Revolution and the Fortune of War
On the centenary of the Russian Revolution, five books track its transition from idealism to tyranny.
On the centenary of the Russian Revolution, five books track its transition from idealism to tyranny.
Leo Steveni was a British officer based in St Petersburg at the time of the Russian Revolution. He became an active eyewitness to the chaos of the Civil War that followed.
The October Revolution of 1917 inspired a generation of young Russians to embrace new ideals of socialist living.
Underneath the sweeping history of the Russian Revolution is another story, one told through the lesser-known people, moments and objects of a world in transformation.
The Six Day War of 1967, in which Israel devastated its Arab neighbours, also struck a blow against the military prowess of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact satellites.
Michael D. Richards profiles the Marxist Revolutionary whose life was devoted to the Communist and Socialist movements in Poland and Germany.
It was Russia’s tragedy, writes Leonard Schapiro, that a greater man than Stalin supplied Stalin with the means to put his nightmare Utopia into practice.
The leader of the British Communist party, in reminiscence, described 1919 as ‘a period of golden opportunities’ that were lost by left-wing disarray. By David Mitchell.
Around the rising of the Paris Commune against the Provisional Government of France many myths have accumulated, writes John Roberts, which in varying versions have influenced all subsequent French politics.
Educationalist. Co-operator. Capitalist. Utopian. W.H. Oliver describes how Robert Owen was doomed to foster ideas and programmes which caused him considerable distress.