Gorky, Maxim

Nesvoevremennye mysli: Stat'i 1917-1918 gg. [Untimely Thoughts: Articles 1917–1918]

Paris: Editions de la Seine, 1971. Item #1462

Glossy printed wrappers; 18 cm; 304 pages. Compiled, introduced, and annotated by G. Ermolaev. A copy with light age wear and foxing to wrappers, minor creasing to lower corner.

An émigré reprint of Gorky’s fiercely anti-Bolshevik articles published initially in Novaia zhizn’ ("New Life"), the Petrograd newspaper edited by Gorky in 1917–1918. This was the most prolific period of Gorky’s political journalism. The newspaper, aligned with the anti-Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Democrats (including A. Tikhonov, N. Sukhanov, and V. Desnitsky), was shut down in early 1918, briefly reopened under Gorky's advocacy, and permanently closed by Lenin in July of that year.

This Paris edition was edited by renowned scholar G. Ermolaev (1924–2019), a Princeton University professor and author of numerous works on Sholokhov and Solzhenitsyn. It is widely believed that this book was printed in Belgium under CIA sponsorship for clandestine distribution in the Soviet Union. Though bearing the imprint of the fictional publisher Editions de la Seine, it was never available for public sale. Print run: no more than 1,000 copies.

Price: $50.00