To the Finland Station
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
To the Finland Station is the most famous book by the American critic and historian Edmund Wilson. Published in 1940, the work presents the history of revolutionary thought and the birth of socialism, from the French Revolution through the collaboration of Marx and Engels to the arrival of Lenin at the Finland Station in St. Petersburg in 1917. The final section on Lenin, largely derived from official hagiographies of the Soviet leader, has been criticised as demonstrating signs of Wilson being a 'fellow traveller', which in a later introduction to the work he largely accepted. The book is a classic introduction (if from a liberal perspective) to the history of western Marxist thought and its application in the pursuit of social justice in modern Europe. A must read for those interested in twentieth-century Marxism, European history writ large, the role of intellectuals in the United States from the 1930s to the 1950s, and the possibilities of engaged literary journalism.
It is assumed[citation needed] that the title of the book also inspired the lyric '"From Lake Geneva to the Finland Station" in the 1984 Number One hit West End girls by the Pet Shop Boys. The band's lyricist, Neil Tennant, was a History student and has repeatedly shown an interest in Russian history in Pet Shop Boys songs and imagery. This reached its zenith with the band's new sountrack for Sergei Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin.
