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
7 The court ball of 1903
8 The Temple of Christ’s Resurrection
9 Trubetskoi’s equestrian statue of Alexander III
10 Statue of Alexander III outside the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
11 The imperial family
12 Rasputin with his admirers
13 The Tsarevich Alexis with Derevenko
Everyday Life Under the Tsars
14 The city mayors of Russia
15 A group of volost elders
16 A newspaper kiosk in St Petersburg
17 A grocery store in St Petersburg
18 Dinner at a ball given by Countess Shuvalov
19 A soup kitchen for the unemployed in St Petersburg
20 Peasants of a northern Russian village
21 Peasant women threshing wheat
22 Peasant women hauling a barge
23 Twin brothers, former serfs, from Chernigov province
24 A typical Russian peasant household
25 A meeting of village elders
26 A religious procession in Smolensk province
27 The living space of four Moscow factory workers
28 Inside a Moscow engineering works
Dramatis Personae
29 General Brusilov
30 Maxim Gorky
31 Prince G. E. Lvov
32 Sergei Semenov
33 Dmitry Os’kin
34 Alexander Kerensky
35 Lenin
36 Trotsky
37 Alexandra Kollontai
Between Revolutions
38 Soldiers fire at the demonstrating workers on ‘Bloody Sunday’, 1905
39 Demonstrators confront mounted Cossacks during 1905
40 The opening of the State Duma in April 1906
41 The Tauride Palace
42 Petr Stolypin
43 Wartime volunteers pack parcels for the Front
44 A smart dinner party sees in the New Year of 1917
45 Troops pump out a trench on the Northern Front
46 Cossacks patrol the streets of Petrograd in February 1917
47 The arrest of a policeman during the February Days
48 Moscow workers playing with the stone head of Alexander II
49 A crowd burns tsarist emblems during the February Days
50 The crowd outside the Tauride Palace during the February Days
51 Soldiers receive news of the Tsar’s abdication
Images of 1917