Tempting, newsworthy is a book just promised to U. S. readers by smart Ray Long who used to edit Cosmopolitan. In London last week Publisher Long said that he actually possessed a signed contract binding Josef Stalin and Maxim Gorky jointly to write a book for him.
Dictator Stalin will write the part called Russia Today (75,000 words). Novelist Gorky will edit these words and write the part of the book called Stalin's Life.
"Stalin will explain the hardships that have been endured in Russia" prophesied Ray Long, "and will tell what has been done and is being done to relieve them . . . But what perhaps is the most important phase of his writing will be his statement of the attitude of Russia today toward the rest of the world, particularly toward the United States, Britain and Japan. There will be quite a bit about Japan."
Particularly good this week seems the following crop of new books about Russia:* The Fall of the Russian Empire (which was enormously larger than the ancient Roman Empire) is a sombre stage across which Grand Duke Alexander, cousin and brother-in-law of Nicholas II, handsomely strides in his new autobiography. For several years "Sandro" (the Grand Duke) and "Nicky" (the Emperor) lived with their wives in adjoining suites in the same palace. In Alexander's book, already a best seller, there are epic passages of solemn grandeur and there is enough spice to suit spice-hounds.
Called by Russian socialites "Le Charmeur," Alexander is an ironist. What he offers to the U. S. public Once a Grand Duke (Farrar & Rinehart, $3.50), he undoubtedly means "Once a Grand Duke always a Grand Duke."
As a member of the Imperial Family, exalted and unassailable, Alexander in his youth went first to a particularly expensive U. S. daughter of joy in Hongkong. Later he "went native" in Japan, an incident which he relates with a flourish en passan, not forgetting to add that "elder [Japanese] persons" often stopped him in the street to inquire whether his "wife" was giving satisfaction. He says that His Majesty the Empress of Japan and His Majesty the Emperor, "Son of Heaven bestowed their mirthful benediction at Court Banquet upon his sowing of wild oats. They laughed, shrieked.
Epic, gruesome is Alexander's eye witness description of the death of Tsar Alexander II, mangled by a nihilist's bomb. "The Emperor . . . presented a terrific sight, his right leg torn off, his left leg shattered, innumerable wounds all over his head and face. One eye was shut, the other expressionless. . . . The agony lasted 45 minutes. Not a detail of this scene could ever be forgotten by those who witnessed it. I am the only one left, all he others are dead, nine having been shot by the Bolsheviks 37 years later."
Through this period of 37 years, spanned by Alexander's maturity, his life took course invariably close to the leading events in the Fall of the Russian Empire. At the last, when Nicholas II could no longer protect his own mother, Alexander took care of this old lady, the Dowater Empress Maria Feodorovna, who was also his mother-in-law. Favored by circumstances, he eventually got her and his own family (wife, seven children) safely out of Soviet Russia.