The Russian Revolution

Fülszöveg

Photo híj Ida Kar
ALAN MOOREHEAD, anativeofAustralu^ went to Ens ana
in 1937 and became a foreign correspondent lor tlie London Dmhj Express. During World War II he won an international reputation for his coverage of campaigns in the Middle and Far East, tie Mediterranean and Northwest Europe. He was twice mentioned in dispatches and was awarded tlie OBE.
Mr. Moorehead, who is currently living in Italy with his wife and two youngest children (his oldest son is in school in England), is tlie author of many books: African Trilogij, Eclipse, a biography of General Montgomery, Tlic Villa Diana, The Traitors, Rum Jtingle, The Rage of the Vulture and A Summer Night. In 1956 his Gallipoli, an historical reeonstruction of the famous World War I battle of that name, received almost unprecedented critical acclaim. In England, the book-won tlie .Sunday Times thousand-pound award and gold medal and was the first recipient of the Duff Cooper Memorial Award. The pre-sentat^on of the latter... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Photo híj Ida Kar
ALAN MOOREHEAD, anativeofAustralu^ went to Ens ana
in 1937 and became a foreign correspondent lor tlie London Dmhj Express. During World War II he won an international reputation for his coverage of campaigns in the Middle and Far East, tie Mediterranean and Northwest Europe. He was twice mentioned in dispatches and was awarded tlie OBE.
Mr. Moorehead, who is currently living in Italy with his wife and two youngest children (his oldest son is in school in England), is tlie author of many books: African Trilogij, Eclipse, a biography of General Montgomery, Tlic Villa Diana, The Traitors, Rum Jtingle, The Rage of the Vulture and A Summer Night. In 1956 his Gallipoli, an historical reeonstruction of the famous World War I battle of that name, received almost unprecedented critical acclaim. In England, the book-won tlie .Sunday Times thousand-pound award and gold medal and was the first recipient of the Duff Cooper Memorial Award. The pre-sentat^on of the latter was made by Sir Winston Churchill on November

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
ALAN MOOREHEAD
The revolution that exploded in Russia during the last months of 1917 has continued to affect the entire world as has no other event in the twentieth century. In this magnificent narrative, the author of Gallipoli recreates the revolution and the years that led up to it as a moment-to-moment experience of almost excruciating intensity. At the same time, he marshals the myriad, complex elements of his drama with such clarity that the reader—even when he is most involved in the action—never loses sight of the total pattern.
First, Mr. Moorehead establishes his setting: the Russia of the Czars in the late nineteenth century; the spontaneous rise of the first liberals, whose gains were swept away by the wave of reaction following the assassination of Alexander II, emancipator of the serfs; the follies and failure of the Rus.so-Japanese War and its immediate consequences: the Revolution of 1905 and the catastrophe of Bloody Sunday; the stiffening of liberal opposition and, finally, not long before the outbreak of the First World War, the emergence of the New Man, the professional revolutionary, and of one New Man in particular: Lenin.
(Continued on hack flap) With 24 pages of photographs

(ContinuL'il from front flap)
To start witi), Lenin was by no means the most inHuential or trusted among the revolutionaries. Soon, liowever, he becomes an increasingly significant figure as, still in exile but circling closer and closer, he prepares for the (hiy ot" his return to Russia—with German money and in a German train.
Simultaneously, Mr. Moorehead unfolds the appalling sequence of events inside Russia: the Czar's growing absolutism, reflecting Rasputin's ascendancy over the unhappy Czarina, the open demands for reform on the part of many parliamentary leaders, the ferment of underground, and largely incoherent, political activities, involving rival revolutionary groups with opposing philosophies and theories of procedure; the hideous defeats along the German front; the spectacle of an entire society reeling on the verge of dissolution; Ra.sputin's murder and, finally, the bloodless revolution of March, 1917, the Czar's abdication and the first con-fu.sed but hope-filled weeks that followed, while the Provisional Government struggled to bring order out of chaos.
Here the two lines of force meet in an apocalyptic climax. The Provisional Government falters; its hold on the country wavers. And Lenin's train arrives at the Finland Station. Folly, ruthlessness, anarchy, opportuni.sm swell the tide of catastrophe. Ten autumn days—the days of the so-called "October Revolution"— sweep Lenin and the Bolsheviks to victory. There remains the humiliation of concluding a separate peace with tlie Germans. With the signing of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Mr. Moorehead's chronicle ends.
As drama, The Russian Revolution is tremendous. As narrative it is a masterpiece of organization and lucidity. And as the utterly objective history of events explosive with controversy, it is unique.
Mr. Moorehead's exposition of the true nature of the Bolshevik rise to power leaves no doubt in our minds of its impact on .succeeding decades. We see that from the Finland Station to Berchtesgaden and Buchenwald, to Korea, to Hungary is a very short, straight road.
JACKET HESICX BY RONALD CLYNE
No. 8384A

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