Overview

Notebooks for the Grandchildren is an indispensable resource for anyone seeking to understand what went wrong after the great Russian Revolution of 1917. Through the eyes of young Ukrainians like himself, who came of age fighting for the Revolution but were murdered in the late 1930s, Mikhail Baitalsky recounts the Revolution's hopes-and its tragic unraveling under Stalin. He narrates how Stalin rose to power and carried out the ""political counterrevolution"" that silenced so many. Arrested three times by the Stalin regime, Baitalsky survived to tell the story of what happened.

Full Product Details

Author:   Mikhail Baitalsky
Publisher:   Haymarket Books
Imprint:   Haymarket Books
ISBN:  

9798888907870

Pages:   561
Publication Date:   07 April 2026
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Foreword Acknowledgements List of Maps and Figures Glossary Introductory Comments Yuula Benivolski Translator’s Note A Brief Chronology of the Russian Revolution and its Aftermath Translator’s Introduction Notebooks for the Grandchildren Baitalsky’s Introduction: Preliminary Remarks: The 1920s and the 1970s NOTEBOOK 1 1 Communist Youth League Christening 2 Our Jacobin Monastery 3 Were We Cultured? 4 Standards of Human Behaviour 5 Primary and Secondary Feelings 6 Husbands and Wives in the Communist Youth League 7 A Few Remarks about the Language of the Times NOTEBOOK 2 1 How It Was and How It Became 2 The Family of an Odessa Tailor 3 Ideological Commitment and Calvinism 4 I Saw My Homeland 5 Friendship with Grisha 6 Days and Evenings Without Romance 7 Cain, Abel and the ‘Platform of the 83’ 8 The View from the Window of Cell No.9 NOTEBOOK 3 1 I Make the Worst Choice 2 My First Arrest 3 A Year of Successes in Astrakhan 4 I Could Have Remained Silent about This Too 5 Features of the New Order 6 More about Boris and the Features of the Time NOTEBOOK 4 1 Holy and Unholy Work 2 My Second Arrest 3 ‘We Know All about You’ 4 Butyrka Humanism 5 Becoming Acquainted with Vorkuta NOTEBOOK 5 1 At the Brick Factory 2 Tents for the Condemned 3 Borya Elisavetsky 4 Vorkuta, Kotlas, Kirov 5 Russian Patriots Photographs NOTEBOOK 6 1 They Even Found Me Here 2 My Co-Butyrnik 3 You Don’t Get Something For Nothing 4 A Credo on the Subject of Wages 5 The Scream of a Woman in the Corridor 6 ‘Consider Yourself Lucky!’ NOTEBOOK 7 1 Distinguishing Padding from Content 2 I End Up in the First Circle 3 We Delve into the Psalms of the New David 4 The Cunning Machine of the Special Judicial Sessions 5 Conversations in the Main Alley NOTEBOOK 8 1 To Vorkuta for the Second Time 2 To Each His Own 3 Even Those Who Were Deported Are Voting 4 Joseph Rakhmetov 5 A Period of Camp Liberalisation 6 A Puddle With a Watchtower on Its Shore NOTEBOOK 9 1 Meaningless Yackers Fall in Line 2 Vorkuta– My Alma Mater 3 The Poisonous Weapon of Hushing Things Up 4 Love and Hatred 5 On Very Ordinary Honesty 6 I Hope for an Echo Translator’s Postscript Appendix 1: Timeline of Baitalsky’s Life Appendix 2: Baitalsky’s Other Writings Appendix 3: Baitalsky: Obituaries and Eulogies Appendix 4: Russian Government Archival Documentation of The Mass Executions February 1937–September 1938 Appendix 5: The Vorkuta Hunger Strike: What Russian Government Archives Have Revealed Appendix 6: The 1938 Executions of the Left Opposition Supporters at the Brick Factory: The Executioner’s Official Report Appendix 7: Excerpts from The Official Conviction and Rehabilitation Documents of a Leader of the 1936 Vorkuta Hunger Strike and 13 Co-Defendants Appendix 8: The Moscow Trials 1936–1938 Bibliography Index

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Author Information

Mikhail Baitalsky (1903–78) was born in a village called Chernovo in Odessa Province. He spent his youth in Ukraine – Odessa, Kharkov, and the Donbass – on Komsomol work and was imprisoned during the Stalin era (1924–53). His Notebooks for the Grandchildren, begun in 1958 upon his release, represents one of the major political documents of his generation of communist activists.

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