[GreyFriar]

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.

[GreyFriar]

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

[Trumpisourlastchance]

Pipes’ books are excellent.

[WayneS]

I own copies of:

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

Excellent books, all.

[Not gonna take it anymore]

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

[Fiji Hill]

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.

[Billthedrill]

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.

[zot]

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

[I want the USA back]

His books on communism are excellent.

[x]

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.

[Mr Radical]

bkmk