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[THE USSR’S PERCEPTION OF THE GENEVA CONFERENCE] Razoruzheniye: Stenogramma doklada o Zhenevsk. konf-tsii na partaktive Krasnoy Presni 31 marta 1932 g [i.e. Disarmament: Transcript of the Report on the Geneva Conference Delivered at the Party Activity of the Krasnaya Pesnya on March 31, 1932]

Lunacharsky, A.

Moscow: Part. izd-vo, 1932. Item #1879

32 pp. 19.3x13.5 cm. In original publisher’s illustrated wrappers. Tears of the spine, minor soiling, and darkening. Otherwise in a good condition.

Scarce. First edition. Edited by A. Bondarenko. The wrappers were designed by Yuliy Ganf (1898-1973), a Soviet graphic artist especially known for his satirical cartoons in the Krokodil [i.e. Crocodile] magazine. Born in the city of Poltava, Ganf studied in the Art Shop of Eduard Steinberg in 1917–1920 and in VKhUTEMAS (The Higher Artistic and Technical Shops) in 1922–1924. In 1920s, he produced political caricatures for Moscow-based magazines and newspapers: Krasny Perets [i.e. Red Pepper], Bezbozhnik [i.e. Godless], Krokodil, Pravda [i.e. The Truth] and illustrated books published for Detgiz Yuliy participated in the seventh exhibition of the group L’Agraignee at the Galerie Devambe in Paris in 1925 and was included in the major exhibition in Moscow in 1927 marking the tenth anniversary of the Revolution.
Transcript of the report on the Geneva Conference delivered at the party activity of the Krasnaya Pesnya on March 31, 1932, by the member of the Soviet delegation to Geneva Anatoly Lunacharsky (1875-1933).
The Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, generally known as the Geneva Conference, was held in Geneva, Switzerland, between February 1932 and November 1934 to accomplish disarmament in accordance with the Covenant of the League of Nations. It was attended by 31 states – mostly members of the League of Nations, the USSR, and the United States. The conference, which symbolized global co-operation to a combined goal of limiting arms and avoiding WWII, was generally perceived as a failure because of the onset of the Second World War and the withdrawal of Nazi Germany from both the conference and the League.
In the Geneva Conference, the Soviet Union was presented by Anatoly Lunacharsky, former People’s Commissar of Education (1917-1929), who at the time of the meeting held the position of the Learned Council of the Soviet Union Central Executive Committee. This edition, printed in 1932, is the transcript of the report on the Geneva Conference delivered by Anatoly at the party activity of the Krasnaya Pesnya on March 31, 1932. Lunacharsky starts off his narrative with the focus on the former Primer Minister of France Aristide Briand (1862-1932) and underlines his and his successor’s (André Tardieu) “evil plans” of exploiting the rest of the world. The text, which fully reveals the USSR’s international relations by the 1930s, is marked with hostile attitude towards France1 and Japan2. The author singles out both countries as the main protagonists of Imperialistic politics and highlights the concealed nature of the conference – to calm the masses while the bourgeoise countries prepare for the upcoming war.
Overall, an interesting insight into the USSR’S perception of the Geneva Conference.
1 The tough relationship between the USSR and France was largely caused by the disappearance in France of one of the leaders of the White emigration, General A. Kutepov, who was kidnapped, as it was established, by agents of Soviet intelligence and taken to the USSR. Paris vigorously protested the incident, but Moscow rejected the protests, citing the lack of evidence from the French side of involvement in the kidnapping of the Soviet special services.
2 Years long tensions between the USSR and Japan were due to the rivalry for control in Far East and Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931.

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Price: $500.00