Book Reviews : Reform in Modern Russian History. Progress or Cycle? edited and translated by Theodore Taranovski. Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Cambridge University Press. 1995. 436pp. £40
| Author | Vladimir Matveev |
| Date | 01 December 1995 |
| Published date | 01 December 1995 |
| DOI | 10.1177/004711789501200608 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
108
cover
seven
decades,
against
Kirby’s
five
centuries.
They
deal
with
just
three
small
countries
in
one
corner
of
the
Baltic.
Their
authors
lack
Kirby’s
historical
vision
and
grasp.
But
they
tell
a
moving
story
of
courage
and
hope,
of
tragedy
and
despair,
and
of
these
three
peoples’
unfaltering
determination
to
be
themselves
and
rule
themselves,
beside
a
sea
which
is
once
more
open
to
the
intellectual
and
commercial
traffic
of
the
world.
PETER
UNWIN
Reform
in
Modern
Russian
History.
Progress
or
Cycle?
edited
and
translated
by
Theodore
Taranovski.
Woodrow
Wilson
Center
Press
and
Cambridge
University
Press.
1995.
436pp.
£40.
’Knowledge
of
the
past
informs
the
present,
but
the
present
also
informs
the
past,
and
together
they
define
our
hopes
and
anticipations
for
the
future’.
This
phrase
from
the
concluding
chapter
of
the
book
might
be
taken
as
its
motto.
In
presenting
a
comparative
analysis
of
numerous
Russian
reforms
and
revolutions
from
the
1860s
(in
certain
cases
even
earlier)
to
the
1990s,
the
authors
are
attempting
to
predict
the
future
of
Russia’s
current
transformations.
They
also
suggest
that
the
assumptions
and
interpretations
of
Russian
and
Soviet
studies
which have
dominated
the
outlook
of
several
scholarly
generations
need
re-
evaluating.
In
particular,
they
challenge
the
popular
view
that
all
Russian
reforms
or
revolutions
ended
in
failure
or,
at
least,
were
incomplete,
followed
by
the
inevitable
rejections
and
reversals
thrusting
the
country
backwards.
Many
an
observer
of
Russian
and
Soviet
history
has
subscribed
to
the
principle
of
’plus
ca
change,
plus
c’est
la
m~me
chose’.
In
other
words,
Russian
history
has
been
interpreted
as
a
series
of
cyclical
failures.
In
contrast,
this
book
endeavours
to
prove
that
Russia
demonstrated
clear
patterns
of
evolutionary
development,
albeit
at
times
not
very
visible
ones.
The
authors,
therefore,
look
for
evidence
to
confirm
the
view
that
virtually
every
Russian
reform
was
a
step
forward,
however
small,
in
comparison
with
previous
ones.
The
first
part
of
the
book
describes
an
early
period
of
reforms -
from
1861
to
1917 -
and
almost
all
the
authors,
American
and
Russian,
share
the
view
that
on
the
whole
it
was
a
continuous
and
even
progressive
process.
They
assume,
therefore,
that
prerevolutionary
Russian
society
in
the
twentieth
century
was
nearly
comparable
to
that
which
existed
in
Western
Europe.
Joseph
Bradley’s
chapter,
devoted
to
an
analysis
of
the
national
congresses
of
various
professional
and
civil
organizations
from
1906
to
1914,
clearly
illustrates
the
vitality
of
civil
society
in
Russia
at
that
time,
suggestive
of
the
emergence
of
a
middle
class
which
would
have
constituted
a
solid
and
stable
social
and
economic
basis
for
the
irreversibility
of
the
reform
process.
Yet
this
did
not
happen.
The
regime
which
followed -
i.e.
the
Soviet
regime,
especially
its
Stalinist
varia-
tion -
is
usually
assessed
by
conventional
Sovietology
as
essentially
a
continuation
of
the
old
Russian
society.
The
authors,
in
accordance
with
their
key
assumptions,
tend
to
treat
it
differently:
as
a
deviation
from
the
normal
course
of
Russian
history
and,
certainly,
as
a
departure
from
the
reform
tradition.
Professor
Robert
Tucker,
a
noted
American
expert
on
Russian
and
Soviet
affairs,
believes
that
in
spite
of
the
Soviet
regime’s
well-known
regressive
character,
Russian
society
did
not
altogether
lose
the
impetus
of
the
beginning
of
the
century.
He
believes
that
it
has
become
’a
more
modern,
a
better
educated
society’.
This
and
some
other
factors,
suggests
Tucker,
contributed
to
the
success
of
the
reforms
started
by
Gorbachev.
His
outlook
is
generally
shared
by
his
American,
Russian
and
Italian
colleagues
who
wrote
the
chapters
dealing
with
the
contemporary
period.
Theodore
Taranovski,
summarizing
their
analyses,
concludes
that
the
end
of
the
Russian
revolution
of
1917
which
took
place
in
August
1991,
is
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