Bolsheviks

The Bolsheviks, known as the Reds during the civil war that followed their seizure of power, overthrew the tsarist regime in October 1917 and established a revolutionary government. In the book’s account, they are both participants in a struggle over Russia’s political order and part of a broader argument about how institutional change can redirect economic development without making its eventual course inevitable.

Revolution and Civil War

The overthrow of the old tsarist regime in October 1917 was followed by civil war between the Bolsheviks and the Whites. Russia was absent from the peace negotiations at the palace of Versailles after the First World War, while English, French, and American forces sent an expeditionary force to fight the Bolsheviks. The new government was therefore treated not simply as a domestic political change but as a power whose intentions and prospects mattered to the international settlement.

The Diplomatic Mission to Moscow

A mission led by the young diplomat William Bullitt and the journalist and intellectual Lincoln Steffens went to Moscow to meet Lenin and explore the Bolsheviks’ intentions and the terms on which peace might be possible with the newly created Soviet Union. Steffens had previously denounced the evils of American capitalism and had been in Russia during the revolution; his inclusion was intended to make the mission appear credible and not unduly hostile. The mission returned with the outlines of an offer from Lenin. Steffens, impressed by the regime’s potential, interpreted its dictatorship as a transitional instrument for reorganizing economic life, with economic democracy preceding political democracy. His response records the hope the new government could inspire abroad, rather than establishing that the promised outcome had been achieved.

Revolution as a Critical Juncture

The book treats the Bolshevik seizure of power as part of a larger problem of how political and economic institutions change. A critical juncture can disrupt an existing balance and open the possibility of a sharp change in a society’s trajectory; it does not dictate which institutions will follow. Whether change breaks an extractive pattern or reinforces it depends on the interaction between the disruption and institutions already in place. The Bolshevik revolution thus belongs to an argument about contingent political development, not to a claim that revolution by itself guarantees inclusive institutions or prosperity.

The Soviet Example and Its Limits

The later Soviet experience serves as a case of growth under extractive institutions. A centralized state can organize economic activity and generate growth, but the book distinguishes this from sustained growth driven by technological change and innovation. Elites who benefit from the existing order may resist creative destruction because it threatens both economic privileges and political power; competition for control of the state can also intensify instability. The account therefore places the Bolsheviks’ revolutionary project beside a more cautionary institutional analysis: the promise of reorganizing economic forces and the capacity of a powerful state to direct development do not, on their own, resolve the political conflicts that shape long-term outcomes.