Three "Whys" of the Russian Revolution

"It is my considered judgment that, had it not been for the Russian Revolution, there would very likely have been no National Socialism; probably no Second World War and no decolonization; and certainly no Cold War, which once dominated our lives. I will attempt here to distill the essence of my books The Russian Revolution and Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime by raising three central questions addressed in those volumes: Why did tsarism fall? Why did the Bolsheviks gain power? Why did Stalin succeed Lenin?"--Richard Pipes in Three "Whys" of the Russian Revolution

Lucidly argued, Three "Whys" of the Russian Revolution is a brilliant summation of the life's work of a master historian.

"The book, based on lectures given at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, has a nicely colloquial feel, clarity, and vigor. At the heart of the answers to the first two questions is Pipes's assertion that, far from being the product of large,                     impersonal forces of history, the fall of the tsar and the rise to power of the Bolsheviks (in, he reminds us, a coup d'état largely unsupported by the Russian people) were the result of the old regime's clear failings and Lenin's genius for manipulation and appetite for total power. Stalin succeeded Lenin, Pipes asserts, because Lenin had so successfully suppressed all elements of democracy that no alternatives were possible.... [T]he volume...offer[s] a concise and eminently straightforward summary of current research on the rise and nature of Communism in Russia."--Kirkus Reviews