March 1917: The Red Wheel, Node III, Book 3, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
March 1917: The Red Wheel, Node III, Book 3
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Translated from the Russian by Marian Schwartz
The Center for Ethics and Culture Solzhenitsyn Series
University of Notre Dame Press, 2021
Foreword INDIES 2021 Finalist
The Red Wheel is Solzhenitsyn’s magnum opus about the Russian Revolution. Solzhenitsyn tells this story in the form of a meticulously researched historical novel, supplemented by newspaper headlines of the day, fragments of street action, cinematic screenplay, and historical overview. The first two nodes— August 1914 and November 1916—focus on Russia’s crises and recovery, on revolutionary terrorism and its suppression, on the missed opportunity of Pyotr Stolypin’s reforms, and how the surge of patriotism in August 1914 soured as Russia bled in World War I.
March 1917—the third node—tells the story of the Russian Revolution itself, during which not only does the Imperial government melt in the face of the mob, but the leaders of the opposition prove utterly incapable of controlling the course of events. The action of Book 3 (out of four) is set during March 16–22, 1917. In Book 3, the Romanov dynasty ends and the revolution starts to roll out from Petrograd toward Moscow and the Russian provinces. The dethroned Emperor Nikolai II makes his farewell to the Army and is kept under guard with his family. In Petrograd, the Provisional Government and the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies continue to exercise power in parallel. The war hero Lavr Kornilov is appointed military chief of Petrograd. But the Soviet’s “Order No. 1” reaches every soldier, undermining the officer corps and shaking the Army to its foundations. Many officers, including the head of the Baltic Fleet, the progressive Admiral Nepenin, are murdered. Black Sea Fleet Admiral Kolchak holds the revolution at bay; meanwhile, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, the emperor’s uncle, makes his way to military headquarters, naïvely thinking he will be allowed to take the Supreme Command.
PRAISE FOR THE TRANSLATION
The third volume of March 1917, now available in an exceptionally fine rendition by Marian Schwartz, is especially riveting. — Gary Saul Morson, “What Solzhenitsyn Understood,” New York Review of Books, May 12, 2022. Read the full review here.
A vivid and eminently readable English translation by Marian Schwartz. — Daniel J. Mahoney, “The Ideologues of March 1917,” Law and Liberty, October 12, 2021. Read the full review here.
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