Three Great Books on Soviet History

Interest in Russia briefly waned after the fall of the Soviet Union, but newly aggressive Russia under Vladimir Put has revived interest in Russia.  If you are looking for some solid history recommendations to give you a better sense to the history of modern Russia, check out the selections below.

A History of Twentieth-Century Russia by Robert Service

    In A History of Twentieth-Century Russia, Service provides a comprehensive, single-volume narrative history that covers the tumultuous period from the final years of Tsar Nicholas II through the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    It is widely regarded as a useful reference and an accessible introduction for general readers, incorporating material from previously closed Soviet archives. This book remains a great place to start for understanding Russia's twentieth century and a better understanding of the system that produced the likes of Vladimir Putin.

    Service constructs a coherent narrative by focusing on the political core of the Soviet system, which he metaphorically calls the "Soviet compound". This approach allows him to provide a clear, chronological account of events. As mentioned, the entire work is accessible to the general, non-academic reader and is a work I recommend that is a great place to start with Soviet history.

Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary by Dimitri Volkogonov

    In Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary, Volkogonov offers a critical and very clear reinterpretation of Leon Trotsky, using special access to previously sealed Soviet archives. Volkogonov challenges the traditional view of Trotsky as a tragic, idealistic revolutionary and portrays him instead as a ruthless figure whose unwavering fanaticism and violent methods helped create the very system that would later destroy him.

    Volkogonov was a high-ranking Soviet colonel and historian and had unique access to archival material which is now largely closed off again under Putin.  With this unique window of opportunity, Volkogonov used archival material formerly unavailable to western historians and portrayed a more realistic portrait of Trotsky, directly contrasting with earlier, more sympathetic biographies, such as Isaac Deutscher's multi-volume work.

    Many intellectuals in the western democracies, as well some historians always viewed Stalin as the person that took the Soviet experience off course. The often say - 'If only Trotsky had one the battle with Stalin following Lenin's death' things would have been different, there would have been no terror. But Volkogonov shows us that this view is largely naive, wishful thinking. Trotsky was a brutal and ruthless fanatic who deployed terror during the Civil War and would have stopped at nothing to build Soviet power in Russian and abroad. 

Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum

    In Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine, Appelbaum offers a devastating and crucial account of the Holodomor, the manufactured famine that killed millions of Ukrainians between 1932 and 1933. She draws extensively on archival research and survivor testimonies, and presents a meticulous case that this was not an accidental tragedy caused by collectivization policies, but a deliberate act of extermination orchestrated by Stalin to crush Ukrainian national identity.

    Applebaum's central argument is that Stalin "weaponized" food to break the Ukrainian peasantry, who were seen as a threat to Soviet control. She shows how the famine was part of a larger campaign to destroy Ukrainian national aspirations, which included the persecution of the Ukrainian intellectual and political elite.

    Perhaps is fair to argue that Stalin may have had multiple objectives for the collectivization program and that destroying small farmers and Ukrainian nationalism was simply 'killing to birds with one stone'.  Regardless, the famine which extended into southern Russia was one of the most horrific events in history and this book can be a hard read at times. 

 

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