Britain and the Dictators by Robert William Seton-Watson

George Hugh Nicholas Seton-Watson (15 February 1916 - 19 December 1984) was a British historian and political scientist specialising in Russia. “First-rate history.clear and readable.an admirable survey of Russian development from the reign of Alexander II to the outbreak of the First World War.”-The New Leader. The history of these years throws light on some of the problems that most urgently beset the statesmen of our own day and provides an impressive array of mistakes which they would do well to avoid in order to safeguard the survival of the free world. The tragedy of Russia was caused by the Czars’ insistence on absolute powers which they were incompetent to wield. But these attempts at social and economic change were nullified by one immutable and decisive factor-the dogma of autocracy. Seton-Watson’s penetrating analysis of the mainstreams of the declining decades of pre-Revolutionary Russia establishes clearly that the nation as a whole was trying to catch up with the advances made by Western Europe. The social, economic, and political conditions which gave Lenin his opportunity were similar to those now giving birth to various types of revolutionary movements in many parts of the world.ĭr.

The last sixty years of Imperial Russia are not only of great historical interest, but are significant for other countries and other periods.

Britain and the Dictators by Robert William Seton-Watson