Leaving_Marx@wyrmsign.org reviewed October by China Miéville
A whole lot about Petrograd
5 stars
I was really curious about this book more for its author than because I really needed to learn about the Russian Revolution. China Mieville is a pretty successful sci-fi and fantasy author whose works blend surrealism, fantasy, and politics. But beyond his successful fiction he also writes and edits an unconventional communist journal called Salvage from England and publishes some non-fiction like this book on the Russian Revolution.
From the introduction Mieville responds to the unasked question," why do we need another history book about the Russian revolution?" By suggesting that rather than being just another history text that he undertook an attempt to write a narrative of the revolution that follows it from its embers to insurrection.
It read confidently as a hybrid narrative/history book which prioritizes the debates, actions, and tensions of the revolution over citations and scholars opinions on it. That being said, this narrative does take …
I was really curious about this book more for its author than because I really needed to learn about the Russian Revolution. China Mieville is a pretty successful sci-fi and fantasy author whose works blend surrealism, fantasy, and politics. But beyond his successful fiction he also writes and edits an unconventional communist journal called Salvage from England and publishes some non-fiction like this book on the Russian Revolution.
From the introduction Mieville responds to the unasked question," why do we need another history book about the Russian revolution?" By suggesting that rather than being just another history text that he undertook an attempt to write a narrative of the revolution that follows it from its embers to insurrection.
It read confidently as a hybrid narrative/history book which prioritizes the debates, actions, and tensions of the revolution over citations and scholars opinions on it. That being said, this narrative does take the Bolsheviks as the protagonists, follows them and Lenin most closely and regularly reflects the tensions and power struggles amongst intellectuals and party members, and secondarily the tensions between the vanguard and the Russian people, whose aims and desires don't often line up. Truthfully the "leaders" are presented as perpetually trying to catch up or tamp down the insurrectionary actions of the streets.
I think there are so many interesting people in the revolution but as is the case of history, this won still disproportionately tells the story of the victors. The people in the streets, the anarchists, soldiers and their wives, factory workers, beggars, and terrorists feature as secondary characters moving the story forward but as a supporting role to the debates and discussions of the central committee, Soviets and duma in their power struggles.
All in all, well written and presented, giving me a better understanding the key Leninist texts and debates and in what context they were written, and some very cool asides about bad as women and anarchists doing while shit.
I would recommend it with a caveat, if you can't stand Communists or Lenin enough to get through a history text, then skip it, or read the critical afterword before investing in the rest of the text to make you feel better.
