Early 20th-century Russia suffered frequent revolutionary violence, including many bouts of political terrorism. As a leader of the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary Party's Combat Organization, Boris Savinkov helped organize and execute a series of notorious attacks, including two bomb blasts that killed senior officials in 1904 and 1905. During his various periods of exile and imprisonment, Savinkov also wrote fiction and memoirs describing the methods and operations of Russia's revolutionary terrorists and exploring problems with the representation of violence, the ethics of terrorism, and the subjective world of the terrorists themselves. Drawing on an unpublished introduction and annotations that Savinkov wrote in Soviet prison in 1924, this translation of his memoir (written 1909 but first published in 1917) is the most detailed personal account to date by a Russian revolutionary terrorist. Jonathan Daly and Scott B. Smith have preserved the matter-of-fact style of the original text, which juxtaposes violence and chaos with businesslike pragmatism as Savinkov recounts how he joined the Combat Organization, recruited assassins, and planned and carried out attacks. With a thorough introduction and detailed textual notes and commentary, Memoirs of a Terrorist by Boris Savinkov serves as a captivating read for general readers and specialists alike.
Jonathan Daly is Professor of History at the University of Illinois Chicago. He is author most recently of Seven Myths of the Russian Revolution and The Rise of Western Power: A Comparative History of Western Civilization. Scott B. Smith (1963-2017) was Professor of History at Linfield University. He is author of Captives of Revolution: The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolshevik Dictatorship, 1918-1923.
Preface Note on the Translation Abbreviations Technical Matters List of Maps List of Figures Glossary of Terms Key Personages Places Mentioned Chronologies Introduction Part One 1. The Murder of Plehve 2. The Murder of Grand Duke Sergei 3. The Combat Organization Part Two 4. Attacks against Dubasov and Durnovo 5. My Arrest and Flight 6. The Unmasking of the Traitor Azef Works Cited Image Credits Index
"This timely and authoritative translation joins a burgeoning field of research on Russian revolutionary terrorism, complementing recent biographies and critical analyses of Savinkov and his contemporaries. The first English edition of the memoir in nearly a century, it arrives with considerable scholarly weight."-Lonny Harrison, the University of Texas at Arlington
