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Jan. 10th, 2018 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsLast time I tried to read a nonfiction account of the Russian Revolution, the only lasting impression I got of the proceedings was that there were approximately five million political parties involved, most of them claiming to be Socialist and all of them in a constant process of sitting in on meetings and then storming out on each other in a huff.
I have just finished China Miéville's attempt to write up the same events, October: The Story of the Russian Revolution and I stand by my previous assessment, although I think Miéville does as good a job as it is possible to do of making a comprehensible narrative out of the events that took place in Russia in 1917.
Miéville makes no secret of the fact that he has an investment in the possibility of revolutionary transformation, and he's certainly interested in digging the story of the Revolution itself out from under the depressing weight of What Came After to show the glimmers of possibility and the light of what might have been.
That said, Miéville is also extremely interested in the sheer tragicomic weirdness of history, so we also get loving descriptions of every time a stupid miscommunication led to some wildly implausible event, and also every time someone had to sneak around the city in a bad wig, and definitely every time something that looked like it might be an important battle was pre-empted by an eight-hour meeting. So many long, long meetings! But, I mean, this is part of the glimmer of optimism that Miéville makes certain you can't help but admire even while knowing the eventual end -- all through the revolution, you get stories of military battalions ordered to do a thing, and then instead they sit down and have a debate and really hash out all the politics and implications while their officers quietly bang their heads against a wall, and then eight hours later they come out and are like, actually, we voted and it turns out we're for the revolution, thanks all the same. One of my favorite bits is when a would-be dictatorial general sends a train with his crack battalion to take over Petrograd, and then some workers sabotage the train rails so the train is stuck in the middle of nowhere, and then promptly BESIEGED by EARNEST SOCIALIST PAMPHLETEERS until all the soldiers are like 'you know what? They've got a point!'
I mean, the thing that this book is trying to convey above all, I think, is how much the Russian Revolution was a war of ideas that was also playing out through and alongside several actual wars, and the weird ways those things bounced back and forth. The October Revolution might, until the very last minute, have been resolved by a conference and a vigorous debate instead of a coup. Obviously, it wasn't. But it might have been, and Miéville is right that the possibility of it is both fascinating and heartbreaking, even if it remains extremely difficult to keep track of who all the political parties were and why a Right Socialist Revolutionary was different than a Left Socialist Revolutionary, who was different than a Menshevik. People really did believe in their ideas; people who could have taken power refrained (perhaps mistakenly) from doing so out of a genuine belief that Marxist political theory said that if they did so, the revolution was doomed to fail. There is something incredible in that.
On a sidenote: why hasn't anyone yet written a play about the time Lenin and a whole bunch of other important revolutionaries rode a sealed train across Germany and there was only one bathroom and so Lenin decided to organize a bathroom rotation with queue tickets and then everyone got in a very earnest debate about whether pooping or smoking was more important to the human condition? This incident is BEGGING for a sarcastically philosophic dramatic treatment. Tom Stoppard, I'm looking at you.
I have just finished China Miéville's attempt to write up the same events, October: The Story of the Russian Revolution and I stand by my previous assessment, although I think Miéville does as good a job as it is possible to do of making a comprehensible narrative out of the events that took place in Russia in 1917.
Miéville makes no secret of the fact that he has an investment in the possibility of revolutionary transformation, and he's certainly interested in digging the story of the Revolution itself out from under the depressing weight of What Came After to show the glimmers of possibility and the light of what might have been.
That said, Miéville is also extremely interested in the sheer tragicomic weirdness of history, so we also get loving descriptions of every time a stupid miscommunication led to some wildly implausible event, and also every time someone had to sneak around the city in a bad wig, and definitely every time something that looked like it might be an important battle was pre-empted by an eight-hour meeting. So many long, long meetings! But, I mean, this is part of the glimmer of optimism that Miéville makes certain you can't help but admire even while knowing the eventual end -- all through the revolution, you get stories of military battalions ordered to do a thing, and then instead they sit down and have a debate and really hash out all the politics and implications while their officers quietly bang their heads against a wall, and then eight hours later they come out and are like, actually, we voted and it turns out we're for the revolution, thanks all the same. One of my favorite bits is when a would-be dictatorial general sends a train with his crack battalion to take over Petrograd, and then some workers sabotage the train rails so the train is stuck in the middle of nowhere, and then promptly BESIEGED by EARNEST SOCIALIST PAMPHLETEERS until all the soldiers are like 'you know what? They've got a point!'
I mean, the thing that this book is trying to convey above all, I think, is how much the Russian Revolution was a war of ideas that was also playing out through and alongside several actual wars, and the weird ways those things bounced back and forth. The October Revolution might, until the very last minute, have been resolved by a conference and a vigorous debate instead of a coup. Obviously, it wasn't. But it might have been, and Miéville is right that the possibility of it is both fascinating and heartbreaking, even if it remains extremely difficult to keep track of who all the political parties were and why a Right Socialist Revolutionary was different than a Left Socialist Revolutionary, who was different than a Menshevik. People really did believe in their ideas; people who could have taken power refrained (perhaps mistakenly) from doing so out of a genuine belief that Marxist political theory said that if they did so, the revolution was doomed to fail. There is something incredible in that.
On a sidenote: why hasn't anyone yet written a play about the time Lenin and a whole bunch of other important revolutionaries rode a sealed train across Germany and there was only one bathroom and so Lenin decided to organize a bathroom rotation with queue tickets and then everyone got in a very earnest debate about whether pooping or smoking was more important to the human condition? This incident is BEGGING for a sarcastically philosophic dramatic treatment. Tom Stoppard, I'm looking at you.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-11 05:19 am (UTC)I'll look for this book. Thank you.
On a sidenote: why hasn't anyone yet written a play about the time Lenin and a whole bunch of other important revolutionaries rode a sealed train across Germany and there was only one bathroom and so Lenin decided to organize a bathroom rotation with queue tickets and then everyone got in a very earnest debate about whether pooping or smoking was more important to the human condition?
. . . were any conclusions reached? (Other than the obvious, non-philosophical conclusion that you need more than one bathroom on a cross-country train!)
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Date: 2018-01-12 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2018-01-12 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-11 08:57 am (UTC)That does sound pretty delightful. : D
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Date: 2018-01-12 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2018-01-13 01:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-14 08:05 pm (UTC)But yes I too would like an absurd philosophical play about the bathroom line on the train.