Moscow 1937

A reissue of the famous book by Lion Feuchtwanger “Moscow 1937,” in which the writer describes his impressions after a trip to the USSR in 1937.

The author was shown model socialist construction projects, arranged meetings with people, and he was present at the show trial of Pyatakov and Radek.

“The air people breathe in the West is unhealthy, used-up air. Western civilization has no more clarity or determination… When you step out of this oppressive atmosphere of lying democracy and hypocritical humanitarianism into the clean air of the Soviet Union, breathing becomes easy. Here they don’t hide behind mystically grandiloquent phrases; here an intelligent ethics prevails… And the method they use to build there, and the material they use for the construction, are absolutely new. But the time for experimenting is already behind them. All around there is trash scattered everywhere and dirty beams, but above it all the outlines of a mighty building are already clearly and distinctly rising. It’s a real Babylonian tower—but a tower that doesn’t bring people up to heaven, but brings heaven down to people.”

Lion Feuchtwanger

The text is printed according to the edition “Lion Feuchtwanger. Moscow 1937. Report on the trip for my friends. Translation from German “Fiction,” Moscow, 1937.”

The book is supplemented with the stenogram of the report and Stalin’s concluding speech at the Central Committee plenum of the CPSU(b) on 3–5 May 1937.

Querido Verlag N.V.

Amsterdam

1937