Robin Walsh
posted 3 October 2007

The Time of the Rebels is an exciting book. It ought to be really; dealing as it does with the Eastern European ‘colour revolutions’ of the early years of the millennium; the consecutive ‘people-power’-fuelled toppling of post-Communist autocrats in Serbia, Georgia, and the Ukraine, that took place between 2000 and 2004.

Simplifying somewhat, each uprising followed a pattern. Isolated groups of students decide that their authoritarian and economically moribund countries need a change; they organise, at first with limited success, but always with a sense of humour and dynamism lacking in their opponents; the state begins to crack down, perversely strengthening the rebels’ position; finally, with the population radicalised, 'revolution' arrives and the government falls.

Collin’s success is to turn this (recent) history lesson into a thrilling narrative. Devoting a large chapter to each of the uprisings he documents, Collin’s style is that of a reporter; his writing taking a back seat to the opinions and observations of his obviously numerous interviewees. The anger, excitement and potential danger of the political conflict comes across clearly; you can’t help but cheer as Serbs tell of smashing into their parliament with a bulldozer, or feel angry about abuses suffered by campaigners and journalists. The book is packed with anecdote and argument, and provides a great snapshot of societies undergoing a political struggle.

There are limits to Collin’s hands-off, documentary style, however - the book can prove analysis-lite at times. One area where this grates is with regard to the role of foreign organisations and governments in the ‘colour revolution’ phenomenon. He reports at face value the claims from activists that the money was largely ‘irrelevant’ to their activities; and is scathing of the more hysterical ‘follow-the-money’ attacks made at the time. However, one doesn’t need to believe in a sinister conspiracy (or even that foreign involvement is a bad thing) to think it might be worth looking at in greater depth. Collin also doesn’t touch on why the US government, EU, and others (not generally know for their pro-revolutionary opinions) were so keen to fund these groups.

Similarly, whilst he does look at the attempted revolutions that failed around the same time in Belarus and Azerbaijan, Collin can’t really explain why these uprisings didn’t take off, whilst those in other countries did. He describes the important tactical failures of the Azeri youth movement, but beyond that, the conclusion seems to be that the Belarussian and Azeri governments were just more dastardly than their counterparts in Georgia or the Ukraine. The really important question – why did political and business elites, the police, and the armed forces switch sides to support the protestors in certain places and not others – is not addressed.

This crucial point – that ultimately these would-be 'revolutions' merely changed some faces around - is the third question that Collin can’t address effectively. In the Ukraine ‘dictator’ Victor Yanukovich ended up returning to power as Prime Minister under his erstwhile enemy Victor Yushchenko (who was famously disfigured by poison around the time of the Orange revolution). Similarly, in Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili, hailed as a Westernising reformer after the overthrow of Eduard Shevardnadze, has been accused of authoritarian tendencies and sharp practices in recent years. Why couldn’t these uprisings change anything beyond the head of state?

At least part of the explanation for the dashed expectations has to lie with one thing that Collin flags up as a plus – the cynical rejection of politicians and ‘politics’ by the youth groups. Whilst I can imagine some post-Soviet politicians aren’t the most attractive characters, the intentional evasion of coming up with a political programme beyond ‘regime change’ clearly crippled the ability of these organisations to continue further than this short term objective, and paradoxically allowed these same politicians, or others like them, to return to power.

All in all, Collin’s book is a good piece of journalism; as far as the ‘who-did-what-when’ goes, it is excellent. But if readers would like a bit more ‘why’, it might be worth looking somewhere else.

Robin Walsh will be speaking on the 'MySpace generation' at the Battle of Ideas festival in London on 27-28 October 2007.