Red Cavalry

Russian journalist and writer Isaac Babel was what we might call embedded into the Soviet Cavalry during the Soviet invasion of Poland in the 1920. He was covering the war for an official Soviet Army periodical, Red Cavalry. Red Cavalry is a collection of some portion of his dispatches, not quite fictionalized accounts as well as his rough field notes. How many of his submissions never made it into publication or contributed to his murder at the hand of the Stalinist era secret police is a separate issue.Because the typical American history of the period tends to skip much of what was happening in Eastern Europe between then end of the Russian Revolution and the beginnings of World War II, I had no previous notion that the just defeated Russian Army had the time, or ability to wage offensive war outside of its boundaries. This war ended in a surprise defeat of the Russians, at the hands of the Polish. It would also mark the end of Soviet Russian efforts to spread the revolution via its own armed forces. Stalin and later soviet efforts would tend to use local revolutionaries and less direct methods of subversion.The dispatches in Red Cavalry clearly represent a time before the new Soviet government had fullyl centralized its political line. The soldiers knew they were supposed to be communist, but tended to behave as the Cossacks marauders that most of them were. As with many armies the troops had little understanding of what it meant to be a communist soldier separate from being an invader. Given the apparent determination of the native Polish soldiers to dispol and murder local Polish Jewish persons and property, the Red Cavalry could in some sense be seen as liberators. Isaac Babel was Jewish, a fact he had to be leery in sharing with his fellow soldiers. Also, he seems very unsure as to how he feels towards his fellow religionists as he moves through the various shtetls, of the burned down remains of them. From them, he would often find inspiration and well as extract food and shelter. Often the Jews are seen as weak and shameful to behold and then he would find a respected Rabbi or other place where he had to admit to his own identification with the war-ravaged victims of both sides.The representation of women is problematic. Babel took close note of the women who appear in several roles throughout the book. Often, it was the women, abandoned by their soldier men, or men avoiding conscription, who had to submit to the waring factors. At minimum food would be stolen and assault was so common that Babel reports an interest in going to see a woman who had been the target of multiple rapes. In particular, what was it about her that attracted so much sexual violence. Huh???He has lots of comments about the women, usually nurses that traveled with his units. In fact he also wrote about Soviet women at the front.This topic also tends to point out the non-sense in attempting to apply 2021 sensibilities to all prior authors. This was a man experiencing much of the worst of war. Prisoners shot in the back, all manner of wounds, rotting corpse and both hunger and greed driven “requisitions”. Babel was mostly assigned to headquarter units, but he would experience the invasion, attacks, retreats and bored as the but the vagaries of war placed him under fire, leading charges and falling back in exhausting retreats.From my read, he began as something of a believer in the cause of communism, gave himself over to the necessary costs of war, could be shocked at the casual and deliberate excesses of not just the common soldier, but admired leaders. Next one can sense his numbed to the violence, finding it almost banal. Then being exhausted to the point that he his beyond causes and only interested in a safe place away from fighting; back with the familiar and in going there, rejecting causes in favor of not having to kill for any of them.The presence of his filed notes allows a reader to better understand how he would write brief captures of incidents and people to later turn them into his articles. Even so the finished pieces can have a summary quality as if the writer sees what is revealed in the flash of an artillery burst, and has not the time to correct stark impressions with prosaic details.Isaac Babel is something of a first time for me to read into the literature of early Soviet Russia. Not exactly my first but at a level I cannot compare with others. For example, I have also read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Boris Pasternack, but these authors are not speaking to the same experience Babel is worth more reading.

“Red Cavalry” is a collection of short stories that offer a 'fictional' recounting of certain actions in the Polish-Soviet War during summer/autumn of 1920. There were a couple of times when I finished a story and had to put the book down for the rest of the day; parts of it are that intense. Not an easy read but very much worth it.Not all of the stories (or subject matter) are accessible, nor do they always make sense. The stories can also be difficult to follow at times due to the stream-of-conscious perspective of the narrator. While the occasional lack of accessibility and/or muddled relation of events sometimes make for a frustrating experience, those infrequent moments in no way diminish the overall impact of the Babel's writing.Particularly intriguing: the inclusion of draft-versions of certain stories, as well as entries from Babel's diary. Being able to engage the anatomy of a story in this fashion is both insightful and rewarding. The diary providing impressions and inspiration, the draft stories demonstrating what Babel had in mind, and finally the finished product, published in first the papers at the time and eventually in the collection in print today. Fascinating.Two thumbs up. Recommended for: those who enjoy Russian literature; history buffs with a focus on armed conflict after the first World War; anyone drawn to war stories; prose aficionados, especially those with a predilection for the poetic.“The morning seeped out of us like chloroform seeping over a hospital table.”“Pugachov raised his eyes, burning with sleeplessness, to the sky and shouted out his speech about the dead fighters of the First Cavalry, that proud phalanx which pounds the anvil of future centuries with the hammer of history.”“The fire of the sunset swept over him, as crimson and implausible as impending doom.”“The two phases of war. Our victories, the fruitlessness of our efforts, but the failure is not obvious.”“I can see the wounds of your God, oozing with the seed, the fragrant poison that intoxicates young maidens.”“Fields of purple poppies are blossoming around us, a noon breeze is frolicking in the yellowing rye, virginal buckwheat is standing on the horizon like the wall of a faraway monastery. Silent Vohynia is turning away, Volhynia is leaving, heading into the pearly white fog of the birch groves, creeping through the flowery hillocks, and with weakened arms entangling itself in the underbrush of hops. The orange sun is rolling across the sky like a severed head, gentle light glimmers in the ravines among the clouds, the banners of the sunset are fluttering above our heads. The stench of yesterday's blood and slaughtered horses drips into the evening chill. The blackened Zbrucz roars and twists the foaming knots of its rapids. The bridges are destroyed, and we wade across the river.”"You've had your feast, now pay the priest!"

An invaluable insight into the barbarity of the Russian revolution and particularly the impact on the jewish population. Harrowing, but enlightening.

In Russian so hard to read!!!!!!

it needs to be a lot clearer this is in Russian.The front cover is deceptive.

It should be noted that the author, Isaac Babel, eventually became one of Stalin's purged victims in the late 1930s. This book presents the author's own perspectives of some events he witnessed as a war correspondent for the Soviets during the 1919 - 1920 Polish and Soviet War. My grandfather fought on the Polish side so that Soviet perspective is of great interest to me. Highly recommended for those interested in an important war largely not known about in the West.

Unfortunately the book is not in the condition described. The whole back cover is creased as if it had been folded in half.