The red heart of Russia by Bessie Beatty
"The Red Heart of Russia" by Bessie Beatty is a historical account written in the early 20th century. A war correspondent’s first‑person reportage, it follows the Russian Revolution’s upheavals in Petrograd and at the front, portraying workers, soldiers, peasants, officials, and the nascent Women’s Battalion as they struggle to define freedom and keep the revolution alive amid war. The opening of the book traces the author’s arrival in Petrograd during the white
nights of 1917, where ceaseless street debates, absent porters, and chance kindnesses lead her from a crowded station to an unlikely refuge inside the military-held Astoria. She sketches the political landscape as the Root Mission arrives: competing visions of “freedom” from intellectuals, peasants, workers, and soldiers; the Soviet’s growing primacy; Allied aims versus German propaganda; and Kerensky’s precarious push for a July offensive. She then travels to the front with an interpreter, meeting a stream of exhausted soldiers on the trains, touring forest trenches and observation posts, witnessing raids, air alarms, and the corrosive effect of leaflets, and spending rain-soaked days in a field hospital where the war’s reality is seen in shattered bodies, quiet heroism, and a peasant boy’s funeral. Finally, the narrative pivots to the seed of the Women’s Battalion of Death, introduced through the grief of a Siberian shopkeeper, signaling the book’s turn to the astonishing phenomenon of organized women soldiers. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Beatty, Bessie, 1886-1947 |
|---|---|
| LoC No. | 18018471 |
| Title | The red heart of Russia |
| Original Publication | New York: The Century co., 1918. |
| Contents | Three good samaritans -- Diplomats: official and otherwise -- Irreconcilable bed-fellows -- Specks on the horizon -- The Battalion of Death -- In the hollow of their hand -- Old rivers and new doctrines -- The man on horseback -- The Centrabalt makes an exception -- The rise of the proletariat -- The fall of the Winter Palace -- The day of shame -- The grave of hope -- Mother Moscow weeps -- Blasting at the established order -- In place of the guillotine -- The great gray wolf -- Tsars and peasants -- Women in the revolution -- Revolution takes a holiday -- On the rocks of uncompromise -- The intelligentzia objects -- The great betrayal -- A message to Mars. |
| Credits | Alan, Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | DK: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Russia, Former Soviet Republics, Poland |
| Subject | Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921 |
| Subject | Saint Petersburg (Russia) -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921 |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 77955 |
| Release Date | Feb 16, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 271 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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