October 1917, heralded as the culmination of the Russian Revolution, remains a defining moment in world history. Even a hundred years after the events that led to the emergence of the world's first self-proclaimed socialist state, debate continues over whether, as historian E. H. Carr put it decades ago, these earth-shaking days were a "landmark in the emancipation of mankind from past oppression" or "a crime and a disaster." Some things are clear. After the implosion of the three-hundred-year-old Romanov dynasty as a result of the First World War, Russia was in crisis--one interim government replaced another in the vacuum left by imperial collapse.
In this monumental and sweeping new account, Laura Engelstein delves into the seven years of chaos surrounding 1917--the war, the revolutionary upheaval, and the civil strife it provoked. These were years of breakdown and brutal violence on all sides, punctuated by the decisive turning points of February and October. As Engelstein proves definitively, the struggle for power engaged not only civil society and party leaders, but the broad masses of the population and every corner of the far-reaching empire, well beyond Moscow and Petrograd.
Yet in addition to the bloodshed they unleashed, the revolution and civil war revealed democratic yearnings, even if ideas of what constituted "democracy" differed dramatically. Into that vacuum left by the Romanov collapse rushed long-suppressed hopes and dreams about social justice and equality. But any possible experiment in self-rule was cut short by the October Revolution. Under the banner of true democracy, and against all odds, the Bolshevik triumph resulted in the ruthless repression of all opposition. The Bolsheviks managed to harness the social breakdown caused by the war and institutionalize violence as a method of state-building, creating a new society and a new form of power.
Russia in Flames offers a compelling narrative of heroic effort and brutal disappointment, revealing that what happened during these seven years was both a landmark in the emancipation of Russia from past oppression and a world-shattering disaster. As regimes fall and rise, as civil wars erupt, as state violence targets civilian populations, it is a story that remains profoundly and enduringly relevant.
Industry Reviews
"The excellent Russia in Flames...covers not just the two revolutions and their prelude, but also the civil war that ensued..." -- Wall Street Journal
"This is the first history of the Russian Revolution that takes seriously the fact that Russians were a minority in the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional Russian empire. With verve and ambition, Engelstein chronicles the history of war and revolution as they swept across this vast empire. In this centenary year there will be many books on 1917, but none will be as original in conception and as bold in argument as this. This is history written on an epic scale
by a historian at the height of her powers." -- S. A. Smith, All Souls College, Oxford, author of Russia in Revolution
"A simultaneously sweeping and focused history of the Bolshevik Revolution . . . A comprehensive, ideologically detached, and enormously enlightening work of Russian history." --Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW
"[Engelstein] succeeds in presenting a thorough history of these wars and revolutions in an understandable and engaging manner. In this full, richly detailed study, the author effectively argues the Bolsheviks were ultimately triumphant because they focused on power and were more willing to employ violence against their adversaries, and one another, with horrific results."--Library Journal
"Engelstein delivers a clear-eyed . . . account of the difficulties confronting the population, now citizens of a country where "the dream of democracy had been abandoned," and everyone was subject to the "arbitrary swing of the sword.""--Publishers Weekly
"Destined to become the standard English language history of this period." --Mark Edele, Australian Book Review
"Laura Engelstein's magnificent volume provides a fresh and comprehensive...vision of the Russian Revolution. Positives abound...most important is her powerful and metaphorical language." --Slavic Review
"The past year has seen a considerable wave of books on revolutionary Russia, few as good as Russia in Flames, which is likely to become a standard work on the subject." -- Los Angeles Review of Books
"It is meticulously researched and brilliantly written." --Washington Book Reveiw
"Magisterial . . . . Engelstein's monumental achievement is to have wrestled the sprawling ideological, ethnic and social conflicts, the shifting fronts, the coalescing and disintegrating armies and political fiefdoms, and the foreign entanglements into a compelling account of the disintegration of the old empire and the birth of the new." --Times Literary Supplement
"The meticulously researched and fluently written story she relates is, of course, familiar, but is rarely told with the coherence and clarity achieved by Engelstein, who has come up with an unexpected page-turner." --Mark Glanville, Jewish Chronicle
"Through her engaging prose, Engelstein brings clarity to an extremely complex period of Russian history that dramaiclaly shaped the rest of the twentieth century." -- Army History
