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A review by mschlat
October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Miéville
4.0
I have been a frequent reader of Miéville for decades now, but never knew he wrote nonfiction. When I saw this on the new book shelf of my local library, the subject matter made sense to me --- Miéville has always shown interest in revolution. The first novel of his I read ([b:Perdido Street Station|68494|Perdido Street Station (Bas-Lag, #1)|China Miéville|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1393537963s/68494.jpg|3221410]) had obvious nods to the revolutionary press, and one of my favorite works of his ([b:Embassytown|9265453|Embassytown|China Miéville|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320470326s/9265453.jpg|14146240]) takes place during a popular uprising. Since I hadn't read anything about the Russian Revolution in over 30 years, I thought I would give this a try.
This is much more of a story of the Russian Revolution than a history. You won't see footnotes and citations (although Miéville does list his sources at the back), and the narrative flow and sense of progression is much more important to Miéville than exposition. So, at least at the beginning of the book, I was regularly running to Wikipedia to fill in what I did not understand. There's a loss and gain with Miéville's approach; I felt a great deal of tension throughout the work and was struck by the many reversals (of fate, philosophy, and political character). But at the same time, I was left confused at times how those reversals came to be. In particular, at times I found it hard to understand how Bolshevikism maintained such an attraction to the Russian people. I wish there had been a greater emphasis on the "why"s.
What Miéville excels at, however, are the descriptions of chaos, of political movement, of parties and individuals struggling (and often failing) to keep track of the zeitgeist. There's a beautiful chapter where Lenin and the other emigres return to Russia and immediately galvanize a process that was headed towards liberal moderation, and I got the strong sense of how quickly a country (adrift from its historical system of governance and engaged in a continental war) could change moods.
Miéville is very clearly pro-revolution (or, at least, in favor of the theoretical ideal of revolution), and his epilogue touches on the post-1918 events without dwelling on them. (For example, there is no mention of the killing of Nicholas II and his family.) Miéville wants to honor those who carried out the work of revolution and not see the horrible aftereffects as necessarily connected to the early work. That doesn't quite work for me, but I have to admit that with my limited historical knowledge I don't have any developed counterarguments.
(I will also mention that Miéville's love of trains --- most recently seen in [b:Railsea|12392681|Railsea|China Miéville|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1321409808s/12392681.jpg|17373771] --- is frequently on display here.)
I would definitely recommend this to lovers of history or Miéville and would really appreciate suggestions on different perspectives.
This is much more of a story of the Russian Revolution than a history. You won't see footnotes and citations (although Miéville does list his sources at the back), and the narrative flow and sense of progression is much more important to Miéville than exposition. So, at least at the beginning of the book, I was regularly running to Wikipedia to fill in what I did not understand. There's a loss and gain with Miéville's approach; I felt a great deal of tension throughout the work and was struck by the many reversals (of fate, philosophy, and political character). But at the same time, I was left confused at times how those reversals came to be. In particular, at times I found it hard to understand how Bolshevikism maintained such an attraction to the Russian people. I wish there had been a greater emphasis on the "why"s.
What Miéville excels at, however, are the descriptions of chaos, of political movement, of parties and individuals struggling (and often failing) to keep track of the zeitgeist. There's a beautiful chapter where Lenin and the other emigres return to Russia and immediately galvanize a process that was headed towards liberal moderation, and I got the strong sense of how quickly a country (adrift from its historical system of governance and engaged in a continental war) could change moods.
Miéville is very clearly pro-revolution (or, at least, in favor of the theoretical ideal of revolution), and his epilogue touches on the post-1918 events without dwelling on them. (For example, there is no mention of the killing of Nicholas II and his family.) Miéville wants to honor those who carried out the work of revolution and not see the horrible aftereffects as necessarily connected to the early work. That doesn't quite work for me, but I have to admit that with my limited historical knowledge I don't have any developed counterarguments.
(I will also mention that Miéville's love of trains --- most recently seen in [b:Railsea|12392681|Railsea|China Miéville|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1321409808s/12392681.jpg|17373771] --- is frequently on display here.)
I would definitely recommend this to lovers of history or Miéville and would really appreciate suggestions on different perspectives.