The First Time in History: Two Years of Russia's New Life

by Anna Louise Strong, L. Trotsky (preface)

What was Russia like in the early years after the Revolution of 1917? How did Russia cope with the disasters of war? How did it recover? Who were the people, and how they survive and rebuild?“There have been many revolutions in history, each with its tragic dignity, its cruelties, its power released. But never has there been a great organisation, in control of the economic as well as of the political resources of a nation, planning steadily through the prose of daily life a future embracing many lands and decades, learning from mistakes, changing methods but not aims, controlling press and education and law and industry as tools to its purpose…. This is Common Consciousness in action, crude, half-organised and inefficient, but the first time in History.”“This is the Communists’ new Plan and the machinery they have to put behind it. Many more details of that machinery will be discussed in this book. Can they succeed? Or will private capital grow stronger and reach out for political power and secure it?”“The educational system is also a weapon, state-planned, to make the next generation efficient in serving the people. In the earliest grades they exalt labour and community service. In the children’s homes they are taught, first of all, to share equally with the others.”“So they discuss the conflict, hotly and openly. In all these discussions there is one thing that never is suggested. No one thinks of giving the Money Power of Russia into private hands, as it is given in every other country in the world. Which of the various state departments shall hold it, that is the only question.”This eBook of the 1924 edition, has been carefully edited for errors and is as true to the original as possible. [EDB Pubs]Text found was King Ay, Tut-ankli'Anieti’s successor, who buried our monarcli, for there, on the inner w^s of Tut'ankh*Amends tomb-chamber. Ay, as king has caused himself to be rcprcsentcct among the religious Preface BcenesJ, officiating before Tut-ankh-Amai—a scM^e unprecedented in the royal tombs of this nccropoUs*’’The same text after “It was King Ay, Tut-ankh-Amen’s successor, who buried our monarch, for there, on the inner walls of Tut-ankh-Amen’s tomb-chamber, Ay, as king has caused himself to be represented among the religious scenes, officiating before Tut-ankh-Amen— a scene unprecedented in the royal tombs of this necropolis.’’

212 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 3, 2023

About the author

American journalist and activist, best known for her reporting on and support for communist movements in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.