Peter Gatrell

Interesting book dealing with the social, economic and organizational aspects of Russia in the First World War. I found this book not an easy read. At times it confused me with the introduction of numerous committees, organizations, and co-ops trying to help mobilize the country during the war. Perhaps the point was that if the reader became confused, how did this country of some 170 million people relate to overlapping servicers and conflicting responsibilities at time of war.

'Russia's First World War' also provides a large number of charts and data to help explain what was going in terms of production for the military, for consumers, for export, for refugees, etc. I found there were time I had to reread passages and review the data to understand the analysis.

I gave the book 3 stars because of the effort I had to put into understanding the material presented in this volume. However, that may be due to my shortcomings as a reader. If someone is interested in really getting into the details of Russia's struggles with mobilizing for war and managing the economy of total war, this would be worth the time to get through. It is not a long book (276 pages including footnotes at chapter end). It is packed with data.

The author concludes with reviewing the problems Russia experienced relative to those experienced by the other belligerents. He points out the similaries as well as the differences, and how the differenct countries worked through their problems. He also discusses how these issues may or may not have contibuted to the revolution.

If you are interested in understanding the ecomonic, social and organizational challenges Russia faced during the First World War, with plenty of data to back up the anaysis this may be the book for you.… (meer)