Why did Russia, in its enlarged incarnation as the Soviet Union under Stalin, become one of the three most repressive and brutal totalitarian states of the 20th century (the other two being Nazi Germany and China under Mao)?

Three major explanations are usually offered, often in combination. First, the social-economic backwardness, including what Trotsky called the poor quality of the “human raw material.” Next, the autocratic historical tradition. And, finally, the attempted utopian transformation of a society guided by inherently unrealizable ideas – that is to say Marxism, or Marxism-Leninism.

The urge to modernize rapidly is often put forward to explain the character of the Soviet Union. But what equally needs to be explained is the very backwardness that created such an urge. And the Russian intelligentsia had long been preoccupied both with modernization and resistance to it.

Richard Pipes, a lifelong, distinguished student of Russian and Soviet history and political thought, considers the deep-rooted autocratic (authoritarian) tradition and its tenacious influence over the most important circumstance for understanding Russian history. He has been among those struck by “the resemblance between Communist Russia and Muscovite tsardom,” notwithstanding the technological advances of the former.

Mr. Pipes defines as authoritarian “a government under which the citizens surrender their political and civil rights in exchange for stability and order.” The more insecure and conflict-ridden a society, the greater the desire for stability and the kind of government determined to attain it by any means. In the United States being conservative means favoring less government, in Russia it has meant favoring more, he observes.

His concise and lucid volume, “Russian Conservatism and Its Critics: A Study in Political Culture” (Yale University Press, 240 pages, $30) seeks to explain how the autocratic tradition came to be established and has endured over the centuries (and continues in post-communist Russia). The thinkers and ideas that helped legitimize autocratic government, he claims, have been largely ignored until now by both liberal and radical historians.

Some of these include Feofan Propokovich (1681-1736), Nicholas Novikov (1744-1818), Michael Shcherbatov (1733-90), Michael Speransky (1772-1839), Nicholas Karamzin (1766-1826), Peter Chadaev (1794-1860), Konstantin Leontiev (1831-91), Konstantin Kavelin (1818-85), Boris Chicherin (1828-1903), and Peter Struve (1870-1944). (Some of these are “conservative liberals,” who believed the preservation of autocracy could be combined with granting civil rights and liberties to the citizens.) Dostoyevsky (1821-81) is also thoroughly discussed, given the political influence and relevance of his ideas.

Many historians and social scientists are drawn to some kind of a “functional” interpretation of the part played by ideas in history and in the creation of various social arrangements, Mr. Pipes correctly points out that “ideas … however unrealistic, influence public opinion and in some degree affect the public behavior.” Ideas themselves can become autonomous social forces.

As Mr. Pipes puts it: “socialism … did not grow out of socio-economic conditions of the age of high capitalism, but emerging as an idea in the heads of a few individuals, affected these conditions.” Conservative political ideas, on the other hand, were primarily the products of social, political, and historical conditions. These theories did not help to create and nurture conceptions of society as an entity separate from the state. Yet “political reality … received support from a variety of conservative theories that dominated Russian political thinking from the 16th to the 20th century.”

Another question often raised by historians is why the evolution of Russia diverged so sharply from that of other European states, and especially those in the West. Part of the answer is that Russia has never been a fully European country, neither geographical ly nor culturally. Secular political theory in Russia did not emerge until the 18th century. Russia did not benefit from the Renaissance or the Reformation – phenomena that in Western Europe promoted individualism, political pluralism, a sense of property rights, and a work ethic.

But, as Mr. Pipes points out, there are further, more specific explanations of why a country such as Russia was more likely to become (and remain) autocratic. As a large country, it had insecure borders, and so was exposed to foreign invasion. Such insecurity created pressures for a centralized government, and the state’s expansion by conquest created a diverse ethnic composition that added to the authorities’ determination to bring and keep things under control. Nor were 2 1/2 centuries of subjection to Mongol rule conducive to nurturing self-government, political pluralism, and habits of tolerance.

This slender volume is not merely an exercise in intellectual history of forgotten or (as far as even educated Americans are concerned) unknown Russian political thinkers. It provides an illuminating outline of Russian history, as Mr. Pipes helpfully integrates the political ideas with historical events and trends. The survey of these men of ideas also suggests, as Mr. Pipes notes, that Russia had “an abundance of original thinkers, many of them ardently committed to ideas devoid of any practical relevance – indeed devoid of any relationship to reality.”

Mr. Hollander is editor of “Understanding Anti-Americanism” (Ivan R. Dee) and the forthcoming “From the Gulag to the Killing Fields.”