The Liberation of Albert Rhys Williams: 1918 and the Trip Home

• In Event: Americans in Revolutionary Russia: Three Visions of Freedom and Liberation

Abstract

American witness to the Bolshevik Revolution and lifelong defender of the Soviet system, Albert Rhys Williams (1883-1962), greeted the new year of 1918 in Russia just weeks after Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks had taken power. The year, 1918, marked some of Williams’ most fascinating activity in Bolshevik Russia. He spread Bolshevik propaganda among German soldiers and began his trek home across Siberia. After delays in Vladivostok and China, Williams set sail for America. In Hawaii and San Francisco, he faced the investigative powers of the U.S. government losing his papers and facing a subpoena to testify to Congress. By Fall 1918, Williams had returned to America, but his sense of liberation had been altered by the new restrictions he faced from the U.S. government as a suspected radical in the land of freedom.

Author

• William Benton Whisenhunt, College of DuPage