Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #62508 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-02
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

Culture Sunday Times
'This hugely ambitious book attempts to piece together the great sweep of Communist world history...'

Evening Standard
'communism in classy canapé format: lively, accessible'

Daily Telegraph
'this study of global communism makes for timely reading. Service's book has a dazzling range...'

Customer Reviews

Biased
I was really looking forward to 'Comrades' arriving but after reading the introduction was already beginning to feel a little disappointed. Robert Service is clearly a very intelligent man who has trawled through miles of archives. Unfortunately he cannot hide the fact that he is rabidly anti-Communist. He makes too many childish remarks about the most prominent leaders and even the colour prints in the centre of the book are accompanied by petty jibes. We know that life under Communism was never the utopia it had hoped to be and that in many Communist states life was truly a nightmare of terror and repression. Unfortunately because of Service's style and commentary I get no sense of how much of the suffering came to be. It is too simplistic to claim that Communism was intrisically bad when it's stated aim was to build a human paradise. We must understand why it went so wrong. This book does not tell us that. Really disappointing.

Rubbish when it's not on Russia
This is an awful book. It is very poorly written and dull to read. It's obvious that the author (an expert on Russia) knows very little about Eastern Europe, China, Africa, Cuba, or anywhere else with a Communist movement. Many of his generalizations (and the book is little else) are regurgitated from the literature of 30 years ago. There is nothing new in this book. It has no insights - even on the Soviet Union - to make it worth the bother of ploughing through its dreadful prose.

The People's Book is deepest red
For those historians who like to think big, and take the brave decision to write a book which tackles a very large concept, a long period of time or controversial idea, it is difficult not to fall in to a trap of excessive simplicity or letting the bigger picture slip away amidst a barrage of details. Few subjects are as complex, debatable or relevant as communism, and this is the story of an ideology that changed the world.

It is also a subject on which it is impossible to be neutral. Communism as a monstrous ideology which led to more deaths than Facism, a brutal system implemented by thuggish dictators? Or a utopian idea whose time was not right, or that was implemented in the wrong places? A brave attempt at challenging age old iniquities, or an concept with a foolish disregard for human weaknesses. With this in mind it is important to note that Robert Service does have a bias, but that all historians do, and he does his job as an academic historian well with a thorough grasp of the sources available.

Some have commented that Service does not come across as a fan of communism. To be fair this might be true, but then given the raft of evidence at hand of the excesses in the Soviet system this is unsurprising. What is more important is that as far as possible Service approaches the subject dispassionately and does not become a slave to an ideological dogma. Instead he is thorough in his research, and lets the evidence speak for itself.

Unsurprisingly he is an expert in the history of Russia, a fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford and was one of the first historians to gain access to the Soviet archives after the collapse of the USSR. Having written biographies on Lenin, Stalin and working on the end of this literary triptych with Trotsky, he has broadened his subject out to the ideology that most affected modern Russia, and looks at its historical roots, and its global impact.

Service is stronger when talking about Russia and Europe, with a wealth of experience and knowledge quite evident. But he is more than able when dealing with communism's impact around the world. He is not limited to a specific time period, and deals with the pre-19th century roots (albeit in a slight gallop - this is only a single volume) and the present day.

Service might be an academic historian, but he also has a flair for writing. He has an engaging and natural style, and an excitement and interest in the subject which leaps from the page. Russian history is well served by excellent writers, Orlando Figes, Richard Pipes and Simon Sebag Montefiore included, but Service now deserves a much higher profile amongst this quartet.

The only criticism is that it is a subject so vast as to be necessarily done a disservice by a single volume. But as a primer or introductory text, or as a very readable piece of history, it is excellent.

Again, weaknesses of Amazon's star system prevent giving a more accurate 4.5 stars. But it seemed harsh to drop down to a 4 for a really rather excellent book.