Salisbury, Harrison E.

Black Night, White Snow; Russia's Revolutions, 1905-1917

Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1978. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. xv, [5], 746, [2] pages. Endpaper charts. Footnotes. Principal Personages. Source Notes. Sources. Notes. Index. Some foxing to fore-edge. DJ somewhat soiled, some wear and small tears to DJ edges. Derived from a Kirkus review: Once in 1905 and twice in 1917 revolutions swept Russia, major acts in a drama that finally brought Lenin's Bolsheviks to power. Salisbury tackles a rarely attempted comprehensive history of the period, beginning with the 1882 execution of Lenin's older brother Aleksander for participation in a revolutionary plot, and ending with the 1918 murders of the Tsar and his family. The title comes from Aleksander Blok's poem about twelve Red Guards tramping through the Russian night. Salisbury's ruthless, manic depressive Lenin is repeatedly contraposed to the pathetically incompetent Tsar Nicholas II. The Tsar, though well intentioned, is indecisive and often swayed by the advice of charlatans. One point is critical: although in 1905 and February 1917 Lenin is found to be almost disastrously out of touch with Russian events, Salisbury sees him as forcing the successful October 1917 coup "almost singlehanded." Salisbury's version of Lenin's role in the coup and his vision of the "dark people" will be debated by those who argue that the coup resulted from a series of accidental, unforeseen incidents, as well as those who oppose generalizations about national character. An appealing feature is the chorus of footnotes citing Roy A. Medvedev, dissident chronicler of Stalin's crimes, which satisfies readers' curiosity about the fates of Lenin's coplotters. Harrison Evans Salisbury (November 14, 1908 – July 5, 1993), was an American journalist and the first regular New York Times correspondent in Moscow after World War II. Salisbury graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1930. He spent nearly 20 years with United Press (UP), much of it overseas, and was UP's foreign editor during the last two years of World War II. Additionally, he was The New York Times' Moscow bureau chief from 1949–1954. Salisbury constantly battled Soviet censorship and won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1955. He twice (in 1957 and 1966) received the George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting. In the 1960s, he covered the growing civil rights movement in the Southern United States. From there, he directed The Times' coverage of President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963. In 1970, he served as the first editor of The Times' Op-Ed page and was assistant managing editor from 1964–1972, associate editor from 1972–1973. He retired from The Times in 1973. Salisbury was among the earliest mainstream journalists to oppose the Vietnam War after reporting from North Vietnam in 1966. He was the first American journalist to report on the Vietnam War from North Vietnam after having been invited there by the North Vietnamese government in late 1966. His report was the first that genuinely questioned the American air war. He wrote 29 books, including American in Russia (1955) and Behind the Lines—Hanoi (1967). His other books include The Shook-Up Generation (1958), Orbit of China (1967), War Between Russia and China (1969), The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad (1969),[4] To Peking and Beyond: A Report on the New Asia (1973), The Gates of Hell (1975), Black Night, White Snow: Russia's Revolutions 1905-1917 (1978), Without Fear or Favor: The New York Times and Its Times (1980), Journey For Our Times (autobiographical, 1983), China: 100 Years of Revolution, (1983), The Long March: The Untold Story (1985), Tiananmen Diary: Thirteen Days in June (1989), The New Emperors: China in the Era of Mao and Deng (1992) and his last, Heroes of My Time (1993). The 900 Days was in the process of being adapted into a feature film by famous Italian director Sergio Leone at the time of Leone's death in 1989. In 1990, he received the Ischia International Journalism Award. The destruction of the Czars which brought about the reign of revolutions from 1905â¬1917 in Russia looms as the crucial political event of the twentieth century. In little more than a decade the Romanov dynasty was toppled, and its time-honored institutions repudiated. How did it happen? How could Nicholas and Alexandra, the nobility, middle class anarchistsâ¬even Lenin himselfâ¬not foresee the catastrophic changes that were shaking the empire? Why could nothing be done? And why were the efforts so ineffectual? Black Night, White Snow captures the rich drama of this whole period. With the artistry of a Balzac, Harrison Salisbury exposes the strata of Russian society, with its decedents, prophetic poets, religious fanatics, and newly liberated serfs. From archival sources within the Soviet Union, interviews, and his personal photography collection, he recreates the story as it happened. Hard data on Russia's economy, a first-hand knowledge of the county, and a historian's gift of compression are combined in a fast-paced narrative that reads with the ease of a good novel and the urgency of a newspaper headline. Condition: Good / Good.

Keywords: Russia, Russian Revolution, Romanovs, Royalty, Lenin, Bolshevik, Kerensky, Eastern Front, Russian Army, Duma

ISBN: 0385008449

[Book #9688]

Price: $50.00