A people's tragedy

Contents

Cover

About the Book

About the Author

Also by Orlando Figes

Illustrations

Maps

Notes on Dates

Dedication

Title Page

Introduction to the 100th Anniversary Edition

Preface to the 1996 Edition

PART ONE RUSSIA UNDER THE OLD REGIME

1 The Dynasty

i The Tsar and His People

ii The Miniaturist

iii The Heir

2 Unstable Pillars

i Bureaucrats and Dressing-Gowns

ii The Thin Veneer of Civilization

iii Remnants of a Feudal Army

iv Not-So-Holy Russia

v Prison of Peoples

3 Icons and Cockroaches

i A World Apart

ii The Quest to Banish the Past

4 Red Ink

i Inside the Fortress

ii Marx Comes to Russia

PART TWO THE CRISIS OF AUTHORITY (1891–1917)

5 First Blood

i Patriots and Liberators

ii ‘There is no Tsar’

iii A Parting of Ways

6 Last Hopes

i Parliaments and Peasants

ii The Statesman

iii The Wager on the Strong

iv For God, Tsar and Fatherland

7 A War on Three Fronts

i Metal Against Men

ii The Mad Chauffeur

iii From the Trenches to the Barricades

PART THREE RUSSIA IN REVOLUTION (FEBRUARY 1917–MARCH 1918)

8 Glorious February

i The Power of the Streets

ii Reluctant Revolutionaries

iii Nicholas the Last

9 The Freest Country in the World

i A Distant Liberal State

ii Expectations

iii Lenin’s Rage

iv Gorky’s Despair

10 The Agony of the Provisional Government

i The Illusion of a Nation

ii A Darker Shade of Red

iii The Man on a White Horse

iv Hamlets of Democratic Socialism

11 Lenin’s Revolution

i The Art of Insurrection

ii The Smolny Autocrats

iii Looting the Looters

iv Socialism in One Country

PART FOUR THE CIVIL WAR AND THE MAKING OF THE SOVIET SYSTEM (1918–24)

12 Last Dreams of the Old World

i St Petersburg on the Steppe

ii The Ghost of the Constituent Assembly

13 The Revolution Goes to War

i Arming the Revolution

ii ‘Kulaks’, Bagmen and Cigarette Lighters

iii The Colour of Blood

14 The New Regime Triumphant

i Three Decisive Battles

ii Comrades and Commissars

iii A Socialist Fatherland

15 Defeat in Victory

i Short-cuts to Communism

ii Engineers of the Human Soul

iii Bolshevism in Retreat

16 Deaths and Departures

i Orphans of the Revolution

ii The Unconquered Country

iii Lenin’s Last Struggle

Conclusion

Picture Section

Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

Copyright

About the Book

Unrivalled in scope and brimming with human drama, A People’s Tragedy is the most vivid, moving and comprehensive history of the Russian Revolution available today.

Opening with a panorama of Russian society, from the cloistered world of the Tsar to the brutal life of the peasants, A People’s Tragedy follows workers, soldiers, intellectuals and villagers as their world is consumed by revolution and then degenerates into violence and dictatorship. Drawing on vast original research, Figes conveys above all the shocking experience of the revolution for those who lived it, while providing the clearest and most cogent account of how and why it unfolded.

Illustrated with over 100 photographs and now including a new introduction that reflects on the revolution’s centennial legacy, A People’s Tragedy is a masterful and definitive record of one of the most important events in modern history.

About the Author

Orlando Figes is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. Born in London in 1959, he was previously a Lecturer in History and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. A People’s Tragedy received the Wolfson Prize, the NCR Book Award, the W.H. Smith Literary Award, the Longman/History Today Book Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He is the author of many other books on Russian history including Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia, The Whisperers: Private life in Stalin’s Russia, Crimea: the Last Crusade and Just Send Me Word: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag.

ALSO BY ORLANDO FIGES

Peasant Russia, Civil War: The Volga Countryside in Revolution 1917–21

Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917

Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia

The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia

Crimea: The Last Crusade

Just Send Me Word: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag

Revolutionary Russia 1891–1991: A Pelican Introduction

Illustrations

Images of Autocracy

1 St Petersburg illuminated for the Romanov tercentenary in 1913

2 The procession of the imperial family during the tercentenary

3 Nicholas II rides in public view during the tercentenary

4 Nevsky Prospekt decorated for the tercentenary

5 Guards officers greet the imperial family during the tercentenary

6 Townspeople and peasants in Kostroma during the tercentenary