LAUSR

The narrower question is how far this ‘model’ is appropriate for Russia, especially in an introductory text. The Russian crisis was not caused by pressure from its own ‘colonies’ (e.g. Poland and Ukraine). It is certainly true that any assessment of Russia in the First World War needs to take into account the strong ‘Asiatic’ (or Eurasian) dimension. However, it is stretching the argument to suggest, as the author seems to, that the 1916 rebellion in Central Asia was a root cause of the state crisis of the following year (pp. 234–5). But a much larger point is surely that the ‘Russian’ state had recovered most of its peripheral possessions (‘colonies’) by the spring of 1921, and it survived as an ‘imperial’ state (in both an autocratic and a multi-ethnic sense) for another 70 years. So while the scheme presented in the introduction might arguably have a broad relevance to twentieth-century European history, Russia would be the exception rather than the rule. It seems, as a result, unhelpful (or at least confusing) to attempt to look at the Russian experience ‘through the lens of decolonization’. A questioning of the overall scheme of the book should not, however, be taken as general criticism. In a short volume the author does efficiently outline the major aspects of the wartime situation and he has raised a number of issues neglected in classic – Soviet and Western – accounts of the Russian experience. He does note important links between the world war and the revolution. The book was intended for ‘multiple audiences’, and it deserves to be read widely and with interest.