The Voice of the People

February 15, 2013

The voices of peasants and Red Army soldiers come out loud and clear in this wide-ranging collection of previously unpublished letters from the early Bolshevik era in the USSR. The letters were selected and compiled by A.K. Sokolov (Inst. of Russian History, Moscow) over ten years ago in this book's original Russian edition, newly translated by Storella. As the Russian village confronted the radical changes brought by revolution, many farmers and peasants made their thoughts known to Soviet leaders via the newspapers. Storella's translations make clear the strong feelings conveyed in these letters, the majority of which were not published in the newspapers to which they were addressed. Most were sent by ordinary readers to Krestianskaia gazeta (Peasant Gazette) in the 1920s and are held by the Russian State Archive of the Economy. The letters, in more or less chronological order, are framed here by Storella and others with extensive historical commentary. Those included are but a "tiny fraction" of the hundreds of thousands of such letters addressed to Krestianskaia gazeta and other newspapers. The letters reveal the tremendous difficulties--economic, personal, agricultural--faced by ordinary Soviet villagers. VERDICT As material newly available in English, this is recommended to all Soviet specialists requiring the translation.--Amy Lewontin, Northeastern Univ. Lib., Boston

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