Red Cavalry

The stories take place during the Polish–Soviet War and are based on Babel's diary, which he maintained when he was a journalist assigned to the Semyon Budyonny's First Cavalry Army.

During the 1920s, writers of fiction (like Babel) were given a relatively good degree of freedom compared to the mass censorship and totalitarianism that would follow Joseph Stalin's ascent to power, and certain levels of criticism could even be published.

On the advice of Maxim Gorky, the young Babel, his literary career only beginning, set off to join the Soviet Red Cavalry as a war correspondent and propagandist.

The violence of Red Cavalry seemed to harshly contrast the gentle nature of the young writer from Odessa.

In stories like "Gedali", the narrator is forced to confront his dual, seemingly contradictory nature as both a Jew and a fighter for the Revolution.