Etkind , Alexander Roads Not Taken: An Intellectual Biography of William C. Bullitt (review)

Abstract

SEER, 97, 2, APRIL 2019 380 of the book, he speculates about the loose relationship between his story of the communes and the revivification of revolutionary idealism in the era of de-Stalinization. There is a specific afterlife, too, with the term ‘kummuna’ occasionally returning to public discourse. Willimott has got close to his subjects and tells their stories with enthusiasm. He acknowledges that they are only a small part of the history of the Revolution, but he is not troubled by whether their experience is representative, precisely because they offer new stories told from unusual angles that illuminate wider themes. There is much for students and scholars to enjoy and learn from in this important book. University of Cambridge Mark B. Smith Etkind, Alexander. Roads Not Taken: An Intellectual Biography of William C. Bullitt. Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 2017. xiv + 290 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $24.95 (paperback). Deploying his talent for epigrammatic encapsulation, A. J. P. Taylor famously dismissed the roles of diplomats in history as merely what one clerk said to another. Alexander Etkind’s study seems to confirm this judgment, for it speaks of advice ignored, of roads not taken. But the book’s central theme is the wisdom and prescient of William Bullitt’s thoughts, which were not embraced by those in power who ‘preferred his company to his advice’ (p. 2). If only they had adopted his suggestions, then the world might well have been a better place. Etkind describes his book as an intellectual biography, aiming to concentrate on Bullitt’s ideas as much as on his actions. He builds his case principally on the Bullitt papers and those of his second wife, Louise Bryant (John Reed’s widow); Bullitt’s own publications, the volume containing his correspondence with Franklin Roosevelt, which is heavily mined; various secondary works on Bullitt and US politics and foreign policies; and a number of Russian-language memoirs and documentary collections. Bullitt was born into a wealthy Philadelphia family in 1891, graduated from YaleUniversityandspentayearatHarvardLawSchool.Heenteredgovernment service thanks to the sponsorship of President Woodrow Wilson’s close confidant, Colonel Edmund M. House, who helped Bullitt’s appointment as an assistant to the secretary of state. In 1918 Bullitt undertook a mission to meet Lenin and the new Bolshevik government of Russia, securing an agreement involving withdrawal of foreign forces in return for payment of Russia’s debt and independence for Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and other nationalities REVIEWS 381 within the tsarist empire. Wilson did not pursue the deal, causing Etkind to wonder how international relations might have developed had Bullitt’s deal been pursued. Yet this seems a rather optimistic reading of what was probably a temporizing move by Lenin. Angry and disappointed, Bullitt resigned and publicly criticized the ‘unjust decisions’ at the Versailles Peace Conference. For the next fourteen years Bullitt was out of public office. Etkind gives extensive treatment to Bullitt’s first novel, It’s Not Done, which sold over 150,000 copies, and his second unpublished novel, Divine Wisdom. The 1920s proved to be a period of emotional turmoil for Bullitt, who met Sigmund Freud and received therapy for his suicidal thoughts. The two men then collaborated on a book about Wilson that aimed to explain him in psychological terms. Although it was eventually completed in 1938, it was not published until 1966. Etkind speculates that the delay was because its appearance would have hindered Bullitt’s revived political career. In November 1932 Franklin Roosevelt was elected US president and decided to extend diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union, a move Bullitt had encouraged him to take. Bullitt arrived in Moscow as the first US ambassador in late 1933 with high expectations and a talented team of diplomats, including George Kennan. He departed in 1936 deeply disappointed by the failure to improve US-Soviet relations, disillusioned by the surveillance of the mission and its officials and shocked by the terror unleashed by Stalin. In August 1936 Bullitt became ambassador to France and immediately settled into his post, enjoying the social scene and the attention he received from prominent people. He sought to promote Franco...