Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921 (review)

In spite of the broad sweep of its title, this book is at its core a detailed study of certain issues related to the history of the Don Territory during the years from the outbreak of World War I to the end of the Russian Civil War. Professor Holquist devotes a good deal of the book to the treatment of three policies pursued by successive governments during these years: policies governing food supply; use of official violence in pursuit of political purposes; and the development of state surveillance of the population. With his thorough knowledge of the primary sources, the author explores these issues with authority and confidence. The result is a study whose implications go far beyond what might be expected.

Using his three policy areas as case studies, Professor Holquist draws conclusions which scholars versed in the older historiography may well find surprising. For one, Holquist perceives a remarkable continuity running through the entire period of World War I, the Revolutions, and the Civil War period. In case after case, successive regimes utilized the work of predecessors and built on existing institutions. Even the revolutions of February and October, 1917, failed to produce the expected discontinuities. Moreover, ideology plays a considerably diminished role in Holquist's story. Both Whites and Reds operating on the Don resorted to often similar policies, and these were frequently drawn from those pursued by the wartime tsarist regime and the ill-fated Provisional Government. In addition, many of these expediencies bear a remarkable resemblance to policies followed by other wartime belligerents. Punitive detachments, watch committees, colonization programs, and concentration camps, for example, all had their roots in the broader European experience.

Despite his eye for continuities, the author is not blind to the particularity of the Soviet regime as it emerged from the chaos of revolution and civil war. Unlike the case with other wartime regimes, where many governments relinquished oppressive and intrusive policies once peace was restored, the policies of total war and revolution became the long-lasting foundations of the emergent Soviet society and politics. For the Communists, total war continued in the guise of class struggle and the confrontation between the Capitalist world and the Socialist homeland.

Anyone interested in the ongoing reassessment of Russian history which began with the fall of the U.S.S.R. will find this work rewarding reading.