Abstract: The article presents the work of a distinguished American historian of Polish origin, Richard Pipes, in the scope of the history of Russia and the initial stage of the Soviet Union existence. The author of the article develops a thesis that Pipes is one of the most important researchers of the Tsarist and Bolshevik empire due to his research skills, cognitive intuition and, most of all, great academic competence. The evidence for this statement is delivered by Pipes’s numerous publications, also in Polish.