Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921

Rating:
Summary: Good history of the fate of the Don Cossaks
Review: Holquist's book is a very good history of the Don Cossacks' fate changing leadership of the Russian civil war. This is a not a light read, but is a extremely well researched and detailed look at the attempted development of parastatal organs, the wavering class/political allegiances, and the bureaucratic continuity under the Tsar, the Whites and the Reds. This is a book for the serious student of the Russian revolution. There were a few things that detracted from this book in my opinion. While Holquist's prose is clear, it fails to carry the reader along. Additionally, the almost exact repetition of certain sentences in different chapters give the book a sometimes disjointed feel. This, combined with the detail and numerous relatively minor Cossacks and Russians to keep track of, made the book somewhat laborious to get through. The real problem, for me at least, is that I have seen Holquist lecture in person. His classes on the First World War and the Russian Revolution were absolutely fantastic. Somehow his enthusiasm, eloquence, and engaging manner do not come across in this book.

Rating:
Summary: The Politics of Procustes
Review: The Russian Civil War was a crucial turning point in the history of the Soviet Union, as it put a premium on brutality, rigidity, scarcity and intolerance to an appalling degree. Peter Holquist's monograph looks at the Don region. This was the home of the famed (and infamous) Cossacks, for centuries key military supporters of the Tsarist regime. Although they owned the best land, they were a minority of the Don population (about 40%), the rest were "native" peasants and recent immigrants. Holquist's book seeks to examine the region as a whole from the start of the first world war in 1914, through the agony of impending defeat, to the February Revolution and the October Revolution. This was followed by a civil war between the Soviet government and the Cossack supported Whites, followed in 1920 and 1921 by Soviet grain requisition policies that led to mass rebellion and mass famine.

There are a number of themes in this book, and the first is the Procustean one. In Greek mythology Procustes owned an inn and invited travelers to sleep on a bed. Those who were shorter than the bed would be stretched until they fit, while those who were taller than it, would have their limbs chopped off until they fit. Such was the policy uses by not merely the whites and reds, but by almost all sides in the Russian civil war. The White/Cossacks viewed themselves as pure Cossacks fighting not only the Reds but local non-Soviet peasants who were assumed to be red. This was in fact a vast oversimplification. Many Cossacks showed little interest in fighting or supporting the Cossacks, many of them supported, if not the Bolsheviks, the Soviet form of government. In turn, many of the White supporters in the Don were non-Cossacks, many of them refugees from the rest of Russia. In turn, the Reds, grown up on legends of Cossack brutality, had their own abstractions. The Cossacks, legally an estate, were in early 1920 viewed as a counterrevolutionary sort that had to be exterminated. This notwithstanding local reports that showed that many Cossacks had supported the Reds. This lead to the brutal episode of indiscriminate "De-Cossackization" that led to perhaps 12,000 executions in early 1920 before rebellions forced the Reds to moderate their policies. Soon Cossacks joined the rest of the Soviets in being fit into the Bolshevik schematic of the peasantry of bad "exploitive" Kulaks, and good middle and poor peasants whom the Party was supposed to appease. But then the Soviets, desperately seeking grain, sought to extort incredible amounts from the Don region. Although the Don was once one of the great grain producing regions of the country, civil war had devastated the region. It was simply not possible to meet the grain quotas, as local Bolsheviks told their national superiors, and the attempt to do so led to massive famine and rebellion. The Soviets blamed these rebellions on "Kulaks" and "bandits," but as Holquist shows the rebellions in the Don were led by former Red Army officers and Soviet supporters, who in turn championed their support of Soviets and red revolution.

The second theme in Holquist's book is that of continuity. Before the October Revolution the provisional government had agreed to use force and persuasion to obtain grain and the Whites would use the same policies. All sides used increased surveillance to achieve its ends; all of them used propaganda and all of them used terror. Whether Whites or Reds, Peasants or Anarchists, all were willing to burn down villages, carry out executions, summon people's courts, and enforce mandatory labor conscription. In a way, the key turning point was not 1917, but 1914. Whereas in 1913 Russian officials scoured 380,000 pieces of mail, by 1915 they were doing a hundred times that in one military district alone. There is constant comparison with other European countries about the formation of state surveillance, government control of food supply and the impact of military violence. The specifically Russian path, according to Holquist, was as follows. Russian autocracy had prevented the growth of civil society outside of the middle class and urban areas. Middle class liberals tried to work with the institutions of the state before 1917 to remedy this gap and to help the war effort. After 1917 all sides sought to use the state to bridge the gap between the elite and the vast peasant masses, not simply to give them orders but also to turn them into active citizens who would take the initiative to carry out the orders the elite had already given them. Not surprisingly, these measures were not successful in producing liberty, prosperity or even large number of enthusiastic supporters. Nevertheless, as Holquist points, the experience of the pre-war, and the war, made the Manicheanism of the time "plausible and even appealing." There are some objections one can make to Holquist. He argues that what distinguished the Bolsheviks from their enemies was not their practices, but their willingness to use these practices in peacetime. But since the book ends in 1921 this difference is not as well developed as it could be. Conversely to this criticism of Bolshevik utopianism, there is less on alternatives to food requisitioning policy. At one point Holquist suggests that the Russian political spectrum, in contrast to the rest of Europe not only sought state control, but also practiced the unique and destructive policy of seeking to get around market mechanisms of food supply entirely. But this point is only briefly discussed and not really developed. Notwithstanding, that, Holquist's work is a disturbing and rather depressing book about a period where hope was not an option.

