Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

In Memoriam: With God and Richard Pipes
The American Spectator ^ | May 22, 2018 | Paul Kengor

Posted on 05/22/2018 11:39:10 AM PDT by GreyFriar

America loses its greatest scholar of Russia and communism.

The most respected academic authority on the Russian Revolution, 20thcentury communism, and the Cold War has died. He was Richard Pipes, longtime professor of Russian history at Harvard, and a remarkable man.

Where to start with an adequate tribute to Professor Pipes? I’ll start with some biographical observations and then finish with personal reflections.

Richard Pipes was born in Poland on July 11, 1923. As a 16-year-old Jew at the time of Hitler’s invasion, Pipes mercifully escaped, thanks to a clever and shrewd father. He credited not only his father but also Providential intervention. That experience, and those that followed, taught Pipes several life lessons. In his memoir, Vixi: Memoirs of a Non-Belonger, he wrote: “The main effect of the Holocaust on my psyche was to make me delight in every day of life that has been granted to me, for I was saved from certain death.” Pipes observed: “I felt and feel to this day that I have been spared not to waste my life on self-indulgence or self-aggrandizement but to spread a moral message by showing, using examples from history, how evil ideas lead to evil consequences. Since scholars have written enough on the Holocaust, I thought it my mission to demonstrate this truth using the example of communism.”

Pipes would do exactly that.

(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: communism; kennedy; pipes; reagan; russia; tribute
An excellent eulogy for Dr. Richard Pipes, Russian/USSR historian extraordinaire. Of special note are Dr. Pipes' comments on the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, Vladimir Putin, and Teddy Kennedy.
1 posted on 05/22/2018 11:39:10 AM PDT by GreyFriar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: zot; Interesting Times

I recommend reading Paul Kengor’s entire eulogy at the link.


2 posted on 05/22/2018 11:40:33 AM PDT by GreyFriar (Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GreyFriar

Pipes’ books are excellent.


3 posted on 05/22/2018 11:48:03 AM PDT by Trumpisourlastchance
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GreyFriar

I own copies of:

Russia Under the Old Regime (1974)
The Russian Revolution (1990) and
Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime (1994)

Excellent books, all.


4 posted on 05/22/2018 11:55:20 AM PDT by WayneS (An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. - Winston Churchill)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GreyFriar

Thank you for posting this. It was a great article man he was a cool guy


5 posted on 05/22/2018 12:06:41 PM PDT by Not gonna take it anymore (Now that Trump has won, I don't have to post about halfwit anymore)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GreyFriar
Several years ago, I read his memoirs, Vixi: The Memoirs of a Non-Belonger (New Haven, Conn.: Yale, 2006) What most impressed me from this book is his hair-raising account of how he and his family escaped from the Nazis into Italy by posing South Americans. Then they had to find a way to America before Italy's declaration of war on the US made such an escape impossible.
6 posted on 05/22/2018 12:18:57 PM PDT by Fiji Hill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GreyFriar

RIP. That whole generation of heroes - Pipes, Conquest - have gone to their reward leaving behind them a new generation who never read them and would not believe if they had. These are condemned to learning the hard way what was so painstakingly laid out for them so they would not have to.


7 posted on 05/22/2018 12:22:14 PM PDT by Billthedrill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GreyFriar

Thanks for posting this excellent eulogy. May Dr. Pipes rest in peace.


8 posted on 05/22/2018 12:25:57 PM PDT by zot
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GreyFriar

His books on communism are excellent.


9 posted on 05/22/2018 12:54:36 PM PDT by I want the USA back (Media deliberately and intentionally chooses to lie, with full awareness and knowledge.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Trumpisourlastchance; WayneS; Fiji Hill

I found all of his books as must reading when I was doing Soviet/Warsaw Pact intel in the Army. The only one I haven’t read is his auto-biography, which I’ll have to order and read.


10 posted on 05/22/2018 12:54:57 PM PDT by GreyFriar (Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: WayneS

He offered a series of lectures over NPR on Russia’s Old regime which were very informative.


11 posted on 05/22/2018 2:22:59 PM PDT by mosesdapoet (Mosesdapoet aka L.J.Keslin another gem posted in the wilderness)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: GreyFriar
Richard Pipes was strongly and consistently anti-Communist, unlike many in higher academic circles.

There was some controversy, though, about the extent to which the deplorable features of the Soviet system had roots in the pre-Revolutionary Russian system.

You can find Solzhenitsyn's article referring to Pipes here.

Solzhenitsyn did have a valid point -- Pipes was reluctant to say good things about the Russian peasantry and the culture of ordinary Russians -- but as time passes it does look more and more like a tendency towards centralized autocratic rule is ingrained in Russian culture.

12 posted on 05/22/2018 2:35:49 PM PDT by x
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Mr Radical

bkmk


13 posted on 05/22/2018 3:22:19 PM PDT by Mr Radical (In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson