Guide Book for the Soviet Union Complete Edition

First edition guidebook to the entire Soviet Union under Stalin.

“The purpose of this Guide to the Workers and Peasant’s State is much wider than that of the usual Tourist’s Guide, for it is hoped that it will enable economists, men of learning and politicians, travelling in the country, to find and understand not only the valuable collections of works of art and science which have been so carefully preserved since the Revolution, but also the reforms and progress that the Soviet State can already show as the natural results of the first few years of Revolution. It is also hoped that it will prove an efficient companion to Workers and Peasants visiting the State of the Proletarian Dictatorship, – a guide through the historic places of the greatest revolution that the world has ever seen.” [Preface, V].

The voluminous guidebook to the Soviet Union was compiled by A. Rado and issued by the Society for Cultural Relations of the Soviet Union with Foreign Countries in 1928. Its 850+ pages contain a wealth of carefully curated information on the U.S.S.R. intended for an English-speaking audience. The book was designed to showcase the political, cultural, and industrial breadth of the Soviet Union at the start of Joseph Stalin’s rule and the first Five Year Plan.

Information on the structure of government (with special detail given to the rights of workers and the public economy) is followed by regional summaries of the various republics that include history, demographics, maps, descriptions of locations of interest, and much more. A fascinating read that reflects an ideal depiction of the Soviet state, intended to influence armchair adventurers in the United States and across the British Empire.

Source: Stalin’s Rise to Power 1924-1929 (Cambridge);