The First Blow

Nikolai Nikolaevich Shpanov was a Russian Soviet writer and screenwriter. He began publishing in 1926. He was editor of the journals “Bulletin of the Air Fleet,” “Airplane,” and others. A member of the Union of Soviet Writers from 1939, Nikolai Shpanov was the author of more than thirty books, the best known of which were “The First Blow,” “The Arsonists,” “The War of the Invisible,” and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”

Shpanov’s work “The First Blow. A Tale of a Future War,” published just before the war, in the summer of 1939, was advertised as “Soviet military science fiction.” But it was by no means intended for children. The book was issued by the Military Publishing House of the People’s Commissariat of Defense, and not just anyhow, but in the instructional series “Commander’s Library.” The book was meant to popularize our military aviation doctrine.