The World on Fire: 1919 and the Battle with Bolshevism - Anthony Read

The World On Fire

For a guy with only a casual interest in history, I must say this was a dull and difficult book to read. I had thought it would clarify how Bolshevism came to be so feared. However, in spite of whatever facts within might be true, I was lulled to sleep all too often and had some difficulty keeping the trend going. Hard to recommend. Charles A. Reap, Jr., author, "Devil's Game," and "My Friend Sam."

'The World on Fire' Fizzles Out-

I was so dissappointed with this book.I thought it was going to be a juicy thriller timelining the Russian Revolution to vivid life.The author has no concept of the writings and philosophy of Vladimer Lenin.What the author has done is read a bunch of quasi-biographies of Lenin,and then rehashes them into this concise book.This book is for newspaper historians,who enjoy the sensational aspects of history.This is not intellectual reading for real thinkers.Now,if you're doing a grade school project for history class,this book may help you out.But,I feel the budding intellectual is really getting short-changed here.The best book about the Oktober Revolution crisis is still John Reed's ,'Ten Days that Shook the World'.That book is a historical gem,that still is enchanting reading today.This book,'The World on Fire',fails to explain why Lenin lumed the Soviet-Labour torch ,enlightening the peasant masses,all from Marx's revolutionary spark.And sheds no light,on why Lenin's fight for Bolshevik equality,was dashed by hard-line totalitarian stalwarts.

Poorly written and false account by a historian better suited to children's works

While I can surely appreciate a biased yet well-written account of the turbulent years of revolution after WW1, this one is very poorly written and researched.

The author writes mostly works for children and other non-historical works, and boy does it show!

As a serious sholar of Russian history, I found a multitude of falsehoods:

1) February revolution 1917-Read claims that the February revolution was not a revolution but merely the collapse of tsarism. Every historian knows that the collapse of tsarism only occurred because hundreds of thousands came into the streets and were willing to lie down their lives for democracy.
2) Rosa Luxemburg Her actions and deeds are terribly misrepresented here. She is categorized as a Bolshevik intent on replicating Soviet Russia. In fact, she was very seriously opposed to many methods of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. She was a determined revolutionary set on overthrowing Germany's republic but only by full support of the masses. Moreover, she was also clearly opposed to the foolhardy, premature efforts of Karl Liebknecht and his premature, unplanned eforts to foment revolution. However,she was unable to forestall events much like the Bolsheviks in July 1917.
3)The Brest-Litovsk treaty is portrayed as a shameful peace forced through by Lenin. On one page he claims that Trotsky was forced by lenin to vote for it. This is complete nonsense. All documentation and historian accounts record that Lenin was in a minority over supporting the peace. Only after, the party opted for Trotsky's no war-no-peace solution and this failed, did Trotsky(by prior consent with Lenin) change his vote. The vote in favor of the peace squeaked through my his 1 vote.
4) Invasion of British Embassy by Bolsheviks in 1918. Read makes this sound as some diabolical anti-Western, arbitrary gesture made by Lenin. In fact, Lockhart, British diplomat, was arrested for actively arming and supporting uprisings and assassinations. The embassy was raided to arest him. Surely no othergovernment inclusing US would tolerate this as well.
In terms of viewpoints, te author is so biased against anything socialist or Marxist, that he paints the Western governments as utterly righteous. In fact, they blockaded the Soviet Union fom receiving food or medicine, fomented revolt among the Czech armies.

In summary, anyone pro-Marxist or anti-marxist wishing to read a historian's account of events is recommended to stay away from this poorly documented, emotional account.

Is It Possible?

For a British book on the Russian Revolution and its international wake to be written by other than a crank Tory or Trotskyite? For the former you'll find scarcely better than this work By Anthony Read.

The author is a popularizer and childrens' writer, and it shows in the rigid moralism with which he (literally) attacks his subject. He writes of Bolshevik contempt for such "Western bourgeois niceties" as "truth, humanity, and honour," which fact may be true in itself but only puts Lenin and Trotsky in good company with Churchill and Clemenceau and Wilhelm II. In the name of Western Civilization these worthies tore Europe apart in the yet-worst war in human history, signed secret treaties disposing of other peoples' countries, and supported rearguard terrorism (Freikorps, Back & Tans) to keep their postwar remnants of "Western bourgeois niceties" intact. The affected condemnation of Bolshevik horrors struck many in 1918-19 as hollow and hypocritical coming from these worthies, even when the criticisms were factually true. The irony yet remains and is underscored unintentionally in Read's book.

I give it a second star, however, for its attention to sources and narratives. It will provide the general reader with a good introductory overview of this period - if s/he can avoid the moralistic sandtraps lining the author's course. Just be sure you're not paying full retail price for it! The best history of the early Bolshevik-era "Specter of Communism" haunting the post WWI-world is still David Mitchell's "1919: Red Mirage." Peter Hopkirk's "Setting the East Ablaze" is also good but focuses exclusively on Asia.

"The Bolsheviks are coming"!

This well-written book should be read in conjunction with "Savage Peace" by Ann Hagedorn, which I reviewed on June 28, 2007. They both offer insights into what was happening in the U.S. right after the end of World War I, and particularly the hysteria caused by the Russian Revolution. There are some of the same incidents in both books, but this latest one goes beyond happenings in the U.S., and gives us views of events in Europe, where the fear of a Communist take-over was much more reality-based. This was a very nervous time, and the author captures that feeling quite well. I learned many things that I did not know, not only about my own country, but about European events and countries. It only goes to show that one's education is never complete, particularly as it applies to history. I don't think that I will ever stop learning something new until I am, for one reason or another, unable to read anymore.