Michael Farbman

Michael S. Farbman (also known as Grisha; – 27 May 1933) was a Russian journalist, writer and publisher of books. He was London correspondent for the Russian Bourse Gazette in the early part of the First World War and returned to Russia in April 1917 to cover the aftermath of the February Revolution for the Manchester Guardian, becoming the first correspondent with connections to the British Press to cover it from Russia. Farbman was in New York in 1918 as correspondent for Maxim Gorky's Novaya Zhizn pro-Menshevik newspaper, and wrote to oppose the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. Returning to Russia, he was one of the first correspondents with connections to the British Press to cover the early stages of the Russian Civil War. He published a number of books on post-revolution Russia and his study on the first five-year plan was particularly popular in the United States. Farbman was manager of the Europa book publishing firm and established the Europa Annual, intended to bring coverage of political and economic matters to the masses.

Biography Michael S. Farbman was born in Russia around 1880, he was also known as "Grisha". He studied at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the University of Zurich. In the years leading up to the First World War, he worked as a book publisher in Russia, printing a number of classic works of literature from across the world. Farbman travelled to London in 1915 to work as a correspondent for the Bourse Gazette of Petrograd.

Farbman returned to Petrograd in April 1917 as a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian. Farbman reached the city at around the same time as Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. He reported on the panic in the city caused by Lenin's arrival. His reports were noted by The Observer as "one of the outstanding successes of the time in special correspondence". He wrote articles in newspapers to oppose the proposed Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. A reviewer for the Evening News said "I would make Michael S. Farbman's Russia and the Struggle for Peace compulsory in all schools ... we here learn the actual truth for the first time about the Revolution". Farbman's Bolshevism in Retreat was published in London in 1923 and his After Lenin: The New Phase in Russia was published the following year.

He often travelled to the USSR, though by 1928 lived in London with his wife Sonia Issayevna and their daughter Ghita. It proved very popular in the United States. Farbman also established the Europa Annual, intended to bring coverage of political and economic matters to the masses, and edited the Europa Survey. Farbman died at University College Hospital, London, on 27 May 1933 after a long illness. In 1940, Farbman was mentioned in the United States Congress by Representative for Montana Jacob Thorkelson as a possible "subversive" who had operated in the West.