Theoretically book reviews on all my blogs should be few and far between, seeing as I've just started Orlando Figes' 'A People's Tragedy', another of his vast tomes about Russia, this time featuring the Russian revolution. I really want to read his 'Whisperers' since that's about the Soviet times, which many of my friends lived through - but I need to read them in order. The Whisperers are waiting for me at home....
So 'A People's Tragedy' has 824 pages of text and I am on page 39. You may have to wait for a while. But already there are gems:
'the [state] apparatus was too poorly financed (it was very difficult to collect enough taxes in such a vast and poor peasant country)' [before the revolution]. I am sure that is the case still; if Russia had a sound tax and proper employment system, there would be much more money available. I remember in 2005 / 2006 visiting ministries both in Moscow and in lower levels of government - they were clapped out, semi-derelict, with corridors where the floors tilted gently towards the middle.....there were computers, but they were not usually switched on.
He describes the bureaucracy as one which had 'no principles or regulations which enabled the individual to challenge authority or the state' [in 1900]. Right-on. Nothing has changed. To get anything done, you need to travel to the nearest ministry and sit and wait in the corridors (with the tilting floors). Today. Really helps to know the right people, too.
So 'A People's Tragedy' has 824 pages of text and I am on page 39. You may have to wait for a while. But already there are gems:
'the [state] apparatus was too poorly financed (it was very difficult to collect enough taxes in such a vast and poor peasant country)' [before the revolution]. I am sure that is the case still; if Russia had a sound tax and proper employment system, there would be much more money available. I remember in 2005 / 2006 visiting ministries both in Moscow and in lower levels of government - they were clapped out, semi-derelict, with corridors where the floors tilted gently towards the middle.....there were computers, but they were not usually switched on.
He describes the bureaucracy as one which had 'no principles or regulations which enabled the individual to challenge authority or the state' [in 1900]. Right-on. Nothing has changed. To get anything done, you need to travel to the nearest ministry and sit and wait in the corridors (with the tilting floors). Today. Really helps to know the right people, too.
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