Maksim Gor'ky initially achieved renown as a short-story writer and went on to become a prominent novelist, dramatist, and memoirist. During his career, which straddled the final decades of the old Russian Empire and the first decades of the Soviet Union, he was equally important as an editor and literary figure. An unofficial leader among Russian Realist writers of the early twentieth century, he assisted both established and younger writers in the years immediately following the Bolshevik Revolution. Gor'ky's political involvement brought him eminence and, at times, notoriety. He took part in revolutionary activities while still a teenager and was already closely associated with the Bolsheviks during the early years of their movement; however, when the Communists initially came to power he was opposed to many of their policies and spent most of the 1920s abroad. During his final years he published essays that strongly supported the regime...