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[BOLSHEVIKS CONDEMN THE HORRORS OF WHITE TERROR] Kontrrevolyutsiya i yeye metody [i.e. Counter-Revolution and its Methods]

Bystransky, V.

Item #2264

Petersburg: Gos. izd., 1920. 16 pp. 16.1x22.7 cm. In original publisher’s printed wrappers. Light wear, previous owner’s pencil markings throughout the copy. Otherwise in a very good condition.

First edition. Written by the Bolshevik activist Vadim Bystryansky (1886–1940) in 1920, this is an intriguing work that details the atrocities committed by counter-revolutionaries.
The book, published at the height of the Russian Civil War, reviews the horrors of white terror and draws a parallel between the Thermidorians and the anti-Communist Whites, who “also came out of high society.” The author recalls the cruelties inflicted by the opponents, including persecution of Jews, executions without trials, torture, etc., and states that “Even the tales of the Red Terror invented by our enemies pale in comparison with the horrors of the White Terror.”
During the Civil War of 1917-1922, Russia witnessed multiple atrocities committed by both White and Red Army forces. The White Terror began after the Bolsheviks seized power in November 1917, and continued until the defeat of the White Army. Estimates for those killed in the White Terror vary, from between 20,000 and 100,000 people as well as much higher estimates of 300,000 deaths. As for the Red Terror, it was modeled on the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution, and sought to eliminate political dissent, opposition, and any other threat to Bolshevik power. Estimates for the total number of victims of Bolshevik repression vary widely. One source asserts that the total number of victims of repression and pacification campaigns could be 1.3 million, whereas another gives estimates of 28,000 executions per year from December 1917 to February 1922.
Vadim Bystryansky was a Russian revolutionary, publicist, and participant in the revolutionary movement in Russia. As a student of the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University (1907), he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party and became actively engaged in revolutionary activity. In the late-1910s and early-1920s, Bystryansky worked in the editorial offices of the newspapers Pravda, Izvestia VTsIK, Izvestia Petrosovet, etc. In 1936-1940, he was director of the Leningrad Institute of Party History and in September 1940 became a member of the editorial board of Pravda. Some of Bystryansky’s works of the 1920s were later banned, but he himself was not subjected to repression
Overall, an interesting condemnation of the horrors of White Terror and a curious piece of Bolshevik propaganda.

Worldcat shows copies of the edition at Harvard University, Yale University, Ohio State University, University of Wisconsin – Madison, and Stanford University.

Price: $350.00