Bookvica

[OPPRESSED WORKERS IN EUROPE AND THE USA] Podvig telefonistki i drugiye rasskazy [i.e. The Feat of a Telephone Operator and Other Short Stories]

Item #2743

Moscow; Leningrad: Zemlya I fabrika, 1925. 68 pp.: 4 full-page black and white ill. 20,3x14,3 cm. In original publisher’s illustrated wrappers. Loss of the pieces of the spine, wrappers worn, oil stains on the rear wrapper, but otherwise good condition.

Scarce. First and only edition. Text in Russian. Edited by Vladimir Popov-Shtark (pseudonym Vl. Aleshin), a prominent Russian writer, traveler, and educator best known for his 1917 “Boy Scout” manual. In the 1920s, he played a pivotal role in Soviet adventure literature, editing major periodicals like “Vsemirny Sledopyt”. His editorial career was ultimately crushed by the state suppression of private publishing in the 1930s. All subsequent attempts to return to his beloved profession ended in failure. Popov died in a car accident in 1942.
A striking example of early Soviet propaganda, featuring five short stories about the struggles and despair of workers in Europe and the United States. The book forms part of the series “Heroes and Victims of Labor”, issued in the 1920s (primarily 1923–1925) by the publishing house Zemlya i Fabrika (ZiF). The series brought together short stories and novellas depicting labor, social change, and the harsh conditions of the working class abroad.
The edition features a remarkable wrapper design showing a desperate telephone operator at a switchboard, a Black man looking out from a doorway, and an approaching flood. This striking cover directly illustrates the first of the collection’s five short stories. Set in a small New Mexico town, the opening tale recounts the tragic fate of Esther Rook, a 23-year-old telephone operator, who perishes in a flood caused by engineering negligence while bravely helping others escape. The second piece is a translation of Henry Newcomb’s Builders of Skyscrapers, portraying the perilous reality of America’s exploited laborers who risk their lives for a mere $27 a week. The third offers a Russian translation of Jack London’s “The Chinago,” a powerful critique of racism and colonial injustice in which a Chinese laborer, Ah Cho, is executed due to a bureaucratic error and official indifference. The fourth story, authored by K. Liazantsev, chronicles the life of Kostya Bozhko, a coal miner in Paris, and details the catastrophic explosion at the Espérance mines that claimed 127 lives after a worker smoked in a restricted area. Concluding the collection is a narrative set on a farm near Winnipeg, where the narrator survives a fall to the bottom of a well, miraculously rescued with the help of his horse.
The book is supplemented with four full-page black and white illustrations depicting the most dramatic scenes from the featured short-stories.
Overall, an interesting piece of Soviet propaganda and an early collection of short stories accusing capitalist regimes of worker exploitation and negligence.

No copies found in Worldcat.

Price: $450.00