[Book Review] Russia: A Short History
A good book, but I disagree with Abraham Ascher's conclusion of Soviet communism.
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In Solidarity — Joe
I walked into Barnes & Noble unsure what I was looking for. I’d been given a gift card for Christmas, so I decided to naively stroll through the store for something that caught my eye. I moseyed into the history section, where the vibrant cover and clear premise of Abraham Ascher’s Russia: A Short History stood out from the rest of the selection. I had wanted to deepen my knowledge of Russian history for a while, so this felt let the perfect opportunity. After reading a few reviews on my phone, I purchased the book and was immediately engrossed. Ascher’s brief yet thorough explanation of Russian history highlights the most crucial events of the last millennium while explaining how they shaped the country as it stands today.
Religion & Autocracy
Ascher is extremely knowledgeable in Russian history, but his true skill is the ability to recognize what is important to the reader. The lives and rules of various Tsars are reduced to paragraphs in a manner that conveys important information without getting bogged down in the weeds of tedious over-explanation. Even when detailing the 9th-century founding of Rus (soon to become Russia) or the 16th-century reign of Ivan the Terrible, Ascher cuts the fluff and focuses on how these events created the conditions for the Bolshevik Revolution, and ultimately, the rise of Vladimir Putin. For example, the book does a fantastic job illustrating the role a 10th-century religious conversion played in shaping the modern world. While Tsar Vladimir I considered Islam, Judaism, and Catholicism for the state religion of Russia, he eventually settled on Orthodox Christianity. Because Orthodox Christianity grew from the Byzantine Empire, with it came the belief that the nation’s ruler was a religious figure appointed by God. As Ascher explains, this created an acceptance of autocracy in greater Russia, which has never seemed interested in the Western version of limited democracy.
The book also does a fantastic job of educating the reader on how autocratic societies like Russia function. While many people (myself included), conflate “dictatorship” with “autocracy,” Russia: A Short History explains the key differences. A dictator has absolute power, a.l.a. Adolf Hitler. An autocrat, on the other hand, holds the ability of unilateral decrees but functions with the input of important public institutions. The Tsars were held to account by kulaks, the landing-owning peasant class, who frequently rebelled if Moscow wavered from their wishes. The Soviet leaders were influenced by (duh) soviets, which were local worker councils, and the military, which they had given a degree of self-rule. While these autocratic rulers could, and frequently did, override the wishes of these institutions, it was considered a great offense that bred revolt and discontent. While I’m still a believer in the fully democratic model of governance, Ascher’s explanation greatly helped me understand how autocratic societies such as Russia function.
Shortsighted on Marxism and The Soviet Union
While I appreciate the historical detail of Ascher’s work, I find fault in his analysis of Soviet-style communism.
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