I76 SEER, 8i, I, 2003 Mau, Vladimir, and Starodubrovskaya, Irina. The Challenge of Revolution: Contemporagy Russia in HistoricalPerspective. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 200I. xv+ 369pp. Illustrations. Tables.Notes. Bibliography. Index. [50.00. Donald, Moira, and Rees, Tim (eds).Reinterpreting Revolution in TwentiethCentuy Europe. ThemesinFocus. Macmillan, Basingstoke, andStMartin's Press,New York,200I. Vi+ 242 pp. Notes.References.Index.[15.99 (paperback). Miller,Martin(ed.). 7The Russian Revolution. TheEssential Readings. Blackwell EssentialReadingsin History.Blackwell,Oxfordand Malden,MA, 2001. X+ 288pp.Notes.Index.f550.0; 1I5.99: $62.95; $29.95. ATtheheartofMauandStarodubrovskaya's bookis anaccountoftheyears coveringthe collapseof the SovietUnion andRussia'sfirststepstowardsa marketeconomywrittenby two peoplewho had been closeobservers and participants in theevents.Theirassociation withtheleadingpersonalities of the time enabledthem to supplementtheir personalreminiscences with materialdrawnfrominterviews withMikhailGorbachev, Alexander Yakovlev ,YegorGaidarandGennadiiBurbulis. Thisisenoughtomakethebooka uniquesourceforthe studyof a keyperiodin Russianandindeedin world history. The book, however,sets out to be rathermore than this. The authors regardthe eventsthey lived throughas nothingshortof a revolution,a revolutioncomparable withthe greatrevolutions of the past.They believe thatthecomparative studyofpastrevolutions candeepentheunderstanding of the revolutionin Russiainitiatedby Gorbachev's perestroika, and that, conversely, the experienceof livingthroughthe recentrevolutionin Russia can afforduniqueinsightsintothe revolutions of thepast.Accordingly, the authorsdevote a greatdeal of attentionto the comparativestudyof the EnglishCivilWar,the FrenchRevolution,the AmericanRevolution,the MeijiRevolutionin Japan, the RussianRevolutionof I917, the Mexican Revolution andtotherevolution carried outbytheNazisinGermany. Theaimoftheauthors istodiscover a commontypologyintowhichallthe revolutions canbefitted.Theyarehelpedinthisbythefactthatthistaskhad alreadypartlybeen accomplished by CraneBrinton'sstudy7The Anatomy of Revolution firstpublishedin 1938. The authorswereencouraged to findthat evenbeforetheyhadbecomefamiliar withBrinton's worktheywereusingthe sametermsashehadusedtodescribe therevolutionary process,suchas'dual power'and 'Thermidor'. Brintonhad concentrated mainlyon the French, Americanand Russianrevolutions,so that Mau and Starodubrovskaya's contribution inthisdirection istheadditionofnewexamples, themostrecent Russianone in particular. They alsobringto bearon the subjectthe most recentthinking on theoriesofrevolution andthemostrecentscholarly works ontherevolutions surveyed. Howdoes,in theopinionoftheauthors,theRussianrevolution attheend of thetwentiethcenturyfitintothegeneralpatternof therevolutions of the past? Like the most recent Russianrevolution,the previousrevolutions REVIEWS I77 showed a number of characteristics.These included:a crisisof the stateas the startingpoint of the revolution; a profound social fragmentation;weak state power throughoutthe revolutionaryperiod;the deteriorationof the economy; large-scale redistributionof property; a succession of moderate and radical governments followed by a Thermidor. These common characteristicsallow the authors to define a 'revolution' as 'a transformation of society which occurs spontaneously, with an enfeebled state that is unable to control the events and changes takingplace' (p. 328). The authorsadd that it is not, as is commonly held, violence which distinguishes social revolution from other methods of social change. The authors' insistence that violence is not an essential characteristicof revolution is at least to some extent prompted by the fact that their four interviewees did not regard the changes they had been instrumental in bringing about as a 'revolution', largely for the reason that they understood revolutionary action as something violent and bloody. They also regarded revolutionas a productof ideological dogmas, ratherthan as a responseto the demands of the situation (p. I83). The market reformers were anxious to stressthat the measuresthey had introducedwere not productsof dogma, but were necessitiesdictatedby a situationof realcatastrophe,which, in thewords of Burbulis, 'firmly, even stridently, demanded action', and in which, according to Gaidar, 'famine was not far off'. The authors do not question this presentation of events. Forthem it is precisely the absence of ideological motivation and the pressureexerted by the circumstancesof the time that are typical of revolutionary transformations enacted in the phase when the radicalscome to power. As the authorspoint out, 'Many of the key decisions taken by Cromwell in the English Revolution, and by Robespierre in the French, were forced upon them by events' (p. I I3). The authors argue that the same is true of Lenin and the Bolshevikswhen on coming to power they put in place the policies later known as 'War Communism'. These were policies, moreover, which the ProvisionalGovernment before them had been forcedto initiatein responseto a similarset of circumstances. Placing events in Russia at the end of the twentieth century in the context of earlierrevolutionsendows them with a world-historicalsignificance,and by doing so gives them a certain legitimacy. For the authors the end of the communistsystemand the foundationsof a marketeconomy in Russia is 'part of a global process of democratizationand liberalization,characteristicof the latestdevelopmental trends'(p. I3I). Despite its comparative-historical dimension, most readers of Mau and Starodubrovskaya'sbook will turn to...