/lit/ - Literature

>>7005158
Voices of Revolution 1917 is a great book of primary sources if you want to understand what the common person thought about the revolutions.

Lenin's works are pretty important if you want to understand the Bolshevik motivations and worldview; What is to be Done? is a good starting point.

Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago is still a classic for the details of the gulag.

A concise history of Russia by Paul Bushkovitch is good. Had to read it for a history class on Russia and was pleasantly surprised

>>7005180
Voice of Revolution is something I'd be interested in. Added to the list. I plan to tackle Lenin's works soon as well. Thanks anon.

>>7005195
I have a different general history book on Russia, but I'll look into this if it's as good as you say. Appreciate it anon.

>>7005158
Fitzpatrick, Andrle, Pirani

>>7005180
>Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago is still a classic for the details of the gulag.
It is also a work of fiction, not history.

>>7005158
http://www.revleft.com/vb/russian-revolution-bolshevik-t105275/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/introducing-revleft-historical-t120423/index.html

>>7005180
>>7005224

What is to Be Done? tends to be overblown both by Leninists and anti-Leninists alike. A good book on the subject on early Russian Social-Democracy is Lars Lih's Lenin Rediscovered: What is to Be Done? in Context. It's a big book, so I don't expect you to read it all, so I also recommend the rest of Lih's work, which is excellent stuff (His biography of Lenin, and Bread and Authority in Russia).

I also recommend Fitzpatrick, Figes, and Rabinowitch.

>>7005158
Stephen F. Cohen

>>7005158
The Cambridge History of Russia, Volume 2: Imperial Russia, 1689-1917
http://bookzz.org/book/894096/5cac44

The Cambridge History of Russia. 20th Century
http://bookzz.org/book/512051/85aa5e

>>7005158

Robert Service's biographies of the three main figures of the Bolshevik Revolution are rather good.

>>7007315

Oh, come on now. Be serious.

Maybe someone can help?
Some years ago I bought a book by a bolshevik qt pie (pic related) for which I haven't been able to find any details. Its author is "Elisaveta Drabkina" and wrote this supposed autobiography of the early years of the revolution. I only know it was edited in Spanish as "Pan duro y negro" (translated as "Black bread" -black rye bread- or чepный хлeб). Also, pls excuse the poor romanization of her name.

>Elisaveta Yakovlevna Drabkina, daughter of the bolshevik agent Feodosia Drabkin ("Natasha") and Iakov Drabkin (also known as "Sergei Gusev"), whom would become President of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, he led a life intimately linked to the Bolshevik Party and the Russian Revolution.
>In her childhood, Drabkina accompanied her mother on trips to Helsinki to purchase (military) equipment for the bolsheviks. When she was 5 years old, the repression that followed the 1905 Revolution forced her parents into clandestinity. She wouldn't see them again until the October Revolution in 1917. During her teenage years she joined the bolsheviks and participated in the Winter Palace assault as a machine-gun operator. At 17, she became the secretary of Yakov Sverdlov at the Smolny Institute, and later married Aleksandr Solomonovich Iosilevich -an agent of the 'Cheka'- whom she'd divorce later on.

Does any russfag or marxist has any information on that particular book or her? Or the people mentioned in the previous bio? Translating Russian names is a pain so I haven't been able to find anything on its reception or significance. I've read something on early Soviet history, but maybe this is too specific for my current knowledge.

>>7007431
what kind of information do you need?

You should check out Ten Days that Shook the World by John Reed, it's more journalistic, but it's still pre good.

>>7007431
Hmmm... I'm interested in more info on this as well.

>>7007327
I've heard from some people to stay away from Service. They have mostly bolshevik sympathies though, so I imagine he writes a more critical bio of these men?

>>7005526
Appreciate it anon. I've not heard of this author before and probably would have never discovered him without your recommendation. The reviews and synopsis for his biography on Lenin sound excellent. Ordered the book on Amazon.

>pic related

>>7007520
I've heard great things about this book as well, but I'm already loaded up on the bolshevik revolution. I'd like some more pre-soviet era histories or even biographies.

Thanks for all the input /lit/

>>7007513
Hmm, mostly the title in Cyrilic because my google-fu is failing very hard in both English and Spanish. I don't know what role, if any, she had in the grand scheme of the Soviet revolution, if she's just some forgotten soviet chick.

>>7007567

Service received a bad rap among some sections of the Left after he revealed Trotsky to be a thoroughly unpleasant character. As a writer he is good at examining all aspects of his subject, as well as the wider political scene, but his Trotsky bio is deliberately more polemical than the others (in order to dispel the fantasies of his comrades, no doubt).

>>7007576
I think you're looking for "Чepныe cyхapи".

>>7007615
She is a "literally who" of revolution, but apparently her book was adapted into a movie.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A7%D1%91%D1%80%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5_%D1%81%D1%83%D1%85%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B8

>>7005158
The Icon and the Axe by James Billington is a classic, it brought a whole range of individuals ignored in American Russian studies to the forefront of the field.

>>7005538
Ayy lmao. His stuff was mediocre even before he went off the deep end.

Also >>7005238 knows what's up, my favorite of Fitzpatrick's is Everyday Stalinism. I also recommend Suny's The Soviet Experiment for an overview of Soviet Union history.

>>7007631
thx, that's a great starting point

>>7005158

John Erickson's epic English-language duology on the Great Patriotic War is a must; The Road to Stalingrad and The Road to Berlin.

Stephin Kotkin writes some interesting Soviet Union stuff. I liked his book "Magnetic Mountain" and his new biography of Stalin

Tried to get through something about soviet chinks but I just couldn't do it.

Alexander Rabinowich's trilogy on the Bolsheviks in Petrograd from 1917-1919 is absolutely brilliant.

>>7007810
I have mixed feelings about Kotkin I think "Magnetic Mountain" is great, and "Armageddon Averted" is a decent history of the post-Soviet period, but his dismissive attitude towards the new republics, especially in his article "Trashcanistan" in the early 2000s came to be found wrong. That and I heard him give a lecture in 2013 where he dismissed nationalism completely as a factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union and its implications for the future of post-Soviet Eurasia. Speaking of Central Asia though, Alexander Cooley writes some great stuff on the region.

>>7007939
Huh, I didn't know that about him. I'll check out that article, thank you.

I don't really know anything about Central Asia. Is Cooley a decent introduction-tier rec or should I get a better foundation first?

>>7007327
>Robert Service
>>7007327
>Oh, come on now. Be serious.

>>7008480
Get a better foundation first, Cooley is a contemporary academic writing on contemporary Central Asia. He is writing for those in the field and policy maker rather than the general public. It's still not that hard to read, but might not be as interesting/more confusing without the context.