360 pp. "The part the native cavalry played during the War on the Southeastern Front makes a story of adventure which seems strangely alien in contrast to the many modern developments of modern warfare. These mountain men from the Caucasus, with their Oriental customs, beliefs and training made unfamiliar companions for the Russians, who nevertheless were respected and liked by their riders. A phase of militarism which has seen its day and now remains tinged with romance." "Sergey Nikolaevich Kurnakov or Sergei N. Kournakoff is a former tsarist cavalry officer who had immigrated to the U.S. and later became an ardent ideological Communist. Kurnakov was born at Aladino in the Russian Caucasus in 1892 into a landed family of Circassian descent. After serving as an imperial page under Tsar Nicholas II, he joined the Circassian cavalry regiment and served in Galicia and Romania during the First World War 1914-17, being wounded in the hand. He described his experiences in Savage Squadrons (1935). He subsequently emigrated to America and became a journalist who wrote on military affairs for the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) paper, the Daily Worker, and other publications. Kurnakov served as a courier to various Soviet intelligence sources, and acted as both a talent-spotter and a vetter of potential recruits. Kurnakov was a highly active liaison agent. He was accused of Communism in Time in January 1944 after teaching at a Russian course at Cornell University in the summer of 1943. He was posthumously named as a communist agent in senate hearings in 1953."
