Why? or, How a peasant got into the land of anarchy - Abba Gordin

Why? follows the travels of a boy named Pochemu - 'Why' in Russian - as he tries to understand the Tsar's empire, capitalism, state violence, and more. The answers his rapid-fire questions elicit, which make less and less sense the deeper he probes, are just as ridiculous today as they were a century ago, and just as descriptive of a society gone wrong. When Pochemu eventually enters the Land of Anarchy, he is confronted by his own strangeness to its citizens, who study the bizarre customs he brings to their free society. This is a timeless tale of the ludicrousness of power and its deluded defenders. In this fable, a child's innocent questions meet the lies used to justify a world of cruelty and inequality. The result is quasi-absurdist, political comedy. Abba and Wolf Gordin, Jewish anarchists in the Russian Revolution, wrote proletarian literature to enlighten and entertain. It's a genre that no longer really exists, but given this delightful book, maybe it should. Abba Gordin (1887-1964) was a witness to the Russian Revolution as a young adult. Persecuted under the Bolsheviks he emigrated to the US in 1927 and became co-editor of the Yiddish anarchist paper Freie Arbeiter Stimme. He is author of numerous works in Russian, Yiddish, and English. Wolf Gordin (1885-1974) was a prolific writer of literature and essays, with a special interest in youth liberation. He emigrated to the US in 1926 where he continued to contribute to anarchist periodicals.