Untimely Thoughts: Essays on Revolution, Culture, and the Bolsheviks, 1917-1918

One of the most renowned Soviet writers of the twentieth century, Maxim Gorky was an early supporter of the Bolsheviks. He became disillusioned with the turn of events after the 1917 revolution, however, and wrote a series of critical articles for the magazine New Life that eventually caused the new Communist government to close down the publication. Untimely Thoughts is a collection of these articles. It is at once a brilliant analysis of the Russian national character, a condemnation of the Bolshevik methods of government, and a vision of a future in which respect for individual accomplishment replaces the tyranny of the tsars and the brutality of Russian peasant existence. A controversial book, it was not translated into English until 1968 and was not published in the Soviet Union until 1989. The English edition of Untimely Thoughts is now back in print with a new introduction and chronology by Mark D. Steinberg.

One of the most renowned Soviet writers of the twentieth century, Maxim Gorky was an early supporter of the Bolsheviks who became disillusioned with the turn of events after the 1917 revolution. This brilliant and controversial book is a collection of the critical articles Gorky wrote that describe the Russian national character, condemn the Bolshevik methods of government, and provide a vision of the future.

"An important book of as much interest now as at the time it was written."Walter Laqueur

"Untimely Thoughts is now timely. Gorky's journalistic pieces are immensely interesting as a commentary on a period of revolution, turmoil, and violence and on the play of forces trying to seize control of the country in a situation close to anarchythat is, a situation very much like that of Russia today."Gary Saul Morson, Northwestern University

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Includes bibliographical references (p. xviii-xxxv, [243]-296) and index.