Russia Leaves the War was published by Princeton University Press in 1956 and won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for History. It is the first volume of Kennan’s two-volume study Soviet-American Relations 1917–1920 and covers the period from the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917 to Russia’s withdrawal from the First World War via the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918.
The book is a masterpiece of diplomatic history. Kennan reconstructs day by day the bewildered response of the American embassy in Petrograd to the Bolshevik seizure of power, the attempts of Ambassador David Francis and his staff to understand what was happening, and the failure of the Wilson administration to develop a coherent policy toward the new regime. The American government was paralyzed by conflicting impulses: hostility to Bolshevism, desire to keep Russia in the war against Germany, unwillingness to intervene in Russian domestic affairs, and inability to comprehend a regime that operated by entirely different principles than those of liberal democracy.
Kennan draws on extensive archival research — diplomatic dispatches, personal papers, Russian sources — and writes with a narrative skill that makes the confusion of the period vivid and comprehensible. His portrait of the American diplomatic community in revolutionary Petrograd — confused, isolated, operating on outdated assumptions, receiving contradictory instructions from Washington — has the quality of a novel.
Collecting Russia Leaves the War
First edition (Princeton University Press, 1956): Cloth binding, dust jacket. National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $50–$150
- Without jacket: $15–$35
- Signed copies: $200–$400
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation. Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner.
1917-1918
Russia Leaves the War (1956) is the first volume of Kennan’s two-volume diplomatic history of Soviet-American relations, covering the period from the Bolshevik Revolution (November 1917) to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918). Drawing on extensive archival research, Kennan reconstructs the confused, improvised American response to the Russian Revolution — a story of missed opportunities, misunderstandings, and the origins of the mutual suspicion that would define the twentieth century. The book won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this still relevant? Kennan’s analysis of how great powers misread revolutionary situations remains strikingly applicable. The book’s insights about the difficulty of understanding foreign revolutions from the outside have been cited in discussions of every subsequent revolutionary upheaval.