Caught in the Revolution: Witnesses to the Fall of Imperial Russia

Petrograd in early 1917 was a city resting nervously on the edge of cataclysm. Two and a half years of war, mounting food shortages, barracks filled with untrained and disaffected young soldiers fearful of being sent to the front lines, factory districts packed with workers desperate enough to see any change in their condition asan improvement, and a winter severe even by Russian standards all combined to make a rebellion against the incompetent tsarist government inevitable. When the revolt finally began in late February (early March according to the Western calendar) it took only a few days to topple Tsar Nicholas II. Then a months long period began in which a new Provisional Government set up by the Russian legislature or Duma struggled to establish liberal democracy, opposed nearly every step of the way by more radical elements intent on creating a socialist state. In late October (or early November) the Bolsheviks, who were the most radical of the radicals, were able to seize power in another brief but bloody conflict. Histories of the Russian Revolutions of 1917 have propagated freely over the last century, but most describe what happened from the points of view of the "winning" or "losing" factions. Helen Rappaport's great achievement in Caught in the Revolution is to relate what happened in Petrograd in 1917 using the eyewitness testimony of foreigners who found themselves in the unenviable position of watching history take a giant turn.As the capital of the Russian Empire Petrograd had always been a cosmopolitan city where wealthy foreigners could lead lives of great ease and luxury. When World War I broke out in 1914 life became a bit more constrained but still quite comfortable for most foreigners, chiefly British and American diplomats, journalists, bankers, and other businessmen who had come to Russia to take advantage of its extraordinary and largely untapped natural resources. Many brought their families with them and had lived contentedly for years. When chaos erupted they had to scramble for their lives, trapped inside a country that was suddenly at war with itself. Fortunately, most of these people survived the Revolution and returned to the West, where many wrote memoirs and popular press articles that vividly described what they had seen. I especially enjoyed reading about the British Ambassador, Sir George Buchanan, his wife Lady Georgina, and his daughter Meriel. Redoubtable to the end, they held themselves with plenty of British phlegm and dignity. The US Ambassador, David Francis, also made for entertaining reading. A Missouri politician with no diplomatic experience, he arrived in Petrograd just as the Revolution was unfolding. His memories, as well as those of his African-Americanservant Phil Jordan,are especially vivid. Then there were the journalists, including some intrepid women, who were landed with the news stories of their lives. Then there were the American and British socialists who had come to Russia to witness what they thought would be the beginnings of a bright new future, like John Reed and his wife Louise Bryant, who became very much a part of the Revolution they were out to cover.Caught in the Revolution is meticulously researched, with material from archives in Britain and the United States and a wide range of primary and secondary sources, including some contemporary magazine and newspaper articles that must have been difficult to track down. Rappaport's work is scholarly and well documented, but she is an excellent writer who has a good eye for interesting anecdotes. I chuckle to think of Sir George Buchanan refusing to let a street battle interfere with his customary evening walk, so impressing the two battling sides that they called a ceasefire and waited respectfully while he strolled past. This is a book which will appeal to serious Russian history students as well as general readers looking for superlative real life drama.

The first half of this book is excellent. It is entertaining and very well written.The second half is a denunciation of the Russian Revolution and the resulting Russian withdrawal from the capitalist World War. Apparently the millions of innocent soldiers -- French, German and Russian -- slaughtered on both fronts were not enough to satisfy the author of this book. More had to die for ends that had nothing to do with the working class of any nation. It tells of life in St. Petersburg at the beginning of the Russian Revolution, using the diaries, letters, and reminiscences of people, mainly English and American, who lived through those harrowing days. The writing flows easily and is of real interest because it is eye-witness testimony of the most significant revolution in history.At one point, one of the last visitors to the Tsar in St. Petersburg records this:"Little did any of us realize that we were witnessing the last public appearance of the last ruler of the mighty Romanoff dynasty,’ he later wrote in his memoirs; the Tsar had seemed to have no idea that ‘he was standing on a volcano'.By then, 5.5 million Russians had been sacrificed in a war that the Tsar had entered merely to curry favor with England and France.Even British suffragists put aside women's issues to make sure that Russian men would continue to die for the benefit of British and French capitalists: "Emmeline Pankhurst arrived in Petrograd in early June 1917 ‘with a prayer from the English nation to the Russian nation, that you may continue the war on which depends the face of civilization and freedom’.How ironic, then, that Russian women were given the vote during the revolution whereas British women did not get the vote until 1928.This book is an all-out assault on the Russian people. Throughout, the author stresses the shortcomings of the capital, a city already subjected to two years of war, a war Russia was losing. But she in no way acknowledges that the Russian masses of that time were the victims of a vicious capitalist system of misrule which only a root-and-branch upheaval could eliminate.It was fascinating to learn that the American ambassador, who reviled the Bolshevik leaders, was a very close friend of a woman suspected of being a German spy and that he was also losing his mind to such a degree that his own staff asked Washington to recall him. How typical he was of so many American functionaries then and now.With the ascendancy of the Bolsheviks, the author of this book became almost hysterical, quoting whole letters from a servant of an ambassador that consisted of nothing but illiterate diatribes against the new government.Two thirds of the way through, I stopped reading. That was when the author attacked the entire Russian people, accusing them of being drunkards after the wine cellars of the aristocracy were looted.I do not recommend this piece of anti-Russian propaganda. It is well written but not worth reading.

Thrilling, scary, informative. The revolution through the adventure of private people.

It was the forth book I bought of Hellen.She is a great writer.This time she brings us directly into the revolution. you really have to read it if you are a Romanov fan in order to have another perspective of the revolution. Going out from the "castle"

The chaos and violence of the Russian revolution vividly comes to life in this book, very graphic at times. This author tells it like it really was, not much left to the imagination! I loved that the author used little known sources, memoirs of journalists and foreign dignitaries who witnessed the carnage and experienced the chaos first hand.

Helen Rappoport is in my view one of the best authors currently writing on Russian history. This brilliantly researched book weaves accounts together from a range of non-Russians living in Petrograd in 1917, that epoch-making year of two revolutions, including diplomats, their families and staff, businessmen, journalists and others, plus some anonymous accounts. One of the more interesting and refreshing accounts comes from the unassuming and blunt voice of an African American, Phil Jordan, valet to the US ambassador. The narrative follows through from the discontent and strikes of the first two months of the year; the boneheaded unwillingness of the Tsar to accept any reform despite opposition from every level of society; his abdication at the beginning of MArch, and the heady sense of freedom that followed, albeit accompanied by much violence and looting; the Bolshevik-inspired July riots, and the eventual failure of the Provisional Government to address the major problems, leading to the Bolshevik takeover on 25 October (old style; 7 November on the new Gregorian calendar). The sense of a potential era of hope being overwhelmed in anarchy and bloodshed, especially after October, is palpable. Overall, the book could perhaps have done with a bit more analysis to tie together the accounts. The postscript details what we know about what happened to the main observers after the event and rues the fact that more pictures and films taken by those who were journalists no longer survive, as these would add to our understanding of the details of this decisive year in European history.

A fascinating survey of foreigners caught up in the Russian revolution a century ago.