November 1916

The month of November 1916 in Russia was outwardly unmarked by seismic events—in the author’s words, it “encapsulated the stagnant and oppressive atmosphere of the months immediately preceding the Revolution”—but, beneath the surface, society, from the Tsar’s bizarre and troubled court to the peasants, workers, and ill-led soldiers in the trenches, seethed fiercely. As no other could, Solzhenitsyn makes us experience the whole bubbling caldron. In Petrograd, luxury store windows are still brightly lit; the Duma debates stormily about the monarchy, the course of war, and clashing paths to reform; the workers in the huge and miserable munitions factories veer increasingly toward sedition. At the front, all is stalemate except for sudden death’s capricious visits, while in the countryside sullen anxiety among hard-pressed farmers is rapidly replacing patriotism. In Zurich, Lenin, backed by the smallest of all revolutionary groups, plots his sinister logistical miracle. With masterly and moving empathy, through the eyes of both historical and fictional protagonists, Solzhenitsyn unforgettably transports us to that time and place—the last of pre-Soviet Russia.

November 1916 is the second volume in Solzhenitsyn’s multi-part work, The Red Wheel, following August 1914. The final volumes will deal with March and April of 1917. Each volume concentrates on a historical turning point, or “knot,” as the wheel rolls on inexorably toward revolution.