Context
To a lot of foreigners, Russia is a puzzle. I’ve met plenty of people who dislike it, but just as many who admire it, so I’ve always been curious about what drives such strong feelings either way. Personally, I can relate to both sides. But often, whether you love Russia or hate it, those feelings are built on ideas that don’t really match reality.
Emma Goldman fell victim to early Soviet propaganda to such an extent that she moved to Russia, believing the Bolsheviks were building a Marxist utopia. She was a sharp woman, and it didn’t take her long to realize that post‑revolutionary Russia wasn’t paradise, its new rulers turned out to be even more cruel, dishonest, and vicious than their predecessors in the early years of Soviet rule.
Quotes
Overall, it’s an outstanding book. Here are a few quotes I found particularly interesting:
Two years of earnest study, investigation, and research convinced me that the great benefits brought to the Russian people by Bolshevism exist only on paper, painted in glowing colours to the masses of Europe and America by efficient Bolshevik propaganda.
Another circumstance which perplexed me was that the markets were stacked with meat, fish, soap, potatoes, even shoes, every time that the rations were given out. How did these things get to the markets? Everyone spoke about it, but no one seemed to know.
He preferred silence. Secondly, there was no medium of expression in Russia itself. To protest to the Government was useless. Its concern was to maintain itself in power. It could not stop at such “trifles” as human rights or human lives. Then he added: “We have always pointed out the effects of Marxism in action. Why be surprised now?”
It never occurred to them that the purpose of a revolution is merely to cause a transfer of possessions—to put the rich into the hovels and the poor into the palaces. It was not true that the workers have gotten into the palaces. They were only made to believe that that is the function of a revolution. In reality, the masses remained where they had been before. But now they were not alone there: they were in the company of the classes they meant to destroy
A small political party trying to control a population of 150,000,000 which bitterly hated the Communists, could not hope to maintain itself without such an institution as the Cheka. The latter was characteristic of the basic principles of Bolshevik conception: the country must be forced to be saved by the Communist Party.
The new economic policy turned Moscow into a vast marketplace. Trade became the new religion. Shops and stores sprang up overnight, mysteriously stacked with delicacies Russia had not seen for years. Large quantities of butter, cheese, and meat were displayed for sale; pastry, rare fruit, and sweets of every variety were to be purchased.
The means employed become, through individual habit and social practice, part and parcel of the final purpose; they influence it, modify it, and presently the aims and means become identical.
Summary
I find this book historically accurate, but I think the author misses the bigger picture. Pre‑revolutionary Russia was deeply mismanaged, and for a long time, the Communists, along with other opposition movements, were the victims, not the perpetrators.
Things flipped after the revolution, but you’d have to be naive to think radical change can ever be painless. Sure, plenty of mistakes were made, but the blame for Soviet Russia’s starting point lies squarely with the old Tsarist regime.
Look at where the country ended up: a global power with a decent standard of living and a high degree of self‑sufficiency, despite constant efforts by other powers to keep it contained. That’s not nothing. However you feel about their methods, it’s hard to deny the Bolsheviks did a largely effective job of pulling the nation out of the dire neglect it suffered under the late monarchy.