A summary of historians and their quotes for Russian History A-level
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Course
Breadth study (1H)
Institution
AQA
A summary of historians and their quotes for Russian History A-level covering the rules of Alexander II, Alexander III, Nicholas II, Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev.
Historians and quotes
E.H Carr
Soft on communism, admirer of Lenin and apologist for Stalin.
Seen as “soviet sympathiser “, and for accepting soviet sources and information at “face value”.
Robert Conquest -Liberal-conservative, anti-communist
He was viewed as anti-Soviet. Argued Marxism was a flawed ideology based on misleading
assumptions and that the October revolution was a coup d'état without widespread popular
support, and that soviet communism had totalitarianism at its core from the outside. – rejected
argument that Stalin deviated from Lenin’s legacy.
Orlando Figes -Liberal revisionist
Critical of Lenin, saying he led the groundwork for Stalinist totalitarianism, repression and genocide.
Tends to view revolutionary groups and parties as chaotic collectives of individuals, rather than
genuine mass movements.
Sheila Fitzpatrick – social revisionist
Thought October revolution more coup d'état than popular revolution.
Believed impetus for socialist revolution came from Lenin and his singlemindedness.
Christopher Hill – Marxist
Singles Lenin’s praises but also adapts a Stalinist perspective, criticising Trotsky while failing to
provide an accurate account of how Stalin manipulated his way into power.
Richard Pipes- western liberal-conservative
Negative towards communism, October evolution, Lenin and Bolsheviks.
Depicts Lenin as a usurper, political thief, who waited until the provisional government was at its
weakest then snatched its power illegitimately and without a broad supporter base.
Believed violence, terror inevitable in post 1917 Russia, partly due to socialism but mostly because
of Lenin and his followers.
Promotes Kornilov as leader (overlooks his own brutal links and antisemitic background).
, John Reed – socialist
-worked for left-wing magazine
-was in Russia just after Kornilov affair, at a time when the provisional government was in last
throes and a Bolshevik rev. predicted.
-sympathetic to Bolsheviks, and portrays Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev in favourable light.
- Reed’s book published in 1919 with a foreword included from Lenin, and Stalin later banned this
book, as heaped praise on Trotsky but didn’t mention him once.
Robert Service – Liberal
-post-revisionist and liberal.
-strongly critical of Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders, particularly the way they handled change and
crisis in post -1917.
- condemns the ideology of Marxism, that evolved into a “political religion.”
Dmitri Volkogonov- Soviet-revisionist or “soviet-liberal”
Son of a soviet official, part of the red army.
A typical hardliner, loyal to military, to soviet socialism and the state.
Preserving the autocracy
Topic Historian Quote
Tsars Figes In the mind of the ordinary peasant, the Tsar was not just a kingly ruler but a
god on earth.
Literacy Figes Literacy had a profound effect on the peasant mind and community. It
promotes abstract thought and enables the peasant to master new skills and
technologies.
Society Hill The revolution was made against the autocracy of the tsars, a type of
and government which we in England have not known since the 17th century.
autocracy There had been special reasons for the survival of such a regime in Russia. The
country was always too large and its communications too bad for it to be
efficiently administered from a single centre. Yet military defence in that
country of open flat plains demanded a highly centralised government under a
single leader, and the autocracy subsequently survived to give some
uniformity of administration for the medley of backward and illiterate peoples
who composed the vast empire.”
Economy Hill We can ask ourselves why Russia’s development was so delayed. The main
reason is that she failed to produce an independent middle class.
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