Philip Pomper, the Russian Revolutionary

Philip Pomper, the Russian Revolutionary Intelligentsia, Second Edition. Wheeling, IL: Harlan

Davidson, 1992, 241 pp.

Author Philip Pomper is currently the William F. Armstrong Professor of history at Wesleyan University and has written numerous books on the subject of 19th and 20th century Russian thought and intelligentsia. His series on the Russian Revolutionary Intelligentsia is a very comprehensive look at the life and times of many of the most prominent Russian thinkers and philosophers and helps to paint a clear picture of the road to the Russian Revolution through examinations of each step along the way to this event. His background and education reflect a very well educated expert on the Russian Revolution and Russian history in general. He received both his B.A. And M.A. from the University of Chicago and finished up his Ph. D. In 1965. He has studied Russian and Modern European history for over 50 years now and is one of the leading experts in the field of the Russian Revolution.

Much of Pomper's work covers the individuals and small groups that made up the Russian intelligentsia of the 19th and 20th centuries. His books tend to psychoanalyze the figures most central to Russian history and the Revolution. He has studied in Russia and taught classes in Moscow at the university there. His bias lies in the fact that he wishes to portray each individual as a human being, so he leans toward leniency and understanding when it comes to such controversial figures such as Marx and Lenin. Pomper leaves nothing to the imagination as his educational background and experience with international terrorism and terrorist organizations help him to organize his book from both a historically accurate and a thought-provoking angle.

Pomper's subject in this book is multi-faceted, but encompasses the environmental and social contexts that led up to the Russian Revolution. The minds and personalities that brought the country to this historical precipice are also covered. He writes in detail about many of the most prominent schools of thought as well as the inner dialogue of the men and women who helped create the nation in the image of the Communist party. The scope of Pomper's book is quite broad, yet it is brief enough that the reader does not lose interest in the subjects. Pomper writes about the nihilists, Decembrists, populists, and Marxists. In doing so, he covers some of the more prominent figures and ideas behind each movement in a way that creates a vivid cultural and social context for the events and actions that played out during the 19th and early 20th century in Russia. The Russian Revolution is covered to a great extent and Pomper lends much insight into the specific events and ideas that carried the country to Revolution in 1917.

Pomper succeeds in his goal to expose the most profoundly successful and controversial figures in Russian history with his book. However, it seems as though Pomper is eager to paint these figures in a very neutral light. AS an historian, it is his job of course to look at history as objectively as possible, and treat each historical personality with respect, but Pomper doesn't deal much with the atrocities associated with the Russian Intelligentsia and instead focuses on their ideals and ideas. In this way, Pomper was able to buck the cultural trend that prevailed during the first printing of his book, The Russian Revolutionary Intelligentsia, Second Edition. The common cultural views toward Russian life and history were less than welcoming for many scholars, and Pomper's neutrality certainly helped both academia and the general public to come to terms with the human beings behind the many social and cultural changes that occurred in Russia during the 19th and early 20th centuries.