A History of Twentieth-Century Russia

by Robert Service

Release Date: April, 1999

Edition: Paperback

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Well written narrative history of modern Russia

There's no question that the Soviet regime was an indiscriminately ruthless entity. What is often overlooked is the fact that throughout it's existence it had the support of a large percentage of the population. This is often a bit shocking to Americans like myself who've spent time in Russia (even today many of the older generation still praise Krushchev for providing housing and dachas to the general populace).

In "A History of Twentieth Century Russia" Robert Service brings a well written general history that in many ways addresses this. Service identifies the origins of the great terror in the Bolshevik regimes early years and the ascension of Stalin to power. He also identifies many of the educational, medical and other services much of the population recieved. This doesn't mean that Service ignores the genocide that occurred under the Bolsheviks. Not at all. Service, as a historian, merely attempts a general history- the good, the bad and the ugly. Service correctly attempts to show why some elements of the population where willing to put up with certain measures beyond just the terror they were exposed to.

This is a good general history, more balanced and lacking the political bent that many American scholars often approach modern Russian history with. Service shows the brutality of the regime up front and as well as the constuctive changes that took place. And, as Service shows, these changes came at a very high price.

Very readable and highly recommended.

Awful prose, discombulated; not a good narrative history

I tend to agree with the LA Times review of this book. Also Service's writing style for this book was not fluid, it was too disjointed. Let me try and give an example (from the book). On second thought, it would be too wordy. The best I can say is that the prose just doesn't flow for me. This is not good in a narrative historical book like this. Writing style would not matter if it was an "encyclopedia", like Oxford puts out, as in a "Who's Who in the USSR", etc.

On the other hand, there are a lot of facts crammed in lots of pages, and the index is not bad. Further, Service does hit a few home runs with opinionated paragraphs that are quite funny (e.g. "flying coffins", how Stalin's Air Minister was executed for making a bad joke; "chemically treated corpses", how Stalin's body lying in state caused a stampede that killed people, which the author attributes satirically to Stalin ruling from the grave; Brezhnev being plopped into his grave uncerimoniously to indicate he has fallen out of favor (literally) with the Kremlin. Also the author seems to rely too much on secondary sources it seems (then again, I suspect with the Soviets often destroying evidence, this is not unexpected in the field).