Russia Under the Old Regime

I think this is the best of what I guess you would call Pipes' "Revolutionary Trilogy." "The Russian Revolution," perhaps two or three times the length, is impaired a bit by Pipes' sometimes tedious moral-pointing. "Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime" seems a bit less ambitious than the other two, and in any event it is surely the one least likely to survive the torrent of new material that is becoming available after the fall.What distinguishes Russia in Pipes' eye is the tradition of "patrimonialism" -- as a political category, a coinage of Pipes' own, though with its roots in Weber, in Hobbes and Bodin, even in Aristotle. Pipes means to denote "a regime where the rights of sovereignty and those of ownership blend to the point of becoming indistinguishable, and political power is exercised in the same manner as economic power." "Despotism," Pipes continues, "has much the same etymological origins, but over time it has acquired the meaning of a deviation or corruption of genuine kingship, the latter being understood to respect the property rights of subjects. The patrimonial regime, on the other hand, is a regime in its own right, not a corruption of something else."This is a brave assertion, and Pipes remains faithful to it. Indeed, the core of the book is perhaps his chapter entitled "The Anatomy of the Patrimonial Regime," where Pipes tries to show how utterly different is the tradition of governance in Russia from the tradition in the West -- even in Western nations that we might think of as "reactionary."There are other virtues to this book. His introductory chapter on the environment is perhaps worth the price of admission, as he retails the grim arithmetic of topsoil and grain production. His discussion of serfdom provokes all kinds of questions about the relationship between serfdom in Russia and slavery in the West.A work of just 318 pages can hardly pretend to be the last word on the history of a great nation, and Pipes maintains no such pretention. I take it as given that much more could be said to inform, expand upon, or criticize, Pipes' perspective. But as a framework for approaching the study of Russia, it is hard for me to see how it could be bettered. As a provative contribution to the literature of political analysis generally, I should think its claim is equally strong.

When I purchased this title in a used bookstore for two dollars, I was somewhat apprehensive about its scholarly quality, author biography not withstanding. Upon reading, however, I must say that I felt Pipes admirably illumined what is a very complex economic, social, and cultural subject. Specifically, his thesis concerns the manner in which the Russian state, under various formative influences, developed an essentially proprietary attitude towards land and subject alike. In Pipes' view this has been the primary determinant of all Russian history following Mongol domination. I myself make no pretenses to be an authority on the subject, but Pipes' use of evidence generally convinced me of the credibility of his claim. I would recommend this title to anyone interested in a general account of the pre-revolutionary Russian state apparatus.

This book is an absolute must-read! Before I read this book the history of Russia was a weakly connected sequence of contradictory events to me - that I wasn't able to organize in my mind in any comprehensible way. After reading this book I see a clear picture of my country's history. I suddenly understand what is going on. Every historical event, every action of a historic person suddenly falls into place, I see their meaning. This book provides you with an understanding of the real issues that have been troubling Russia for the past 1200 years. You will understand Russia and you will understand its people. The mext time Russia is on the news, and you have some Russians making a statement or conducting some action - you will understand where they are coming from when they are doing that.

I only read this book after I had been studying Russian and Russian history for many years, studied in Russia and married a Russian. It is beyond any doubt the best introduction to the subject that I have found in English. It removes a large amount of misconceptions that Americans have about Russian history, illuminates what deserves to be illuminated, avoids pet topics and romaticisms and manages to do all this without the condescending tone that most American writers take when writing about Russia. If you know nothing about Russia and want to learn, this is an excellent place to start.

This work by Pipes is the place to start if you are interested in studying the history or literature of Pre-Revolutionary Russia. Pipes takes a traditionalist historical approach to discussing development of Russia from the Kievan Rus state through to the height of Imperial Tsarist Russia. His work is extremely illuminating, revealing the formation, evolution and interaction of the complex Russian social classes. He clearly sets forward what he believes to to be the unique factors which produced Russia's "differentness" and which contributed toward the production of the absolutist institution of the Tsarist autocracy. Pipes is particularly interesting on the subjects of serfdom (and why is was not a feudal construct) and the symbiotic, destructive relation between Russian society and topography. This is indeed the definitive work on Old Russia, and is required reading for an understanding of Tolstoy.