Rating:
Summary: The Politics of Procustes
Review: The Russian Civil War was a crucial turning point in the history of the Soviet Union, as it put a premium on brutality, rigidity, scarcity and intolerance to an appalling degree. Peter Holquist's monograph looks at the Don region. This was the home of the famed (and infamous) Cossacks, for centuries key military supporters of the Tsarist regime. Although they owned the best land, they were a minority of the Don population (about 40%), the rest were "native" peasants and recent immigrants. Holquist's book seeks to examine the region as a whole from the start of the first world war in 1914, through the agony of impending defeat, to the February Revolution and the October Revolution. This was followed by a civil war between the Soviet government and the Cossack supported Whites, followed in 1920 and 1921 by Soviet grain requisition policies that led to mass rebellion and mass famine.

There are a number of themes in this book, and the first is the Procustean one. In Greek mythology Procustes owned an inn and invited travelers to sleep on a bed. Those who were shorter than the bed would be stretched until they fit, while those who were taller than it, would have their limbs chopped off until they fit. Such was the policy uses by not merely the whites and reds, but by almost all sides in the Russian civil war. The White/Cossacks viewed themselves as pure Cossacks fighting not only the Reds but local non-Soviet peasants who were assumed to be red. This was in fact a vast oversimplification. Many Cossacks showed little interest in fighting or supporting the Cossacks, many of them supported, if not the Bolsheviks, the Soviet form of government. In turn, many of the White supporters in the Don were non-Cossacks, many of them refugees from the rest of Russia. In turn, the Reds, grown up on legends of Cossack brutality, had their own abstractions. The Cossacks, legally an estate, were in early 1920 viewed as a counterrevolutionary sort that had to be exterminated. This notwithstanding local reports that showed that many Cossacks had supported the Reds. This lead to the brutal episode of indiscriminate "De-Cossackization" that led to perhaps 12,000 executions in early 1920 before rebellions forced the Reds to moderate their policies. Soon Cossacks joined the rest of the Soviets in being fit into the Bolshevik schematic of the peasantry of bad "exploitive" Kulaks, and good middle and poor peasants whom the Party was supposed to appease. But then the Soviets, desperately seeking grain, sought to extort incredible amounts from the Don region. Although the Don was once one of the great grain producing regions of the country, civil war had devastated the region. It was simply not possible to meet the grain quotas, as local Bolsheviks told their national superiors, and the attempt to do so led to massive famine and rebellion. The Soviets blamed these rebellions on "Kulaks" and "bandits," but as Holquist shows the rebellions in the Don were led by former Red Army officers and Soviet supporters, who in turn championed their support of Soviets and red revolution.

The second theme in Holquist's book is that of continuity. Before the October Revolution the provisional government had agreed to use force and persuasion to obtain grain and the Whites would use the same policies. All sides used increased surveillance to achieve its ends; all of them used propaganda and all of them used terror. Whether Whites or Reds, Peasants or Anarchists, all were willing to burn down villages, carry out executions, summon people's courts, and enforce mandatory labor conscription. In a way, the key turning point was not 1917, but 1914. Whereas in 1913 Russian officials scoured 380,000 pieces of mail, by 1915 they were doing a hundred times that in one military district alone. There is constant comparison with other European countries about the formation of state surveillance, government control of food supply and the impact of military violence. The specifically Russian path, according to Holquist, was as follows. Russian autocracy had prevented the growth of civil society outside of the middle class and urban areas. Middle class liberals tried to work with the institutions of the state before 1917 to remedy this gap and to help the war effort. After 1917 all sides sought to use the state to bridge the gap between the elite and the vast peasant masses, not simply to give them orders but also to turn them into active citizens who would take the initiative to carry out the orders the elite had already given them. Not surprisingly, these measures were not successful in producing liberty, prosperity or even large number of enthusiastic supporters. Nevertheless, as Holquist points, the experience of the pre-war, and the war, made the Manicheanism of the time "plausible and even appealing." There are some objections one can make to Holquist. He argues that what distinguished the Bolsheviks from their enemies was not their practices, but their willingness to use these practices in peacetime. But since the book ends in 1921 this difference is not as well developed as it could be. Conversely to this criticism of Bolshevik utopianism, there is less on alternatives to food requisitioning policy. At one point Holquist suggests that the Russian political spectrum, in contrast to the rest of Europe not only sought state control, but also practiced the unique and destructive policy of seeking to get around market mechanisms of food supply entirely. But this point is only briefly discussed and not really developed. Notwithstanding, that, Holquist's work is a disturbing and rather depressing book about a period where hope was not an option.