Russia in the Shadows
Russia in the Shadows is a book by
Wells portrayed Russia as recovering from a total social collapse, "the completest that has ever happened to any modern social organisation."[2] He minimized the role of the Bolsheviks in the fall of the Russian state, and presented this explanation of their success: "While all the rest of Russia was either apathetic like the peasantry or garrulously at sixes and sevens or given over to violence or fear, the Communists were prepared to act."[3]
In a chapter devoted to an interview with
While Wells in Russia in the Shadows, as always, rejects Marxism on principle (Das Kapital impresses him as "a monument of pretentious pedantry"[5]), he argues that "we should understand and respect the professions and principles of the Bolsheviki" in order to make a "helpful intervention" in Russia, lest its social collapse drag down Western civilization with it.[6]
See also
External links
References
- ^ David C. Smith, H.G. Wells: Desperately Mortal: A Biography (Yale University Press, 1986), p. 270.
- ^ H.G. Wells, Russia in the Shadows (New York: George H. Doran, 1921), p. 21.
- ^ H.G. Wells, Russia in the Shadows (New York: George H. Doran, 1921), p. 76.
- ^ H.G. Wells, Russia in the Shadows (New York: George H. Doran, 1921), p. 157.
- ^ H.G. Wells, Russia in the Shadows (New York: George H. Doran, 1921), p. 81.
- ^ H.G. Wells, Russia in the Shadows (New York: George H. Doran, 1921), pp. 175 & 178.