the soviet and post-soviet review 46 (2019) 67-93 brill.com/spsr
Book Reviews ⸪
Laura Engelstein, Russia in Flames: War, Revolution, and Civil War, 1914–1921 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 823 pp., $39.95 (hb), isbn 9780199794218.
This behemoth chronicle brings up important questions about how to write histories of world-historical events. Should the author approach them in a strictly chronological, chronicle-like manner? This has the advantage of showcasing the bewildering complexity of simultaneity—events occurring in different parts of the former empire overwhelming first the Provisional Government and then the Bolsheviks as they struggle to retain power. The thematic approach to history loses the immediacy of the chronicle but of- fers in-depth analysis of trends and contexts. Unfortunately, Engelstein arti- ficially reorganizes her meticulous chronicle into thematic sections, which fails to take full advantage of either historiographical tradition. Nevertheless, this volume offers several interesting insights into events that changed world history. Tsar Nicholas’ disunited government failed to project the image of stabil- ity and competence as it “encountered a war that straddled modernity and tradition” (37). Moreover, as a total war, the Great War put the state into an unenviable position. “To survive as an imperial regime,” Engelstein writes, “the autocracy must cease to be autocratic” (1). Yet when the Provisional Govern- ment took over in March 1917, “it had only the experience of opposition to draw on” (132) and fell short on delivering on the expectations that had brought it to power, especially given that the masses saw the events of February as a social, not just a political, revolution. There is a prescient warning for contemporary Russian liberals here. Engelstein is brilliantly articulate in characterizing Alexander Kerensky in the context of his tumultuous time. As chaos engulfed the empire, his “vola- tile personality and theatrical bent suited the moment of constantly changing stage sets and continuously revised scripts, of fluid boundaries and shifting combinations, but he was vulnerable to the fluctuating mood of his fans, no
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68 Book Reviews less temperamental than he was. He was the matinee idol of the February Rev- olution” (133). In this context, Vladimir Lenin’s message was not as utopian as it sounds today because at the time it remained unclear whether capitalism was a recipe for stability or upheaval. Moreover, the Provisional Government lacked the at- tributes and pedigree of power—the Tauride Palace was modest, there were no ceremonial traditions, costumes, or a charismatic leader, and the symbols of the revolution (red flags, the Marseillaise, etc.) belonged to the Left. While the moderate socialists clung to their alliance with the military and civic elites to avoid a civil war, Lenin saw it as the path to triumph. “The revolution was in fact from the start a civil war—men versus officers, peasants versus landown- ers, workers versus factory owners, poor versus rich, drunk versus sober” (176). It was a dangerous tactic, but it worked. The Bolsheviks succeeded “by manag- ing the definition of who was against whom, turning conflict from a threat or a danger into a political device” (176). Meanwhile, the Provisional Government failed “to create the architecture needed to run the successor to the autocratic state and transform the excitement of liberty into a new kind of discipline and power” (189). Despite the government’s tactical errors, elections to the Constituent As- sembly showed an important change in popular preferences because it “rep- resented a new generation”—one-third of the Fourth Duma’s 400 members were over 50, whereas three-quarters of the Constituent Assembly were under 40 and a mere 9% over 50 (201). But the first and last 26 hours of the Assem- bly meeting witnessed “a struggle for precedence among socialist parties that shared a common vision of the social revolution” but disagreed dramatically on how to achieve it. “Precisely because they shared so much, it was imperative for Lenin to brand and monopolize the common ground” (201). As all forms of central authority were failing in the spring, summer, and au- tumn of 1917, the peasants were in the process of destroying the class regime in the countryside. The Socialist Revolutionaries (srs) tried to ride this wave, but failed to direct it, and the October events did not constitute a break in this process: “the Bolshevik takeover involved relabeling as much as creation” (222). The Bolsheviks did not control the peasant assault on authority and privilege but allowed it to unfold if it served their purposes. Engelstein is balanced in her evaluation of what impelled the Bolsheviks. “[P]ower for its own sake was not the Bolshevik goal. Or rather, the desire to exercise power was tied to the vision of a new social order that would support a new kind of regime. Destruction and reconstruction were the two faces of the Bolshevik agenda. […] Some policies tore at the social fabric; others at- tempted to re-knit the social web. Some escalated violence; others aimed to
the soviet and post-soviet review 46 (2019) 67-93
Book Reviews 69 get it under control” (237). The Decree on Peace covered for the fact that Rus- sia was exhausted and had de facto already stopped fighting, but also covered the Bolshevik flanks from accusations of defeatism, while the Decree on Land distracted the peasants with the offer of larger plots to till. It was a brilliant double-coup. Moreover, in keeping with Lenin’s political messianism, the De- cree on Peace was addressed over the heads of the European governments and directly to European populations. It was indeed a call to revolution. Was Lenin a German agent as so many opponents of the Bolsheviks as- serted? That depends on whether one takes the short—or long-term view, En- gelstein argues. The Bolshevik coup and the Peace of Brest-Litovsk promoted immediate German interests. “In the long run, however, Lenin embodied Ger- many’s worst nightmare—a leader capable of resurrecting the Russian state as a powerful obstacle to German geopolitical ambitions” (248). Inspired, no doubt, by the civil war in the Donbass region today, Engelstein pays special attention to Ukraine during the Russian civil war in two separate chapters, which offer a disturbing historical diagnosis of Kyiv’s current prob- lems. Engelstein emphasizes the endemic divisions in Ukraine from 1918 on: Moscow’s attempt to take control; the fiercely self-destructive competition between multiple local groups for legitimacy and leadership; and the chronic insurgency and continued rebellion of peasant and soldier masses “that both animated and threatened the political projects of all contenders for power” (314). The White movement ultimately failed to prevail anywhere because of disor- ganization, internecine struggles, and because “it had no compelling symbols, no vision except the defense of an empire which had already crumbled” (382). During the civil war when the Bolsheviks implemented War Communism as total nationalization of the economy, Lenin looked to war-era Germany as an example of how to run a socialist state. German capitalist and techno- logical know-how under a socialist government, he believed, would create an economic miracle. “While still waiting for the anticipated German revolution,” Engelstein quotes Lenin as arguing, “Russia must use ‘the state capitalism of the Germans’ as a model, ‘and not shrink from adopting dictatorial methods’ to adopt it” (391). From the internationalist perspective, the control of Poland, standing between Germany and Russia, became a key element in maintaining the European balance of power and the crucial factor in the future of world rev- olution. From Moscow’s perspective, “Poland was the pathway to the spread of world revolution” (487), so the “Polish victory may have saved Europe from Bolshevism” as well as “Bolshevism from Europe” by preventing the need for a Western coalition to roll the Bolsheviks all the way back to Moscow had they succeeded in taking Warsaw (510). the soviet and post-soviet review 46 (2019) 67-93
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Engelstein’s chronicle will be a very useful reference tool in university and public libraries and on academics’ shelves. Still, there is no substitute for read- ing the memoirs and literary works from all sides of the political divides to begin to understand the complexity of 1917.
Anton Fedyashin American University [email protected]
the soviet and post-soviet review 46 (2019) 67-93
