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A review by geoffking
October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Miéville
3.0
Having read a fair amount of WW1 history in the past few years, I wanted a single volume account of what happened in Russia that led to the Revolution and the ensuing treaty of Brest-Litovsk that ended the fighting with Germany (& Austria) on the Eastern Front.
Mieville is obviously fascinated with the party politics (Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, SRs, Kadets, etc.) and the committees and negotiations of provisional government(s) and soviet(s), but it was convoluted and seemed a bit much for one book. At other times when recounting the workers' movements, or Lenin in exile, he is more concise and compelling.
He is guilty of 2 sins I have myself:
(1) long sentences with multiple subordinate clauses that occasionally leave you going back to the start to re-read.
(2) "Scrabble" words (autotelic, jacqueries, glossolalic, etc.) that, although apt, leave you scrambling for the dictionary and sensing he is showing off his vocabulary.
So: cautiously recommended, but I am going to keep looking for a 'definitive' summary of Russia, 1917.
Mieville is obviously fascinated with the party politics (Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, SRs, Kadets, etc.) and the committees and negotiations of provisional government(s) and soviet(s), but it was convoluted and seemed a bit much for one book. At other times when recounting the workers' movements, or Lenin in exile, he is more concise and compelling.
He is guilty of 2 sins I have myself:
(1) long sentences with multiple subordinate clauses that occasionally leave you going back to the start to re-read.
(2) "Scrabble" words (autotelic, jacqueries, glossolalic, etc.) that, although apt, leave you scrambling for the dictionary and sensing he is showing off his vocabulary.
So: cautiously recommended, but I am going to keep looking for a 'definitive' summary of Russia, 1917.