Blood of Revolution

January 14, 2002
The former Newsweek
correspondent who has toyed about with variations on the theme of "What if?" in his speculative histories The Hinge Factor
and The Weather Factor
settles down here to look at the actual record of the great political revolutions of the last two centuries. It is not a happy story, nor a heroic one. "Genius, courage and creativity are powerful forces," Durschmied concedes; "but so is evil." And, indeed, every one of the great cataclysms described here seems, at some (fairly early) point in its development, to have been transformed into a mad witch's Sabbath of fanatics, opportunists, sadists, conmen and outright lunatics whose single-minded lust for power would have taken Machiavelli's breath away. Durschmied illustrates it all with vivid, journalistic detail: a Parisian hairdresser arranging the coiffure of the Princesse de Lamballe's severed head; the drunken turkey-shoot in which the Bolsheviks assassinated the tsar's family; Pancho Villa's sport of lining up hostages atop railway cars and gunning them down like bowling pins; the snuff films made of the hangings of resistance leaders for Hitler's personal amusement. The author's intent is not primarily analytical, but he makes it clear that political collapses as complete as those detailed here are never the result of simple conquest, militarily or ideologically, and that no ruler is ever overthrown unless he or she is profoundly inept, weak-willed or stupid (e.g., Louis XVI, Nicholas II, the shah of Iran). Durschmied writes wonderfully fluid and engaging accounts. The final chapter, on the Khomeinite revolution in Iran, is particularly timely now. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. First printing 15,000.