Customer Reviews

To the Finland Station

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This is the story of the journey of an idea - that of engineering a society conceived as an organism - from its roots in the romantic movement with Michelet to Lenin, the ultimate man of action, on the threshold of power. Only Edmund Wilson, whose erudition as an autodidact was unsurpassed in his time, could have pulled this off: the ideas and inspiration pulse with life on every page. You get to know Marx, ENgels, and scores of other characters intimately as they dream of building a socialist order that would fundamentally re-order society and its economy. WHile I was never a sympathiser for communism, this most certainly gave me a feeling for the seductive beauty of the dream. THere is even a forward by Wilson, who admits to being overly optimistic, that what he chronicled with such excitment actually led to "one of the most horrible tyrannies in the history of mankind." THis is intellectual history at its very best, freed in the hands of a master writer from the pedantry and puffery of academia, and unflinching in the audacity of its partisan interpretations. Also beautifully written, it is a window into the hopes and dream of the 20C.

Warmly recommended.

Edmund Wilson has undeservingly fallen into obscurity, but in the 21st century I have no doubt that he'll be recognized as one of the greatest of writers in English, and especially important to understanding the 20th century.The title of his book, _To the Finland Station_ refers to Lenin's trip to Russia, financed by the German government. It is a history of religious and secular communalist movements in America, and surprisingly humorous. Starting from the early 1800's to the Communist Party of 1917, Wilson's elegant study remains ever relevant.

Wilsons examination of Lenin is valuable even though it's too sympathetic. This is because at the time he wrote it (1930's) he wasn't afforded the needed documentation of Lenins murderous misdeeds...Wilsons portrait of Marx however, is without peers. He makes you feel like you're a fly on the wall of Marx's smoke filled study. He makes you feel like you're a witness to history. He makes complicated philosophic and economic issues understandable for the layperson. He gives you a roadmap as to how modern socialist/utopian thought developed, he traces it back to its source and he does it in such a way as to make the reader feel like an explorer. I can't recommend this book highly enough. It saddens me to see that it's out of print. This book is far too important to be out of print.

The American critical writer Edmund Wilson attempted in this book to give an overview of the historical development of socialism, or rather the many socialisms, until the 1930s. However, the result is a very mixed bag: sometimes Wilson reaches great heights, but sometimes it is bare nonsense too.

The best description I can give of the nature of the work is that it is very much a literary overview of socialism rather than a political-historical one. Wilson concentrates in all mini-biographies of early socialists as well as the pieces on Lenin, Marx & Engels on the particulars of their life. Larded with many details and amusing anecdotes revealing the personality of the main socialist leaders, this book is very much at its best when describing the human interactions between various socialists and the world around them, and in portraying how their ideas were formed by their life experiences.

The big downside to this book is, however, Wilson's complete lack of understanding of any theory whatever. He clearly has neither knowledge of nor interest in any of the real tenets of socialism, Marxist, Lassallean or otherwise, and has not taken any trouble to look it up either. The result is that the passages which mean to give quick overviews of the Marxist or Leninist positions on certain issues are almost invariably simplistic, confused and wrong. The worst example of this (as a prior reviewer also mentioned) is the chapter on the dialectic, which immediately reveals to the reader that Wilson didn't have the slightest idea what dialectics is, and the childish simplicity of his view on it makes one think he probably got his information from a dictionary or something equally useless.

For these reasons, it is hard to say whether the overall result is positive or negative. If you are looking for a good insight on the development of the theoretical aspects of socialism or the political issues of those times, absolutely do not rely on this book. If you are however interested in the personalities and life histories of the main socialists until WWII, then Wilson's book will be a high-quality, pleasant and sympathetic guide. If there were a 3.5 star rating, I would give it that; but I will err on the side of a positive review here since I suppose most people reading popular literature about socialism are not going to be interested in the the technical details of the theory, unless they are socialists themselves - in which case they should read Marx & Engels directly anyway.

One final word of warning: the introduction by Louis Menand is terrible, and is best skipped altogether.

It has been twenty years since I read "To the Finland Station", a story of the rise of communist thinking, from its earliest beginnings to Lenin's triumphal return to St. Petersburg. I don't recall much of it, except this: it is the best work of history I have ever read.

