China Miéville on the Russian Revolution

On the centenary of the Russian Revolution, China Miéville tells the extraordinary story of this pivotal moment in history, and talks about his new book October: The Story of the Russian Revolution

[@rubengivoni6823]

Reading "October" has been an amazing journey. Despite the sometimes painful need to search for vocabulary as I am not a native English speaker, I just wanted to thank China Miéville and everyone involved in this project for creating such an insightful book. As a young reader without much knowledge of the Russian Revolution, this has definetely granted me some very useful knowledge and tools.

[@jakubskonieczny5750]

Would you consider October very demanding book in terms of vocabulary? I'm also not a native english speaker, I tried few of China's work which wasn't translated into my langauge and I found it very difficult to read because of the vast ammount of unusual wording (and I tend to read in english but China is the only author with whom I struggle). Would you say it's on the same level of complexity (in terms of langauge) as his other novels?

[@rubengivoni6823]

@@jakubskonieczny5750 Unfortunately, I haven't as of yet read any other of China's works, so I can't compare it. Despite this, I do recall that I had to spend a significant amount of time looking up words. when I read "October", so I'd say it was rather challenging indeed.

[@etbadaboum]

Such a great writer. Perdido Street Station is so original, so different and impressive than so many other books released the last decades... Will read this one... eventually!

[@geriberiger5357]

Perdido Street Station is so different,very very good,a window to an another world.Love it!

[@holliswilliams8426]

I enjoyed Perdido Street Station. I read on his website that he has recently been having problems with people stalking him, which makes me sad.

[@dimepia123]

@@holliswilliams8426 lol no way... thats messed up

[@benthejrporter]

@@holliswilliams8426 The City and the City is another good one. It's a very unusual detective story.

[@Achrononmaster]

I love his take on how visiting St Petersberg forced him to go back to drafts. So writing history well requires a travel budget!

[@holliswilliams8426]

That's hardly a surprise.

[@wizardmanknight3147]

Wow. Two things that I love. The Russian revolution and China mieville. I'm super excited to read this book

[@eddieslorry708]

To my dear friend, Chris Dudley, this is for you xx

[@SafetyPropaganda]

There are many leftists worth a damn, and certainly Verso deserves every piece of derision that it gets (publishing Bratton's ode to technocratic biopolitical fascism is evidence of a very broken, middle class politics), but China is worth a damn and I'm happy to soon read this text.

[@MichaelFay63]

Kerensky was rescued from the Winter Palace by a Limousine from the US Embassy. He had been protected by the only loyal troops he had left. The young ladies of the "Women's Death Battalion"! Into the rubbish bin of History. Mind you he lived to be 93 which was a great achievement perhaps his only one!What a story!

[@NathanielDoherty]

What does it mean about fiction if it can reflect reality and be too 'on the nose'?

[@Achrononmaster]

Interesting on " it could have gone another way...". I think not, or not radically different, because the workers had the revolutionary mindset, the bourgeois did not the latter were about preserving status quo. They might have tried preserving the Russian establishment by escalating even more with force and state terror, but that would be even more unsustainable. In a sense that did occur under Stalin, but it did not last. The Stalin revolution was still paraded as a worker's revolt, even though it was almost the exact cruel ironic perverted opposite.
Now keep your eyes on the USA. There is a milder Progressive/Left mini revolution under way which the corporate Plutocracy are going to viciously fight in barbaric ways, through financial crime and MSM propagandists, but watch out, because the Progressives have a revolutionary mood that the corporate elites cannot hope to muster. In coming years there is a battle on in the USA between good kind hearted Progressives and thugs in the corporate establishment. Given the power of money I would not bet against the establishment triumphing before another financial catastrophe at their stupid thick greedy hands. But I thinks Progressives could triumph if more than one country shows that populist leftist policies can work, and if the Progressives stick to principles and eschew hatred and violence and lying propaganda.

[@brady1810]

I want to know China's view on the brutality of the revolution, on the primacy of hatred and dishonesty in it, more in view of later developments like dekulakization and the Terror famine that followed, in view of the slaughter in 1937 of the generation that ushered in the revolution, and the suppression of great writers like Vasily Grossman and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, etc. I want to know how China views the Bolshevik hatred of personal freedom. The revolution was certainly stunningly strange, full of deeply moving narratives, etc., but there can be no doubt about the magnitude of human suffering that it ushered in, there can be no doubt that Lenin was one of the most notoriously evil humans to ever be, no matter how pure his intentions or clear his vision. Marxism is despicable, if only in view of the suffering that its best exemplars (Lenin/Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, etc.) caused.

[@anonymousprole8367]

lol

[@BarbaraJoanneBJ]

Thank you. Millions upon millions of corpses.

[@Javier-il1xi]

Lmao

[@ghoulishfool]

@@anonymousprole8367 Would genuinely love to know what is so hilarious about any of that.

[@anonymousprole8367]

@@ghoulishfool LOL

[@victormagnum8359]

Clown

[@kurtzmenabrea]

China Melville he is a great person, as well as an excellent writer, he won't change a thing about this horrible ultra-liberal capitalism, but he remains great. An affectionate greeting from Milan Italy