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The Russian Revolution

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The Russian Revolution

By: Sheila Fitzpatrick
Narrated by: Steve Fortune
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About this listen

The Russian Revolution had a decisive impact on the history of the 20th century. In the years following the collapse of the Soviet regime and the opening of its archives, it has become possible to step back and see the full picture.

Starting with an overview of the roots of the revolution, Fitzpatrick takes the story from 1917, through Stalin's "revolution from above", to the great purges of the 1930s. She tells a gripping story of a Marxist revolution that was intended to transform the world, visited enormous suffering on the Russian people, and, like the French Revolution before it, ended up by devouring its own children.

This updated edition contains a fully revised introduction to address the centenary, and what it all means in retrospect.

©2017 Sheila Fitzpatrick (P)2020 Upfront Books 20th Century Military Modern Politics & Government Russia Stalin Soviet Union War Imperialism Capitalism French Revolution Socialism Liberalism

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The book shows a good range of themes and provides great context in explaining the revolution

A good introduction to revolutionary Russia

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Fitzpatrick gives a refreshing nuanced understanding of the revolution, and, as a member of the revisionist school, her work doesn’t lean on the Cold War tropes and totalitarianism line. However, there are still leanings on conventional western historical framings of the post Lenin period, but not to extent of others. A recommended listen.

One of the better tellings of the creation of the USSR

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Although breezy and detail-light in places — a necessity given the enormous scope and brief length of the book — all major events and figures are included and appropriately contextualised from a balanced perspective that evenhandedly explains what all parties believed they were doing at the time while not brushing past the intended and unintended consequences. The broad scope here is helpful; while many books on Soviet history treat Red October and the Stalinist purges to be entirely different topics, Fitzpatrick insightfully covers both as expressions of the same revolutionary mindset.

Unfortunately, the book is let down enormously by the narration. Fitzpatrick is an expert in her field — why on earth did the publisher feel her words needed to be put in the mouth of a male reader who clearly has zero knowledge of Russian language or history? If the intent of picking a deep-voiced man was to give the work additional gravitas, this fails every time he butchers a name beyond recognition. In some cases, such as the names he pronounces as "Wit" and "Buck-run", the listener is left to use context clues to figure out whose name is being garbled beyond recognition. The content is still clearly excellent but the narration remains an annoyance throughout.

An excellent, balanced summary of the Revolution, let down by the narration

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A very accessible canter through the events prior to and subsequent to the October revolution, starting with the 1861 'emancipation' of the serfs and ending with Stalin's Great Terror in the mid/late 1930's.

This is an interesting and thoughtful book and short 'listen' at just over 7 hours (Trotsky's account of the revolution is over 53 hours!). It's informative, though-provoking and includes reflections on the impact of the revolution in Putin's Russia.

A slightly flawed narration - a bit hurried, a bit 'flat' - means it is easy for the mind to wander, but do stick with it - it's a very good account.

Excellent summary

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Sheila Fitzpatrick is one of the foremost experts on her subject matter: the Soviet Union and history of modern Russia. Her work is excellent - but for some odd reason, a male actor has been chosen to read it. Hearing women’s voices in academic writing, and particularly in the context of military history, is so rare. It really detracts from the quality of the audio version of this work in the absence of Fitzpatrick herself reading to have a male actor in place of a woman reading the text.

Written by a woman, read by a man

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I only listened to this book for an hour then had to stop. The book itself is interesting and well written and I will try reading the rest of it. I had to stop listening though because the narration was unbearable...I thought from the sample that it might be okay (it sounded a bit fast but a pleasant English voice rather than one of those American ones that sound like a robot) but it started to grate more and more.

The narrater speaks way too fast and demonstrated no understanding of, or feeling for, the material. Even slowing it down didn't help...he didn't even pause properly for punctuation. How do these books get narrated so badly...where's the quality control? This would have been a pleasure to listen to if someone like Peter Noble, Leighton Pugh, or Sean Barratt had narrated...a real shame.

Decent book, awful narration

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