Background
Pipes was born on July 11, 1923 in Cieszyn, Poland; the son of Mark and Sophia Haskelberg Pipes.
Richard Pipes and John Malickim, a Director of the Centre for East European Studies.
Richard Pipes with Mark Wałkuskim on an interview.
(This volume completes the biography of Peter Struve (1870...)
This volume completes the biography of Peter Struve (1870-1944), one of the most remarkable and influential Russian intellectuals of this century. More than anyone else in his time, Struve was the master of history, journalism, economics, international relations, and practical politics. A scholar and activist, he helped found the Marxist movement in Russia, initiated Marxist Revisionism there, and launched Lenin's career, and he was the theoretician and a cofounder of the Constitutional Democratic Party. After 1905--the years covered in this self-contained volume--Struve became the principal critic of the Russian intelligentsia and the main political ideologist of the anti-Bolshevik opposition during the Civil War and in emigration. His life was a part of the life of Russia as he struggled to craft a liberal democracy and wound up defeated and faced with an emerging totalitarian state. In writing about Struve, Richard Pipes turns biography into history. He lays bare the split soul of the Russian intellectuals--their irresponsibility, unwillingness to compromise, intolerance. Struve, the liberal turned conservative, preached to his countrymen physical and spiritual freedom based on law. He was a Westerner in his championing of social reform, legality, private property, and a vigorous state and foreign policy. This long and rich tradition of liberal-conservatism is recounted against the background of a "monstrous growth of political claims on the individual that caused intellectual and moral independence increasingly to be punished with ostracism, confinement, exile, and death."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674846001/?tag=2022091-20
1980
(Mr. Pipes writes trenchantly, and at times superbly....No...)
Mr. Pipes writes trenchantly, and at times superbly....No single volume known to me even begins to cater so adequately to those who want to discover what really happened to Russia....Nor do I know any other book better designed to help Soviet citizens to struggle out of the darkness." -- Ronald Hingley, The New York Times Book Review Ground-breaking in its inclusiveness, enthralling in its narrative of a movement whose purpose, in the words of Leon Trotsky, was "to overthrow the world," The Russian Revolution draws conclusions that have already aroused great controversy in this country-and that are certain to be explosive when the book is published in the Soviet Union. Richard Pipes argues convincingly that the Russian Revolution was an intellectual, rather than a class, uprising; that it was steeped in terror from its very outset; and that it was not a revolution at all but a coup d'etat -- "the capture of governmental power by a small minority."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679736603/?tag=2022091-20
1991
(Pipes is a widely recognized authority on Russia and is c...)
Pipes is a widely recognized authority on Russia and is currently Baird professor of History at Harvard University. This is the final volume in his magisterial history of the Russian Revolution, covering the period from the outbreak of the Civil War in 1918 to Lenin's death in 1924.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679761845/?tag=2022091-20
1995
(Richard Pipes's authoritative history of the "violent and...)
Richard Pipes's authoritative history of the "violent and disruptive acts" that created the first modern totalitarian regime portrays the crisis at the heart of the tsarist empire. Drawing on archival materials newly released in Russia, he chronicles the upheaval that began as a conservative revolt but was soon captured by messianic intellectuals intent not merely on reforming Russia but on remaking the world. He provides fresh accounts of the revolution's personalities and policies, crises, and cruelties, from the murder of the royal family through civil war, famine, and state terror. Brilliantly and persuasively, Pipes shows us why the resulting system owes less to the theories of Marx than it did to the character of Lenin and Russia's long authoritarian tradition. What ensues is a path-clearing work that is indispensable to any understanding of the events of the century.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679745440/?tag=2022091-20
1996
(Here is the history of the disintegration of the Russian ...)
Here is the history of the disintegration of the Russian Empire, and the emergence, on its ruins, of a multinational Communist state. In this revealing account, Richard Pipes tells how the Communists exploited the new nationalism of the peoples of the Ukraine, Belorussia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Volga-Ural area--first to seize power and then to expand into the borderlands. The Formation of the Soviet Union acquires special relevance in the post-Soviet era, when the ethnic groups described in the book once again reclaimed their independence, this time apparently for good. In a 1996 Preface to the Revised Edition, Pipes suggests how material recently released from the Russian archives might supplement his account.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674309510/?tag=2022091-20
1997
(Was Lenin a visionary whose ideals were subverted by his ...)
Was Lenin a visionary whose ideals were subverted by his followers? Or was he a cynical misanthrope, even crueler than Stalin? This book, which contains newly released documents from the Lenin archive in Russia, lays bare Lenin the man and the politician, leaving little doubt that he was a ruthless and manipulative leader who used terror, subversion, and persecution to achieve his goals. Edited and introduced by the eminent scholar Richard Pipes in collaboration with Y.A. Buranov of the Russian Center for the Preservation and Study of Documents of Recent History in Moscow, the documents date from 1886 through the end of Lenin's life. They reveal, among other things, that: • Lenin's purpose in invading Poland in 1920 was not merely to sovietize that country but to use it as a springboard for the invasion of Germany and England; • Lenin took money from the Germans (here we have the first incontrovertible evidence for this); • in 1919 Lenin issued instructions to the Communist authorities in the Ukraine not to accept Jews in the Soviet government of that republic; • as late as 1922 Lenin believed in the imminence of social revolution in the West, and he planned subversion in Finland, Turkey, Lithuania, and other countries; • Lenin had little regard for Trotsky's judgment on important matters and relied heavily on Stalin; • Lenin assiduously tracked dissident intellectuals and urged repressive action or deportation; • Lenin launched a political offensive against the Orthodox Church, ordering that priests who resisted seizure of church property be shot--"the more the better."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300076622/?tag=2022091-20
1999
(Richard Pipes, Harvard scholar and historian of the Russi...)
