SOURCE: Williams, Gareth. “The Rhetoric of Revolution in Babel's Konarmija.” Russian Literature 15, no. 3 (April 1984): 279-98.

In the following essay, Williams investigates the influence of revolutionary propaganda and language on the stories of Red Cavalry.

The Konarmija stories are told against the background of the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-20.¹ The military engagements described took place in the period from 3 June 1920 (“Konkin”), when the 1st Cavalry Army broke through the Polish lines at Belaja cerkov', to 31 August 1920 (“Zamost'e”), when the Konarmija were caught in the “Zamość ring”.² However, “Konkin” and “Zamost'e” are not the first and last stories respectively. Babel' seems to have had no interest in describing the campaign of the 1st Cavalry Army as a sequence of historical events. Although the stories form a cycle which was carefully arranged by Babel'³ it is impossible to ascertain from the stories the main events and the main tactical and strategical...