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Three Who Made A Revolution (Wolfe)

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Emil Pulsifer

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Dec 28, 2009, 2:22:27 PM12/28/09
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I just finished a great book by Bertram Wolfe called Three Who Made A
Revolution, a historical biography of events leading up to the Russian
Revolution(s) of 1917.

It appeared to me that chapters were missing at the end. The online
table of contents lays this fear to rest.

Nevertheless, the book ends in the middle of nowhere with a last
chapter called "Seven Theses Against War" which (the occasional look
forward notwithstanding) ends the narrative at September, 1914.

In this same chapter (p. 627 of my Stein & Day edition from 1984) is
to be found the following sentence towards the end of an account of
Stalin's uneventful administrative exile in Siberia during the war
years of the First World War:

"...we can leave Stalin out of our further story until 1917. His turn
will come later, and will be large indeed."

This, and several other remarks in the text, seem to promise much
greater elaboration on later events, but there is no such elaboration,
there are no such chapters, and there does not seem to be a second
volume continuation.

I actually have two separate questions:

(1) On the slim chance that anyone with knowledge of the writing
history of this book can answer this, did Wolfe plan either a longer
book or a follow-up volume, and if so, what stopped him?

(2) Did Wolfe eventually write any books continuing the story from
this point up through, say, 1924 or even 1922? And equally
importantly, if so, do they display the same erudition and
(comparative) objectivity of this earlier work?

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