Summary Of Peter Holquist's 'Making War, Forging Revolution'

Mike Burt HIS 325
Critical Review – Monograph
Holquist, Peter. Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-
1921. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002.

The Russian Revolution in 1917 was not only a part of Russian history, but was a pivotal event within the crisis that was occurring in Europe, putting the revolution and the resulting Russian Civil War within terms of European history beginning with World War I in 1914 and ending in 1921 when European crisis ended and the Bolshevik party set itself apart from the rest of Europe. This is the argument that Peter Holquist’s 2002 monograph, Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia’s Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921, attempts to make. Holquist’s

One of the points he brings to the reader’s attention is that Russia was facing political crisis when they entered World War I and the resulting food supply shortage due to industrialization and Russia’s involvement in the war was a key cause of the Russian Revolution in 1917. This is one of the ways that Holquist tries to prove his main argument, by stating that World War I required grain and food supply to be sent to troops, resulting in a shortage that ultimately became a driving force in the revolution. The next major point that Holquist raises is that the practices of total mobilization during World War I were being used to build a new state and socio-economic order within Russia. Holquist states that Russian politics used these practices of total mobilization that other European countries used for themselves during the war to try to revolutionize the economy and social system. This is another way that Holquist tries to prove his main argument by arguing that the techniques used by European nations during World War I for their existing political systems were used by Russia during the Russian Civil War to try to create a brand new political and economic system. One final major point that Holquist addresses is that the mobilization and violence in Russia continued even after the Bolshevik party took control of the Russian

The combination of using chronological order and the historiography of Holquist’s monograph makes it have structure. Holquist’s monograph divides each crisis that Russia faced between 1914 and 1921 into various chapters, going in depth into the cause and effect of the crises, as well as how it relates to European nations who were also involved in World War I with Russia. This helps paint a better picture of what the crises in Russia during the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War were like because Holquist’s decision to divide the events into separate chapters shows their significance. Such is the case of Russia’s involvement in the First World War, he gives this event its own chapter, “Russia at War”, to show how important World War I played a part in Russian affairs, which effectively proves his