Anyone who wants to know what it means to be a writer should read this book, regardless of his or her interest in the subject. As night follows from day, those who are interested should read it, as well. It is a perfect illustration for one who believes that how a story is told is ever as important as the story, itself, and who wants to study an example where both are exceptional.

The content will prove valuable to anyone concerned with modern world history.

It has been several months since I finished To the Finland Station, and I'm still in awe of the scope of this book and its sensitive author. To the Finland Station is a world-class work of scholarly non-fiction. It reads like a novel partly because there are no endnotes or footnotes--though a handy index--but largely because the highly-perceptive writer, Edmund Wilson (1895-1972), mastered three elements of the novelist's craft: the narrative arc or rising and falling action, the reader's need for sensory language which shows the characters in action, and the relationship of geographic location to action and character. Through Edmund Wilson, we "see" Karl Marx courting his wife, the daughter of the Baron von Westphalen, in Trier, Germany; we "see" Lenin in a harsh Siberian winter, we "see" the cast of hundreds of thousands oppressed under absolute monarchies.

Keep in mind that the subtitle of To the Finland Station is "A Study in the Writing and Acting of History." This book is just as much about the historical actors as it is about Edmund Wilson's ability to trace the history of an idea. In order to understand the later chapters on Marx and Engels and Lenin, one must understand this "idea"--the main character of the book--and why Wilson begins his narrative with Jules Michelet and Giambattista Vico. Quite simply, Wilson wrote a modern history with which the world should now be familiar: that idea is that the development of democracy is inevitable, particularly because industrialization enabled people to organize based upon their economic class, which was partly determined by their relationship to industrial development. Edmund Wilson says that Michelet, who loved to read and write, was looking for a way of writing history that would account for how people feel about their lives, how industrial life, and the new, ugly slums affected the formation of nations--as well as the individual person. In a phrase--though I'm being very brief--thinkers from Michelet to Marx and Lenin were looking at ideas of human progress: how can people improve themselves, become better people, have justice served, what is the capacity for human beings to govern themselves, and what stands in the way of human development? What I'm writing here can't give you the beauty of Wilson's succinct prose, his ability to capture the essence of human history.

All my questions were answered by To the Finland Station: What were the working conditions for factory employees such that they had to revolt? How did rich people respond to these conditions? Was it inevitable that the Czar of Russia and his family be executed in 1917? What was Lenin trying to do that was perverted by Stalin? How or why was Communism different in Russia than in England or Germany? What is the difference between Communism and Socialism? Why do the people of France still seem proud of their 19th-century revolutionary history? How might Europeans today think of their history with each other such that the United States would be affected?

If you are not a specialist in 20th-century history, and do not have time to consult the original documents written by everyone Wilson mentions--from Giambattista Vico and Hegel, Jules Michelet, and Robert Owen to Karl Marx--To the Finland Station sorts it all out and sheds light on so much.

Months after I finished reading this book, I'm still typing up my notes on the sections where I left little x's in the margins to note areas of critical, topical concern. But knowing bits of To the Finland Station is more than about being conversant in American and European history; it's about knowing who we are and have been and where we are going. Wilson concludes: "To accomplish such a task will require of us an unsleeping adaptive exercise of reason and instinct combined."

I had decided to read TTFS because so many other books that I have read cited it as a good book to read. I have to admit with some shame that I had very little sense what it was about when I picked it up and began. Wilson starts in on Michelet and the history of the historians of the French revolution, and without really being clear what he's doing he drags the reader into the mindset of revolution and reaction that was current at Michelet's time. The great thing is that I didn't need to know what the book was about, I was hooked and willing to follow it wherever it was going to lead after just reading one chapter.

He explains just what he found so great about Michelet as a historian and then happily goes on to write his own history in the same style. As a reading experience, TTFS is by turns sly, informative, moving and funny. Wilson incorporates anecdotes from the lives of his history's characters, but I never had the feeling that he was distracting me with funny stories. I felt like I learned an enormous amount from reading the book, but I never felt lectured to. Best of all was the feeling of Wilson himself leaning over your shoulder commenting on the history-- I liked the tone of the man (critic) that came through as commentary on the people he was discussing. He was definitely present, though not intrusive.

