Bandits and Partisans

Reviews / Votes

Bandits and Partisans covers the most significant anti-Soviet peasant rebellion in European Russia. Landis's account does it full justice, covering the political, military, and social dimensions of the insurgent movement and its suppression, and it will become the definitive work in English on this important moment in Soviet history. This book is an impressive contribution to the history of the Russian revolution and civil war, and twentieth-century European history more generally. It is superb history, superbly told. * Peter Holquist, University of Pennsylvania * A thoroughly researched and intelligently constructed book. The author is at his best in capturing contemporary voices that continue to speak eloquently nearly a century after the events. * The Historian * Landis has written what will be for many years the definitive history of the Antonov movement. In a work of prodigious scholarship, he has trawled the archives of both Moscow and Tambov to produce the first detailed account of Antonov's insurgency and its suppression. * Europe-Asia Studies * The definitive account of the Antonov uprising. Based on years of meticulous research in the archives, informed by a profound understanding of the revolution in the countryside, and passionately written in lucid prose, this is an important contribution to our understanding of the Russian peasantry and the violent early years of the Soviet regime. * Orlando Figes, Birkbeck College, University of London * This meticulously researched book does more than give a narrative of the Antonov uprising and its suppression. Landis's account offers new perspectives on high-level politics during the Russian civil war, the process of Soviet state-building in the provinces, and the nature of popular politics in the villages of Tambov province. . . . a sweeping study that provides a great deal of information. * Canadian Journal of History * Landis's book will be the definitive study of the Antonov episode. Based on wide reading in the archives and an impressive range of other primary and secondary literature, Landis has produced the most rounded account we are likely to get. * American Historical Review * This book has much to offer scholars of contentious political mobilizations, peasant rebellions, and insurgencies and counter-insurgencies, as well as those concerned with the reintegration of demobilized soldiers into post-war societies. * Journal of Social History * Landis has provided us with a new understanding of the Tambov uprising and he reconceptualizes the very nature of popular rebellion during the Civil War. This is an excellent addition to recent literature that is giving us a more complex understanding of the relationship between the population and the Soviet state and about state-building in general during the Russian Revolution. It is a stimulating read as well. * The Russian Review * an excellent example of how a solid grasp of the social forces at work can increase the value of wide-ranging archival research. * Slavic Review * Landis's work is a significant contribution to the history of the Russian Revolution and Civil War, and resistance to the Bolsheviks. Based on meticulous archival research, a complete picture of the Tambov rebellion is presented in detail with all of its facets examined. Bandits and Partisans offers the history of an under-examined movement that looks set to become the definitive work in English on the topic. * History (London) *