A True Record

The Soviets: The Russian Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers Councils, 1905-1921, by Oskar Anweiler. Translated from the German by Ruth Hein. New York: Pantheon Books. 324 pp.

Whatever happened to the soviets under which, as Lenin described them, “the masses themselves determine” how and when elections are held “and with complete freedom of recall of elected officials”? We are discussing soviets in their original meaning, councils to effect direct democracy of the working people. That the word soviet has come to denote a specific government, a given political-geographic entity, is quite another matter. The subject of this book is the history of the rise and disappearance of soviets, in the original meaning of the term.

Anweiler is in an exceptionally good position to write this history, wie es eigentlich gewesen war. He is able to do this because he rigorously examines the record, allowing no preconceptions or prejudices, dogmas or...