On Behalf of Russia
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Information about On Behalf of Russia (1918), by Arthur Ransome.
On Behalf of Russia is Arthur Ransome’s 17th published book. This page contains publication, availability, background and contents information.
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First Publication
Published in July, 1918 in the USA.
Availability
In print as The Truth About Russia, in Six Weeks in Russia in 1919. Faber Finds (2010). ISBN 9780571269068
Background
By 1918 Ransome was an established war correspondant and political journalist for the Daily News, whose work was also syndicated to newspapers in the US. He had come to know many of the leading Bolsheviks making “friends with some and enemies of a very few“. In April, 1918, he agreed to write “a sort of open letter to America“, in the hope it might reconcile the West to the Soviet government, thereby sustaining the latter as an ally against Germany in the ongoing World War.
Ransome wrote the pamphlet, some 10,000 words long, in only 36 hours, in time for Colonel Robbins, the head of the American Red Cross in Russia, to take it to the United States.
Synopsis
On behalf of Russia has six chapters: The March Revolution in Russia; The Provisional Government and the Soviet; What is the Republic of Soviets?; The Constituent Assembaly; Peace Negotiations and The Soviet Government and the Allies.
