Mikhail Zygar - The Empire Must Die: Russia’s Revolutionary Collapse, 1900-1917

I am not a historian, but a journalist. As such, this book was written according to the rules of journalism: as if the characters were alive and I had been able to interview themrather like my previous book, All the Kremlins Men.

Fortunately, most of my protagonists told their own stories, having left behind detailed diaries, letters, memoirs, and public statements. In order to recreate the picture of early twentieth-century Russia, I tried to read as many of the available sources as I could. There is no doubt that although many people lied (especially in their memoirs), most did so sincerely, convinced that they were telling the truth.

My primary objective was to view the world through contemporary eyes. I did not have a ready-made answer to the question of why the Russian revolution happened. I did not have a theory that I wanted to prove to the reader; that would have required some fact-filtering. On the contrary, it took me a great deal of work to clear the picture of prejudices and stereotypes, and to peel away the layers of sediment deposited by dozens of professional historians. Many had their own preconceived concepts and off-the-shelf answers. Many looked upon Russias revolution as a single, irreversible process.

My protagonists knewor rather, knownothing about this. They live their own lives, little suspecting that many years later they will be considered grains of sand in the historical process.

The book starts at the turn of the twentieth century. It is a fascinating time. Many of Russias young metropolitan intellectualsthe noughties generationare apolitical and totally unlike the older generation of dissidents. They consider politics to be yesterdays game, something old-hat and unfashionable. But politics enters their lives uninvited as the tsarist regime stifles creative freedom, banning and blocking arbitrarily. The result is a gradual swelling of mass protestthe first in Russian history, which is only bolstered by the regimes cack-handed response. During this brief window of opportunity, Russia has a civil society that is active, demanding, and self-aware. Many of the most vibrant figures from this time are forgotten or willfully misunderstood in Russia today.

Russian intellectuals are outraged by the unprovoked shooting of a workers demonstration on 9 January 1905, Bloody Sunday, after which the protest mood becomes overwhelming. The creative class demands general elections, a parliament, freedom of speech, and equality before the law. Whats more, it is sure that it will have its way. But the euphoria lasts barely a year. The authorities seem to reach out at first, but soon backtrack on their promises. Yesterdays optimism gives way to bitter disappointment, and society braces itself for a crackdown. At that point, for many, the time has come to topple the regime.

Curiously, this periodfrom 1905 to 1914is regarded by some contemporaries as the most prosperous time in the history of the Russian Empire, a corpulent decade, while others see it as a gloomy age of repression, electoral rigging, and nod-and-wink justice. Power and influence fall into the hands of religious radicals and witch-hunters, who demand that cultural figures be biblically chastised with scorpions for daring to insult the authorities or the feelings of Orthodox believers. Many intellectuals leave Russia for Europe, where they engage in endless debates about the fate of their homeland. Bizarrely, Europe is also home to many imperial family members and courtiers, who shock the locals with their lavish lifestyle. The intellectual and aristocratic Russian elites are hardly in Russia at this time.

This existencecarefree for some, forlorn for otherscomes to an abrupt end with the outbreak of World War I, which no one expects. It is not the war itself that plunges Russia into the abyss, but the fact that the Russian state, with its veritable army of bureaucrats and officials, is unable to cope. The early frontline successes are derailed by corruption and incompetence.

Post factum, the course of history seems logical. Armed with hindsight, we are able to trace the hatching of plans and the exposing of plots; good and evil are clearly labeled. But on stepping into the shoes of historys participants, our preconceived concepts turn to dust. Nothing is preordained. Everyone is fallible and error-prone. No one can foresee the future even a couple of days ahead. No one can map out their own lifelet alone that of a dying empirebecause the circumstances are in such flux. Even Lenin is convinced of his imminent failure just hours before his ultimate triumph.