To the Finland Station
Encyclopedia
To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (1940) is a book by American critic and historian Edmund Wilson
. The work presents the history of revolutionary thought and the birth of socialism
, from the French Revolution through the collaboration of Marx
and Engels
to the arrival of Lenin
at the Finland Station in St. Petersburg in 1917. The book is a narrative, not biographical portraits like Patriotic Gore
or Axel's Castle
.
edited.
The book is divided into three sections.
The first spends five of eight chapters on Michelet and then discusses the "Decline of Revolutionary Tradition" vis-a-vis Ernst Renan, Taine
, and Anatole France
.
The second deals with Socialism and Communism in sixteen chapters. The first four chapters discuss the "Origins of Socialism" vis-a-vis Babeuf, Saint-Simon
, Fourier
and Robert Owen
, and Enfantin and "American Socialists" (Margaret Sanger
and Horace Greeley
). The second group of twelve chapters deal mostly with the development of thought in Karl Marx
in light of his influences, partnership with Friedrich Engels
and opposition from Lassalle
and Bakunin.
The third spends six chapters, dealing two each on Lenin, Trotsky, and again Lenin. Important writings addressed include Lenin's "What Is to Be Done?
" and Trotsky's Literature and Revolution
, My Life
, biography of Lenin, and The History of the Russian Revolution.
The book also mentions Eleanor Marx
, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Annie Besant
, Charles Bradlaugh
and Gapon.
published a paperback edition in 1972. The New York Review of Books published a new edition in 2003, with an introduction by Louis Menand
.
Upon publication, TIME
said:
Edmund Wilson
Edmund Wilson was an American writer and literary and social critic and noted man of letters.-Early life:Wilson was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father, Edmund Wilson, Sr., was a lawyer and served as New Jersey Attorney General. Wilson attended The Hill School, a college preparatory...
. The work presents the history of revolutionary thought and the birth of socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, from the French Revolution through the collaboration of Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
to the arrival of Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
at the Finland Station in St. Petersburg in 1917. The book is a narrative, not biographical portraits like Patriotic Gore
Patriotic Gore
Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War is a history book of 800-plus pages....
or Axel's Castle
Axel's Castle
Axel's Castle: A Study in the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930 is a 1931 book of literary criticism by Edmund Wilson on the Symbolist movement in literature.-Contents:...
.
Form and Content
Wilson "had the present book in mind for six years," which Robert GirouxRobert Giroux
Robert Giroux was an influential American book editor and publisher. Starting his editing career with Harcourt, Brace & Co., he was hired away to work for Roger W. Straus, Jr. at Farrar & Straus in 1955, where he became a partner and, eventually, its chairman...
edited.
The book is divided into three sections.
The first spends five of eight chapters on Michelet and then discusses the "Decline of Revolutionary Tradition" vis-a-vis Ernst Renan, Taine
Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was a French critic and historian. He was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism, and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate...
, and Anatole France
Anatole France
Anatole France , born François-Anatole Thibault, , was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He was born in Paris, and died in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters...
.
The second deals with Socialism and Communism in sixteen chapters. The first four chapters discuss the "Origins of Socialism" vis-a-vis Babeuf, Saint-Simon
Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon
Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, often referred to as Henri de Saint-Simon was a French early socialist theorist whose thought influenced the foundations of various 19th century philosophies; perhaps most notably Marxism, positivism and the discipline of sociology...
, Fourier
Charles Fourier
François Marie Charles Fourier was a French philosopher. An influential thinker, some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have become main currents in modern society...
and Robert Owen
Robert Owen
Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...
, and Enfantin and "American Socialists" (Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Higgins Sanger was an American sex educator, nurse, and birth control activist. Sanger coined the term birth control, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established Planned Parenthood...
and Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley was an American newspaper editor, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer, a politician, and an outspoken opponent of slavery...
). The second group of twelve chapters deal mostly with the development of thought in Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
in light of his influences, partnership with Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
and opposition from Lassalle
Lassalle
Lassalle is a surname, and may refer to:Not to be confused with La Salle.* Ferdinand Lassalle , German socialist* Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle , French cyclist* Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle , Jesuit priest and Zen Buddhist...
and Bakunin.
The third spends six chapters, dealing two each on Lenin, Trotsky, and again Lenin. Important writings addressed include Lenin's "What Is to Be Done?
What is to be Done?
What to do? Burning Questions of Our Movement is a political pamphlet written by the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin in 1901 and published in 1902...
" and Trotsky's Literature and Revolution
Literature and Revolution
Literature and Revolution is a classic work of literary criticism from the Marxist standpoint written by Leon Trotsky in 1924. By discussing the various literary trends that were around in Russia between the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 Trotsky analysed the concrete forces in society, both...
, My Life
My Life (Leon Trotsky autobiography)
My Life - An attempt at an autobiography is the name of the Russian revolutionary Communist leader Leon Trotsky's autobiography. The book was first published in 1930 and was written in the first year of Trotsky's exile in Turkey...
, biography of Lenin, and The History of the Russian Revolution.
The book also mentions Eleanor Marx
Eleanor Marx
Jenny Julia Eleanor "Tussy" Marx , also known as Eleanor Marx Aveling, was the English-born youngest daughter of Karl Marx. She was herself a socialist activist, who sometimes worked as a literary translator...
, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Annie Besant
Annie Besant
Annie Besant was a prominent British Theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator and supporter of Irish and Indian self rule.She was married at 19 to Frank Besant but separated from him over religious differences. She then became a prominent speaker for the National Secular Society ...
, Charles Bradlaugh
Charles Bradlaugh
Charles Bradlaugh was a political activist and one of the most famous English atheists of the 19th century. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866.-Early life:...
and Gapon.
Publication
Harcourt, Brace & Co. first published this book in September 1940. Doubleday's Anchor Books imprint published a paperback edition in 1953. Farrar, Straus and GirouxFarrar, Straus and Giroux
Farrar, Straus and Giroux is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger W. Straus, Jr. and John C. Farrar. Known primarily as Farrar, Straus in its first decade of existence, the company was renamed several times, including Farrar, Straus and Young and Farrar, Straus and Cudahy...
published a paperback edition in 1972. The New York Review of Books published a new edition in 2003, with an introduction by Louis Menand
Louis Menand
Louis Menand is an American writer and academic, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Metaphysical Club , an intellectual and cultural history of late 19th and early 20th century America....
.
Upon publication, TIME
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
said:
Because it makes Marxist theory, aims and tactics intelligible to any literate non-Marxist mind, To the Finland Station is an invaluable book. It is an advantage that, like MiltonJohn MiltonJohn Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
with the character of SatanSatanSatan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
, Author Wilson is half in love with the human side of the curious specimens he describes.
See also
- Finland Station
- Edmund WilsonEdmund WilsonEdmund Wilson was an American writer and literary and social critic and noted man of letters.-Early life:Wilson was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father, Edmund Wilson, Sr., was a lawyer and served as New Jersey Attorney General. Wilson attended The Hill School, a college preparatory...
- Karl MarxKarl MarxKarl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
- Friedrich EngelsFriedrich EngelsFriedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
- Vladimir LeninVladimir LeninVladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
- Trotsky
- Babeuf
- Saint-SimonClaude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-SimonClaude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, often referred to as Henri de Saint-Simon was a French early socialist theorist whose thought influenced the foundations of various 19th century philosophies; perhaps most notably Marxism, positivism and the discipline of sociology...
- FourierCharles FourierFrançois Marie Charles Fourier was a French philosopher. An influential thinker, some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have become main currents in modern society...
- OwenRobert OwenRobert Owen was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...
- Enfantin