The Red Laugh was written in 1904 during the uncertain period following Russia's ignominious defeat at the hands of the Japanese It is the feverish and fragmentary monologue of a Russian officer, overcome by the horror of man's inhumanity and driven to seek refuge in insanity.Although self-consciously modern and sensational in style The Red Laugh has a disturbing and prophetic power which established Andreyev's reputation as a major European writer. 'I want to be the apostle of self-destruction. I want my book to affect man's reason, his emotions, his nerves, his whole animal nature. I should like my book to make people turn pale with horror as they read it, to affect them like a drug, like a terrifying dream, to drive them mad, to make them curse and hate me but still to read me and to kill themselves.' Leonid Andreyev