The only thing I missed was footnotes-- the version that I was reading was old (1960) and there wasn't anything in the way of footnotes or bibliography provided. I hope that the newer versions are annotated, because it cost me some time tracking down books which Wilson was referring to.

A must-read.

It was Vladimir Nabokov who brought me to this book. The Russian immigre author of the delightfully written novel PNIN and of the sometime-banned LOLITA praised TO THE FINLAND STATION in his letters to its author, Edmund Wilson. Although I had already read Wilson's fictional MEMOIRS OF HECATE COUNTY and found it wanting in several respects, I hoped that his non-fiction work on the development of Marxist and Socialist thought would be far superior to his attempt at fiction. So how did I find the book?

First, let me emphasize that my reaction may be a reflection more of my own comprehension skills or lack thereof than of Wilson's skill as a writer. By all means, bear this in mind. I do find Wilson's skills as an historian most satisfactory. Thanks to his book, I have introduced to several philosophers and writers who presaged Marx and perhaps influenced him, as well as some who followed him, men of whom I had never heard before: Giovanni Vico, Jules Michelet, Ernest Renan, Hippolyte-Adolphe Taine, Gracchus Babeuf, and Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin, for example.

Other men I already knew by name and by some superficial history: Marx, Engels, Trotsky, Lenin, and Stalin. Thanks to Wilson, I now understand somewhat more about them, and a few bits and pieces, such as how Lev Davidovich Bronstein became Trotsky, and the descriptions of Lenin's boyhood, are fascinating. In a similar vein, I now understand the meaning of Bolshevik and Menshevik as well as their essential differences. In short, TO THE FINLAND STATION has somewhat improved my understanding of the movements that led to the overthrow of the last czar and the formation of Soviet Russia. On a lighter note, I'll also likely interpret the motion picture "Doctor Zhivago" more accurately now for having read Wilson's book!

My major frustration with TO THE FINLAND STATION lies in the fact that I have not come away with the knowledge that I should have, not because the answers are missing but because they are frequently difficult to pick out of Wilson's plodding, obfuscated rhetoric. His message, excellent and well-researched as it is, is weighed down by the incredible weight of his morphemes and his syntax, which too often combine to render his sentences all but unintelligible. I offer two examples from the book:

"It was probably the Jew in the half-Jewish Proust that saved him from being the Anatole France of an even more deliquescent phase of the French belletristic tradition." (301) I do not mind an author's sending me to the dictionary; on the contrary, I appreciate having my recognition vocabulary challenged and broadened now and then. What I do mind is, even after consulting a dictionary and returning to the book armed with definitions and synonyms, still not having a clue as to what the author is talking about! Now for the second example:

"Not only must Das Kapital, like Michelet's history, eventually break down as a Kunstwerk, because events will not accommodate themselves to its symmetry--since Marx himself became diverted while he was writing it into pursuing new researches into phenomena which were not allowed for by his original plan, but it leads inevitably to further thought and further writing--beginning with Engel's addenda to the later volumes, to the whole growth of Marxist thought since Marx's time--failing which, one may actually say, as one can say of few other books, that the original work would not continue to be valid." (322) Got that? Didn't think so. Perhaps Wilson could have communicated more clearly had he not written a sentence of precisely 100 words!

I suppose that I feel cheated because I labored from cover to cover in this book, re-reading many passages numerous times in a struggle to liberate their significance, only to be defeated by Wilson's elaborate and convoluted writing style. Part of the annoyance derives from the fact that, at times, Wilson can write clearly and forcefully. The passages on Lenin's childhood, which I have already mentioned, are a case in point, as is Appendix E, which essentially encapsulates several major points of the book in a summary of sorts. Had the entire book been written in such a forthright style, I could have derived far more pleasure and knowledge from it. As it is, however, I shall likely never attempt a second reading, considering the initial struggle required to persevere through all 492 pages.

If, good reader, you wish to know more about the historical evolution of Marxist and Socialist thought AND if you were able to breeze through the examples I quoted above with perfect comprehension, then I highly recommend TO THE FINLAND STATION to you. On the other hand, if those quotations were as much of a challenge to you as they were to me, then I suggest seeking historical knowledge elsewhere.

