Comrades

Fülszöveg

'Moynahan's spellbinding chronicles of Russia in 1917 - the year of Kerensky's fumbling provisional government and the Bolsheviks' October coup - ranks among the most vivid books to date on the Russian Revolution.'
Inflation makes the rouble worthless. Consumer goods vanish from store shelves. Street crime reaches record levels. The army is restless. Minority peoples strive to be free. The leader is a hero abroad but despised at home. His own ministers plot against him. A military coup is launched. It is so incompetent that he survives but loses control. The leader is Alexander Kerensky in 1917. Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.
Well before the Red October coup of 1917, the British secret agent Somerset Maugham warns the West that, for all his charm, Kerensky 'is losing popularity and it is doubtful if he can last.' For months before August 1991, word that Gorbachev is in serious trouble has been passed to the West.
The coup of 1991 is botched. So, almost, was that
of October 1917,... Tovább

Fülszöveg

'Moynahan's spellbinding chronicles of Russia in 1917 - the year of Kerensky's fumbling provisional government and the Bolsheviks' October coup - ranks among the most vivid books to date on the Russian Revolution.'
Inflation makes the rouble worthless. Consumer goods vanish from store shelves. Street crime reaches record levels. The army is restless. Minority peoples strive to be free. The leader is a hero abroad but despised at home. His own ministers plot against him. A military coup is launched. It is so incompetent that he survives but loses control. The leader is Alexander Kerensky in 1917. Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.
Well before the Red October coup of 1917, the British secret agent Somerset Maugham warns the West that, for all his charm, Kerensky 'is losing popularity and it is doubtful if he can last.' For months before August 1991, word that Gorbachev is in serious trouble has been passed to the West.
The coup of 1991 is botched. So, almost, was that
of October 1917, Lenin, though disguised, is recognized by opponents. His wig falls off. The Bolshevik military commander's car runs out of gas. The Bolshevik plotters fail to arrest Kerensky.
He drives away in a car loaned by the U.S. embassy. In 1991 the plotters seize Gorbachev but
fail to arrest Boris Yeltsin. Comrades, Brian Moynahan's penetrating study of the 1917 revolution, gives the events of that pivotal year the freshness of today's headlines. Vissza