PASSAGE THROUGH ARMAGEDDON
The Russians in War and Revolution 1914-1918
W. Bruce Lincoln
New York; Simon and Schuster, 1986
637 pp., $ 22.95
Thoughtful and scholarly Americans have expressed their concern lately about the decline of serious studies about the Soviet Union in this country. This is true to some extent, yet in the long run, we must count our blessings. During the last forty years, American scholarship has produced books on the modern history of Russia that are at least comparable, and occasionally superior, to the books in that field produced, say, in England, France, or Germany. This was not the case before World War II. Our problem lies less with the producers of such works than with their consumers. Except for the case of occasional popular histories, such as Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra (and I hasten to add that Nicholas and Alexandra is unexceptionable "popular" biography), most serious and readable works on Russian history are neither widely circulated nor read. They, therefore, do not seem to have any effect on those higher levels of American statecraft where one would expect them to be consulted.
Still, a book is more durable than a television show or documentary. This is important to remember, especially when a book is more than an achievement wholly dedicated to the advancement of its author's career in the academy - that is, a book composed by a historian writing only for other historians. The books of W. Bruce Lincoln do not fall into that category. They are published by trade publishers and have a respectable circulation - respectable, that is, by current American standards. His Passage Through Armageddon is such a work. It is a continuation of his In War's Dark Shadow, in which he tells the story of the Russian people, Russian society, and Russian government before World War I.
In 1914, Russia came into that war with a corrupt government and an inefficient army. The army suffered many defeats. The people suffered many privations. In March 1917, a revolution surged forth in Petrograd. The czar abdicated. A liberal regime came into being. That regime too, proved inefficient and unpopular. All of this played into the hands of Lenin and his Bolsheviks. They rose against a regime in dissolution. But the Bolsheviks' survival depended on their making peace with the Germans. That was difficult and painful, but they signed such a "peace" at Brest-Litovsk in early 1918. There Lincoln's present work ends. He tells the history of those years well enough not only for the interested general reader but also for the purposes of students and scholars. He has mastered a large body of Russian - anti-Soviet and Soviet - source material relating to those eventful, sometimes dramatic, and often tragic years. The only minor criticism I may raise about his research is his, perhaps unavoidable, neglect of German works and papers. But Lincoln has done his homework - not only among the extensive collections in this country but in Moscow, Paris, and London, too. His research and reading are creditable indeed.
Yet this book is not as good as In War's Dark Shadow. That was a magisterial portrait with many nuances and a few details, demonstrating a master historian's capacity to write with measure and economy, as well as his ability to create a synthesis. In Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians in War and
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