The End of Imperial Russia, 1855-1917 by Peter WaldronReview by: E. LampertThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 76, No. 2 (Apr., 1998), pp. 349-350Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4212649 .

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REVIEWS 349

the greatness of the French people. Only the worker stood at his full height; everything disappeared before him like stars before the sun' (p. 236).

Gertsen's case makes plain the dangers of re-reading modern history through the prism of nationalism's resurgence in Central and Eastern Europe from the I98os. All too easily the currents of continental, and especially Russian, thought which have been cosmopolitan, libertarian and socialist in inspiration are simply written out of the script. Unfashionable though the revolutionary tradition may be, Zimmerman's edition of these letters could not be more timely.

School of Histogy EDWARD ACTON University ofEastAnglia

Waldron, Peter. The End of Imperial Russia, I855-I9I7. European History in Perspective. Macmillan, Basingstoke and London, 1997. viii + I89 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. /37 50; ?I I.99.

THE author had an ungrateful task, seeing the surfeit of books on 'imperial Russia', whether at its 'end' or 'beginning' or 'middle'. This is a contribution to the 'end' and it fills a gap in the Series of 'European History in Perspective'. It does not widen its appeal beyond academic grooves: a textbook perhaps for A-level or BA candidates. The author shows a good grasp of the subject, but does not go into the issues deeply and, in the circumstances, cannot be expected to do so. There is no attempt to provide an imaginative insight into the drama of the matter, its undercurrents or colour. Also it is an exceedingly humourless work an exercise reeking of low-keyed sterile seminars.

Although the book has no evident theoretical framework, it is meant to show, in a somewhat tautological manner, that the imperial Russian state perished from its own weakness, that the cause lay 'in the very nature of the Russian autocracy' which, to use the now prevalent jargon, was unable or unwilling to 'modernize' itself. It would have been helpful if, instead of arguing that the system was wearing out-of-date clothes, the author had shown that it was wearing no clothes at all. He properly dwells on the paramount question of agriculture and the peasantry. But the connection between the endemic land-hunger and the revolutionary situations is not properly examined. Landownership was indeed the heart of the matter. It was by retaining the land that the I 86o reform proved acceptable to the disproportionate landowning class which, as Lenin insisted, operated a system of latifundia. Eventually the peasants were allowed to buy their own land - an imposition that made the measure a laughing stock as well as daylight robbery. As is known, Stolypin thought that the structure of discrimination should remain untouched, at least temporarily.

Some space is devoted to the industrial worker. Tsarist Russia was scared of its proletariat, which the historical process had forced it to bring into being. It was an embittered as well as an exploited class and the idea assumed by the October Manifesto that some eleemosynary force of renewal will flow from the fact that a small number of wealthy people have been made better off than they were was an incitement to revolution.

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350 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

Serious objection must be made to Dr Waldron's bibliography. He describes it as 'Select'. This is an understatement or a misnomer. Surely even an incomplete list of books on an incomplete century must not avoid such things as the works of Kliuchevskii, Pokrovskii, Miliukov, Florinskii. Similarly, the author omits to mention such essential and illuminating evidence as Gertsen's My Past and Thoughts and Witte's Memoirs. All this exists partly or wholly in English, if the author insists on works in English and Russian. There is a reference to Zaionchkovskii's important books on the latter part of the nineteenth century but none to those of Avrekh, which are fundamental for the last Dumas.

Factually the book is almost beyond reproach, but Danilevskii was not a 'philosopher' and Rasputin was not a 'monk'. 'The successive Provisional Governments', the author states, 'were well aware that they held no real legitimacy ... .] and were reluctant to take any fundamental decision'. Is this really true of the megalomaniacal Kerenskii or the iron-fisted if idiotic Kornilov? And no real explanation is offered for the deviant and devious relations of the West with Russia. The generation of Waterloo died to get the Russians into Europe; the generation of the Crimean War died to get them out again; and the generation of I9I4 fought to restore Russian power, only to seek to exterminate it as a supposed threat to civilization. For the time being there is no need to do that, for the extermination is achieved by the global bluff of choking plutocracy which short-circuits any alternative.

London E. LAMPERT

McCaffray, Susan P. The Politics of Industrialization in Tsarist Russia: The Association of Southern Coal and Steel Producers, I874-I9I4. Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb, IL, I996. XXii + 299 pp. Notes. Illustrations. Bibliography. Appendix. Index. $35.00.

THE title and subtitle of this book could easily change places, and librarians could equally well shelve it as history, sociology or politics. The thread holding it together is the professional life of the engineer-managers of the South Russian (Ukrainian) mines and metallurgical works, as expressed in the activities of their professional association.

TIhe heyday of the Southern Coal and Steel Producers' Association was the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when its annual congresses at Kharkiv were the scene of debates that inspired its council in efforts to obtain governmental and public support for its endeavours. These endeavours consisted largely in moving the goal-posts in favour of southern mining and metallurgy, but the Association's vision of industrial prosperity providing the cultural uplift that Russia so badly needed was a worthy one, and the means chosen by the Association were likewise exemplary. While properly deferential to the government and its offices, the Association forwarded well-thought-out petitions to St Petersburg, and its statistical service was as invaluable to ministerial planners as it was to subsequent researchers. Its annual debates

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