Bookvica

[RODCHENKO DESIGN] Narodnyye massy v russkoy revolyutsii [i.e. Through the Russian Revolution]

Williams, A.

Moscow: Gos. izd-vo, 1924. Item #1323

XII, 188, [1] pp., [11] ill. 20,5x14,3 cm. In original publisher’s constructivist wrappers. Modern spine and rear wrapper. Front wrapper is restored. Previous owner’s ink inscription on the half-title: “G. Rozhdestvensky 31/X/24“. Otherwise in good condition.

Second edition. First edition published earlier the same year.
With 11 black and white illustrations. Constructivist wrapper design by Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956). With a foreword by the American writer Upton Sinclair (1878-1968). Translated from English.
The Russian translation of the American journalist’s first-hand account of the Russian Revolution.

Through the Russian Revolution by Albert Rhys Williams (1883-1962), an American journalist and publicist, offers readers a first-hand account of the mass upsurge that culminated in the Bolshevik led seizure of power in Petrograd in late 1917 and the efforts to build a new social order in early 1918. Williams was an American socialist writer who went to
Petrograd in the summer of 1917 to report on the Russian Revolution for The New York Evening Post. Though based in the capital, he also traveled extensively across the
empire to observe the revolutionary process in the villages, among sailors in the Baltic, and on the military front. Together with John Reed and Louise Bryant, Williams witnessed
firsthand the October Revolution and the seizure of the Winter Palace. Williams became an active supporter of the Communists though he never joined the party either in the Soviet Union or the U.S. In 1918, under the coordination of Leon Trotsky, he edited German-language revolutionary publications aimed at German troops. Williams returned to the U.S.
later that year in order to lead a major political-educational campaign against U.S. military intervention in Russia. In subsequent years, he wrote multiple pro-Soviet works.

This account of the Russian Revolution, although sympathetic, reveals to a modern audience the inner workings of the Bolshevik Party, life in Petrograd and the countryside, and an optimistic vision of the revolutionary future. The edition consists of 4 sections (“The Creators of the Revolution”, “The Revolution and the Following Days”, “The Scope of the Revolution”, and “The Triumph of the Revolution”) and includes 11 black and white illustrations depicting various political leaders, prisoners in death trains, etc.

Shortly after the Russian Revolution, Albert Williams, along with John Reed, Louise Bryant, and Bessie Beatty, testified before an anti-communist committee of the US Senate (1919). In 1922, he returned to Russia and until 1928 traveled across the USSR, collecting materials for a book about peasants and observing the influence of the revolution on ancient manners and customs. The stories that originated from his travels were published in the magazines Atlantic Monthly, Asia, New Republic, Nation, etc., and, ultimately, resulted in the book Russian Land (1928). Williams last visited Moscow in 1959, at the invitation of the Soviet government, after writing a congratulatory article on the 1957 launch of a satellite. Albert remained a loyal supporter of the Communist regime until his death in 1962.

Worldcat shows copies of the edition in Harvard University, Ohio State University, and University of Chicago.

Sold