Max Weber's writings on Russia have not the reputation of being the peak of his scholarship. Nevertheless they are regarded as a still basically true representation of the Russian predicament, with its obstacles for a normal route to modernity, although Weber's characterization of the Russian Revolution as conducted by “a local sect” might appear as an exaggeration even after die Wende and the implosion of the Soviet Empire. Seventy years is a short period in history. Weber dealt with Russian affairs both 1905– 6 and 1917– 18. His main concern was Germany's security policy but he also felt that constitutional issues were crucial. In fact Wilhelmine Germany and Czarist Russia had a common problem of pseudo- constitutionalism and transformation. According to, among others, Wolfgang J. Mommsen, outmoded forms of state were a main cause for the outbreak of World War I, a tragedy out of control, like a downhill rolling snowball, both Germany and Russia as nonrational actors,

Weber's interests were thus both geostrategic and domestic. Germany experienced itself as encircled by enemies. The eastern border was a soft one, due to a lack of ethnic homogeneity (see Weber 1895).

In an ad hoc speech at the Weber centennial in Heidelberg in 1964, Max Horkheimer recalled how disappointed he was over Weber lecturing on the Russian Revolution, without any indications about what he would advise students to do in their search for policy orientation in turbulent days:

Reactions from students in search of guidance were like this when Weber delivered his “Politik als Beruf ” in early 1919. In this popular lecture Weber touched upon the Russian situation. Those in search for “total reason” were not satisfied by the Weberian distinction between science and politics.