898 Slavic Review 

perhaps too critical of Denikin's stiff anti-German stance, failing to take sufficient 
account of the emotion and experience which lay behind it. Like others, Kenez 
believes that the White Russian forces were doomed to fail for two basic reasons: 
first, because their leaders, basically apolitical men, were unable to develop a pro-
gram that might appeal to the masses; second, because their Russian nationalism 
blinded them to the reality of imperial disintegration, thus making them unable to 
cooperate with the other major non-Bolshevik force, the national minorities. The 
virtues of the book make one impatient for the author to try his skills on a larger 
theme. 

J O H N M. T H O M P S O N 

Indiana University 

T H E D I A R Y O F A D I P L O M A T I N R U S S I A , 1917-1918. By Louis de Robien. 
Translated from the French by Camilla Sykes. New York and Washington: 
Praeger Publishers, 1970. 319 pp. $8.50. 

Count Louis de Robien was appointed a minor official in the French embassy in St. 
Petersburg in 1914 at the age of twenty-six. His diary, first published in French in 
1967, is an entertaining, highly personal record of his opinions about and experiences 
in revolutionary Russia, beginning with the March days and ending with his trans-
fer to Prague in November 1918. 

Unabashedly aristocratic, and overwhelmingly disdainful of Russians in general 
and the bourgeoisie in particular, Robien viewed the overthrow of the Romanov 
dynasty and its replacement by a liberal-democratic regime as an unmitigated 
disaster. A few quotations best convey the spirit and flavor of his lively commen-
taries. "One thing alone can still save the cause of the war and the allies, drastic 
repression, and we are hoping for it wholeheartedly," he noted during the peak of 
the insurrection which led to the abdication of Nicholas I I . "Now one can see why 
the Tsars always had to govern with Baits and Germans," he observed in late April 
as the revolutionary crisis in the Russian Empire deepened. "The real Russians, they 
only know how to destroy." Speculating about the qualities to be desired in a new 
French ambassador after Paleologue's recall in May, Robien wrote: " W h a t is needed 
here, unless they want to send a general with a dog whip (which would be best in a 
country where all backs are still waiting for the knout), is a very shrewd and very 
crafty career diplomat, who would know how to compromise the Russian leaders." 
After an especially enjoyable dinner party at Tsarskoe Selo, he wrote wistfully, 
"The whole thing was delightful, and that evening spent so far away from the 
revolution did me good. . . . How pleasant life could still be if only men were 
sensible." 

In his official capacity Robien came into occasional contact with leaders of the 
Provisional Government and Soviet. Following a visit with Kerensky in mid-April 
he complained, "Kerensky was dressed in a kind of coat buttoned up to the neck, 
without hard collar or tie: neither bourgeois, nor workman, nor soldier . . . he 
noticeably makes an exhibition of himself . . . his emaciated face, his glance, his 
sickly aspect give him the appearance of a hysteric." So great was Robien's contempt 
for the liberals and moderate socialists that for some time the Bolsheviks appeared 
more attractive to him. "Met Kerensky again today . . . installed like the Emperor in 
the Imperial Rolls Royce," he noted in a diary entry of late July. " I don't call these 
people revolutionaries, but just ' y ° u clear out and make room for me' people, and I 
much prefer Lenin . . . at least he is an honest and sincere man." 



Reviews 899 

Robien had an eye for colorful detail; his illuminating descriptions of the events 
at which he was present are of genuine interest. Moreover, at times he was re-
markably discerning. In the spring of 1917 he was justly skeptical of the possibility 
for a successful Russian offensive, and unlike many of his contemporaries he was not 
taken in by the apparent victories of early July. After the October Revolution, when 
many were predicting the quick collapse of the Bolshevik regime, Robien concluded 
that "peace is what the Russian people long for. . . . It is the men who end the war 
who will be masters of Russia for a long time." However, Robien was also highly 
impressionable and capable of incredible misjudgment. Much of what he passed on 
about the Revolution was picked up at an embassy reception or an intimate after-
theater tete-a-tete, usually over a rare wine in a royal palace or fashionable restau-
rant, always with someone equally well-born. In part because of this, his diary 
contains innumerable errors of fact, and many of the most important developments 
shaping the course of the Revolution escaped his purview entirely. Thus the value of 
his book for readers seeking a deeper understanding of the Russian Revolution is 
very limited. 

ALEXANDER RABINOWITCH 

Indiana University 

V BOR'BE ZA SOTSIALISTICHESKOE PEREUSTROISTVO DEREVNI 
(KREST'IANSKAIA VZAIMOPOMOSHCH1, 1921-1932 GG.). By P. A. 
Aleksanov. Moscow: "Mysl'," 1971. 271 pp. 1.01 rubles. 

Aleksanov's study is the first to trace the history of the officially sponsored peasant 
mutual-aid organization throughout the decade of its existence in the 1920s. With 
the adoption of the New Economic Policy and the end of grain requisitioning in 
March 1921 the Soviet government faced the loss of supplies for rural welfare 
assistance. Social need and its political implications (expressly acknowledged here) 
combined to create an urgent problem. Prompted by the spontaneous appearance of 
peasant mutual-aid committees, the government began in May to promote the 
establishment of a broad network of such groups (Krest'ianskie Komitety Ob-
shchestvennoi Vzaimopomoshchi) under the Commissariat of Social Security. From 
resources acquired through self-taxation and state contributions, the krestkomy 
were to provide assistance to soldiers' families and victims of natural or social 
misfortune. Later (as Krest'ianskie Obshchestva Vzaimopomoshchi), they were also 
to help peasants join cooperatives and collectives. 

Drawing on commissariat publications, party records, and the surviving scat-
tered data (an archival fund exists for the initial year only), the author has 
assembled a considerable amount of information. Unfortunately, because the source 
materials are often incomplete or inconsecutive, the assemblage fails to produce a 
clear picture of the extent and dynamics of the mutual-aid movement. An estimate 
that some 65-70 percent of the peasantry had been drawn into the krestkomy by the 
end of the twenties (p. 248) is vitiated by the acknowledgment that a "significant 
percent" of the committees existed only on paper. The relation of mutual aid to the 
communal system of peasant social interdependence is unexplored, and few clues are 
provided to explain the successes or failures reported. 

Such limitations, however, are compensated by the book's incidental reflections 
of a convoluting agricultural policy, and by its oblique illumination of the problem 
of rural administrative control through uncoordinated, replicate agencies. Under