Richard Pipes, Harvard scholar and historian of the Russian Revolution, brings his remarkable erudition to an exploration of a wide range of national and political systems to demonstrate persuasively that private ownership has served over the centuries to limit the power of the state and enable democratic institutions to evolve and thrive in the Western world. Beginning with Greece and Rome, where the concept of private property as we understand it first developed, Pipes then shows us how, in the late medieval period, the idea matured with the expansion of commerce and the rise of cities. He contrasts England, a country where property rights and parliamentary government advanced hand-in-hand, with Russia, where restrictions on ownership have for centuries consistently abetted authoritarian regimes; finally he provides reflections on current and future trends in the United States. Property and Freedom is a brilliant contribution to political thought and an essential work on a subject of vital importance.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375704477/?tag=2022091-20
2000
(With astonishing authority and clarity, Richard Pipes has...)
With astonishing authority and clarity, Richard Pipes has fused a lifetime’s scholarship into a single focused history of Communism, from its hopeful birth as a theory to its miserable death as a practice. At its heart, the book is a history of the Soviet Union, the most comprehensive reorganization of human society ever attempted by a nation-state. This is the story of how the agitation of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, two mid-nineteenth-century European thinkers and writers, led to a great and terrible world religion that brought down a mighty empire, consumed the world in conflict, and left in its wake a devastation whose full costs can only now be tabulated.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812968646/?tag=2022091-20
2003
(Sixteen-year-old Richard Pipes escaped from Nazi-occupied...)
Sixteen-year-old Richard Pipes escaped from Nazi-occupied Warsaw with his family in October 1939. Their flight took them to the United States by way of Italy, and Pipes went on to earn a college degree, join the US Air Corps, serve as professor of Russian history at Harvard for nearly 40 years, and become adviser to President Reagan on Soviet and Eastern European affairs. Here, he remembers the events of his own remarkable life as well as the unfolding of some of the 20th century's most extraordinary political events. From his youthful memories of bombs falling on Warsaw to his recollections of the conflicts inside the Reagan administration over American policies toward the USSR, Pipes offers observations as well as portraits of such cultural and political figures as Isaiah Berlin, Ronald Reagan and Alexander Haig. Perhaps most interesting of all, Pipes depicts his evolution as a historian and his understanding of how history is witnessed and how it is recorded.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300101651/?tag=2022091-20
2003
(Russian Conservatism and Its Critics provides the first a...)
Russian Conservatism and Its Critics provides the first account of Russia’s immemorial commitment to the theory and practice of autocracy, the most formative and powerful idea in Russia’s political history. Richard Pipes considers why Russian thinkers, statesmen, and publicists have historically always argued that Russia could prosper only under an autocratic regime. Beginning with an insightful study of the origins of Russian statehood in the Middle Ages, when the state grew out of the princely domain but was not distinguished from it, Russian Conservatism and Its Critics includes a masterful survey of Russia’s major conservative thinkers and demonstrates how conservatism is the dominant intellectual legacy of Russia. Pipes examines the geographical, historical, political, military, and social realities of the Russian empire―fundamentally unchanged by the Revolution of 1917―that have traditionally convinced its rulers and opinion leaders that decentralizing political authority would inevitably result in the country’s disintegration. Pipes has written a brilliant thesis and analysis of a hitherto overlooked aspect of the Russian intellectual tradition that continues to have significance to this day.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300122691/?tag=2022091-20
2007
Pipes was born on July 11, 1923 in Cieszyn, Poland; the son of Mark and Sophia Haskelberg Pipes.
Pipes enrolled at Muskingum College in 1943. In 1945 he graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Five years later Richard received a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Harvard University.
In 1988 Pipes received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Muskingum College and Doctor of Humane Letters from Adelphi University in 1991. Also in 1994 Pipes was given an honorary Doctor degree from the University of Silesia in Poland.
Pipes served with United States Army Air Force from 1943 to 1946. Four years later he began his career as a teacher of history at Harvard University and held the position for fourty six years. In 1962, Pipes delivered the lectures on Russian intellectual history at Leningrad State University.
In 1968, he was appointed the director of Harvard's Russian Research Center. Five years later Pipes held a position of a senior consultant at the Stanford Research Institute, where he worked until 1978.
In 1976, Richard was a head of the Team B, composed of civilian experts and retired military officers and agreed to by then-CIA director George H. W. Bush at the urging of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) as a competitive analysis exercise.
During the 1970s, he was an advisor to Washington Senator Henry M. Jackson. He served as a member of the National Security Council in 1981 and 1982, holding the post of Director of East European and Soviet Affairs under President Ronald Reagan. Pipes was a member of the Committee on the Present Danger from 1977 to 1992 and belongs to the Council of Foreign Relations.
Since 1996 Pipes was a Professor Emeritus of History at Harvard University.
(Was Lenin a visionary whose ideals were subverted by his ...)
1999(Richard Pipes, Harvard scholar and historian of the Russi...)
2000(Russian Conservatism and Its Critics provides the first a...)
2007(With astonishing authority and clarity, Richard Pipes has...)
2003(Richard Pipes's authoritative history of the "violent and...)
1996(This volume completes the biography of Peter Struve (1870...)
1980(Here is the history of the disintegration of the Russian ...)
1997(Pipes is a widely recognized authority on Russia and is c...)
1995(Sixteen-year-old Richard Pipes escaped from Nazi-occupied...)
2003(Mr. Pipes writes trenchantly, and at times superbly....No...)
1991Pipes espoused a strong anti-communist point of view throughout his career.
Pipes was a member of American Academy Arts and Sciences, Polish Academy, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the American Council of Learned Societies.
On September 1, 1946 Richard Pipes married Irene Eugenia Roth. They had 2 sons.