history of Russia immediately prior to the revolution, the revolution itself, the Transitional Government and the Civil War period. The general historical text is interspersed with the histories of players large and small, providing a personal lens for the turmoil and upheavals that Russia went through. The book shows how social forces and failure to reform by the monarchy made revolution an inevitability.

If you want to study the Russian Revolution and have a lot of time on your hands, I'd recommend A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes. Extremely comprehensive but surprisingly easy to read.

It's not 'worse' per se. But in all respects, Lenin was a nobleman who lived a nobleman's lifestyle on a country estate with everyone around him basically a serf who wouldn't tell him no when he was growing up.

The People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1890-1932 is a truly excellent history of the revolution and of Lenin's character. In it there are some direct quotes from him that make it clear that Lenin truly was of the aristocratic classes even as he was a Marxist.

For instance:

>Soviet historians made far too much of Lenin's shaky credentials as a man of the people. Orlando Figes emphasises instead his noble origins. "In private life", he writes, "Lenin was the epitome of the heartless squire whom his government would one day destroy." His callousness to peasant suffering during the terrible famine of 1921 was already evident during a famine 30 years earlier when he sued his peasant neighbours for causing damage to his family estate.

>I know very little of Russia," Lenin once confessed to the writer Maxim Gorky. His upbringing as the son of a noble, followed by life as a professional revolutionary, much of it in exile, living off Party funds and income from his estates, isolated him from the very people in whose name he carried through the Bolshevik Revolution. According to Gorky, it was Lenin's ignorance of everyday life and human suffering which bred in him "pitiless contempt, worthy of a nobleman, for the lives of ordinary people".

>The famous "sealed train" in which Lenin returned from Swiss exile to Petrograd in 1917 to lead the Revolution was, says Dr Figes, "an early model of Lenin's state dictatorship". Lenin laid down strict rules for the other passengers. Smoking was confined to the lavatory, and all non-smokers were given "first-class passes", which gave them priority in the lavatory queue over smokers who were allowed only "second-class passes".

>"He would never have gone on to the streets to fight on the barricades"

>Once back in Russia, Lenin still had little contact with ordinary people and their aspirations for the future. Between early July and the October Revolution he did not appear in public. Though a born leader, Lenin was, Dr Figes argues, something of a physical coward. According to Nikolai Valentinov, who knew him well during his Swiss exile, "He would never have gone on to the streets to fight on the barricades, or stand in the line of fire. Not he; but other, humbler people were to do that."


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4703736/The-peoples-despot.html

Lenin was the kind of guy who gives out priorities in bathroom lines, depending on if you were a favored group of his or not. He was 'ballsy' with other people's lives, not his own. Lots of people admired him, although frankly he was pretty much a dick even before he achieved the ultimate power he chased all of his life - and the two things he's most notable for is inventing the modern concentration camp, which lots of people including Hitler copied from him, and developing the first totalitarian surveilance state.

I would most recommend Richard Pipes' The Russian Revolution, but Orlando Figes' A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924 is a very close second. I have both and would almost recommend them equally.

Hope that helps!

If you're interested in Trotzky, Project Gutenberg has three of his books, From October to Brest-Litowsk, Dictatorship and Democracy](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38982), and Our Revolution. His autobiografy (titled My Life) seems to still be in print with various publishers, and there's also the imho well-written more general treatise A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes (who is pretty controversial due to some of his personal failings).

I recommend the books Russian under the Old Regime and A People's Tragedy to better understand the historical mindset of the average Russian. In modern times we have a good idea of the periods after these books - early to middle Stalinism, the USSR, and the most recent period. The roots of these all lie in a cascading history that really requires looking at the entire picture to properly understand. I responded to your comment specifically because an understanding of Russian regimes and its people throughout history gives much more perspective on how they react and why those reactions differ than those found in the West.

P.S. I'd argue that an oligarchy has existed in Russia since Stalin's death (it may even have contributed to it), much as it has in China after Mao's demise

http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Tragedy-Russian-Revolution-1891-1924/dp/014024364X

Publisher's Note: Packed with vivid human detail and incident, British historian Figes's monumental social and political history spans Russia's entire revolutionary period, from the czarist government's floundering during the famine of 1891 to Lenin's death in 1924, by which time all the basic institutions of the Soviet dictatorship?a privileged ruling elite, random terror, secret police, torture, mass executions, concentration camps?were in place.

Holder på med A People's Tragedy - The Russian Revolution 1891-1924 av Orlando Figes. Grundig. Jeg liker det.

Here is the mobile version of your link

I've read a book about her long time ago, must say that I truly enjoyed it very, very much. After that, naturally Peter the Great. His life was interesting too. Amazing how he wanted to learn from the west and how the latest Russian tzar hated the very idea of modernizing Russia before it was too late.

ATM, I am contemplating this book: A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, should I go with it?

I just started reading this last night, so I can't tell you whether or not I like it, but it was recommended to me by someone who knows Russian history:

A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924

Just started "A People's Tragedy" and so far its feels straight forward, not overtly overly biased.
The preface/introduction it says it is aiming to cover time period ~1860's-1924 and begins with a more general overview of some of the various forces at play and how they fit into and feed into each other.
Its split into 4 parts:

1. Russia under the Old Regime
   
2. Crisis of Authority (1891-1917)
   
3. Russia in Revolution (1917-1918)
   
4. The Civil War and the Making of the Soviet System (1918-1924)
   Mentions he will use the lives of various people to help tell the history including Sergei Semenov and General Brusilov.
   The book is a bit a tome.
   https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Tragedy-Russian-Revolution-1891-1924/dp/014024364X

You should read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Tragedy-Russian-Revolution-1891-1924/dp/014024364X

Further, you should pay more attention to what Peterson has to say. No matter how many Jews were involved in some movement, you should be paying attention to the ideas and values people espouse as individuals, rather than the groups they can be placed in. In the thread above it is the other guy who comes across as more reasonable, more attentive to the actual evidence, and more consistent with the values that Peterson espouses.