It is a singularly ironic fact that one of the most important books of the 20th century, written and published in 1940 by one of its most perceptive, intellectually gifted, and universally accepted authors, Edmund Wilson, would, until very recently, find itself sadly out of print. To my mind this is a scathing indictment of our current level of intellectual prowess. Or, perhaps it is more properly a reflection of the decreased public and academic interest in communism based on the collapse of the former Soviet Union as well as the curious transmogrification of China into some version of a politically correct socialist state practicing along the margins of capitalism. Yet in truth this book is such a marvel of intellectual achievement and writing skill that it should be read, if not devoured, by anyone with any serious interest in non-fiction writing as an avocation.

Edmund Wilson has suffered the same fate as the book, which is equally as curious. Of course, he was not as notorious as literary figure as one of his 20th century colleagues, H.L Mencken, who is still largely in print and in vogue, but Wilson so towers over all of his contemporaries that it is indeed mysterious that he has fallen into relative obscurity both as a writer and as a critic, as well. Yet Wilson was truly a renaissance figure, a gifted and talented poet, playwright, novelist, historian, and critical reviewer for a variety of magazines and periodicals such as the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and The New Republic, a man able to articulate his position with regard to a plethora of social and political issues with great power and verve.

Yet it was in tomes such as this that he achieved his greatest powers of exposition, in this penetrating, quite detailed, and absorbing review of all the chief philosophical, political, social and economic elements of the chief architects of the Soviet revolution. Wilson had been a great student and admirer of the collected works of Karl Marx, and brought his immense intellectual and reporting skills to bear in describing the men, the ideas, and the issues of the so-called October revolution of 1918. It is the single best source of information regarding all of the various components of the massively important revolutionary process, neatly synthesizing the ways in which the various personalities, political circumstances, philosophical predispositions, and historical happenstance combined in the moist unlikely of revolutions in what Karl Marx considered one of the least likely of states, one so rural, so backward, and so vastly composed of uneducated ragged proletariat.

And in this stunning exploration we find new reason to understand and appreciate the power of individual personalities in the historical process, and the way that exceptional figures like Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin, and the ways in which various aspects of Marxist theory were used and abused in promulgating what would become Soviet socialism's dogmatic approach to creating a worker's paradise. As we thread our way through the particulars of Marxian theory Wilson is so intricately familiar with, we begin to understand his fascination with both Marx's genius and the subtleties of Marx's exposition. Too many of us forget how bastardized and vulgarized the versions of Marxism promulgated by Stalin were, and how much they worked against the inexorable truths Marx found ticking away in the universal time-clock he saw operating behind history's time.

So, too, is Wilson's examination of Lenin a wondrous thing to read through, with his thoughtful if perhaps too sympathetic explanations of Lenin's goals, motives, and frustrations in trying to set the revolution on course and on-mark with the needs of the modern socialist state he envisioned to grow from the original seizure of power. Unfortunately, he never lived to see the radical experiment through to its fruition, nor the fateful poisoning of the spirit of the revolution accomplished by Stalin in his paranoid and sociopathic manipulations and purges. This is an absolutely magnetic reading experience, one that will illustrate just how powerfully and how memorably a writer with extraordinary gifts and an incredible intellectual acumen can be. I highly recommend this book for anyone aspiring to a serious education about the events of the 20th century, of which the Soviet revolution of October 1918 is certainly an extraordinarily important part. Enjoy!

Review written for and requested by Amazon.com "To the Finland Station"

4-1-2010. To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) [NY Review of Books, NYC, 2003, originally published 1940] is sub-titled "A study in the writing and acting of history". This great book is much more than that. It is more than the erudite succinct summary of European and later American history, more than an accurately cross-referenced interleaved review of the historiography of Western Civilization from Feudalism to the Fuhrer, IL Duce, and the Boss. The thread that runs through the book, in a sense, is the involvement of the `force or will' of Hegel and the `dialectic' of Hegel and Marx. The book definitively demonstrates several threads of the slow inexorable demise and dismemberment of Feudalism leading unexpectedly to the Leninist state. Central are the many philosophers, economists, and sociologists reviewed during the course of the centuries dealt with, certainly the flow of Western Civilization. "To the Finland Station" is an exciting narrative and discussion with surprise twists and turns that bring together the complex issues, priniciples, evolution, devolution, and revolutions that occurred over the centuries. It is one of Western civilization's great works in addition to our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence.
---Paul Shapshak, PhD