ABSTRACT
For both Szamuely and Pipes, the nature of the Russian state had been shaped by its geographical position. The nature of the Russian state, both Szamuely and Pipes argue, was instrumental in creating a revolutionary movement that was intent on bringing about the downfall of the Romanov state. The Orthodox religion was an essential concomitant of Russian autocracy: Russia's monarchs drew their authority from God and since Peter the Great's reign, the Orthodox Church had been tightly bound to the apparatus of the secular state with a lay official, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, acting as its most senior official. The experience of Russia after 1917 demonstrated a similar pattern of challenges to Bolshevik rule and intense debate about the direction that the Soviet regime should follow. The nature of the discourse on modernization changed with the October revolution, but the nature of the issues facing the new Soviet regime remained familiar.
