How It All Began: The Prison Novel - Softcover

Bukharin, Nikolai

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0231107315 ISBN 13: 9780231107310

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 1999

Synopsis

How it All Began The autobiographical novel and final work of one of the Communist Party's youngest, most popular, and most intellectual members is both an astonishing personal testament and a panoramic view of Russia on the eve of a revolution that transformed the twentieth century. Full description

About this title

Review:

No one reading this book in context can fail to be moved by its author's valiant struggle to behold his life one last time.--Los Angeles Times

A moving personal statement about art and political responsibility, and an epic retelling of the era preceding the Revolution of 1917.--Globe and Mail, Toronto

Vivid testimony to [Bukharin's] artistic talent...Intensely emotional, essentially optimistic and filled with a serene inner light.--Washington Post Book World

From the Back Cover:

Here at last in English is Nikolai Bukharin's autobiographical novel and final work. At once novel, memoir, political apology, and historical document, How It All Began, known in Russia as "the prison novel", adds greatly to our understanding of this vital intellectual and maligned historical figure. In the 1920s and '30s, he defended Lenin's liberal New Economic Policy, claiming that Stalin's policies of forced industrialization constituted a "military-feudal exploitation" of the masses. He also warned of the approaching tide of European fascism and its threat to the new Bolshevik revolution. For his opposition, Bukharin paid with his freedom and his life. While in prison, Bukharin wrote four books, of which this unfinished novel was the last. It traces the development of Nikolai "Kolya" Petrov (closely modeled on Nikolai "Kolya" Bukharin) from his early childhood to age fifteen. In lyrical and poetic terms, it paints a picture of Nikolai's growing political consciousness and ends with his activism on the eve of the failed 1905 revolution. The novel is presented here along with the only surviving letter from Bukharin to his wife during his time in prison, an epistle filled with fear, longing, and hope for his family and his nation.

About this edition

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0231107315
• ISBN 13: 9780231107310
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416