Often reprinted with Dos Passos' other two early novels written between 1920 and 1925, One Man's Initiation: 1917 is a scathing indictment of the horror of war. As the "Great War" inspired much great poetry, including that of Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves, so did it inspire compelling prose. John Dos Passos volunteered to drive an ambulance in France during the First World War. The brutality of his experiences turned him against not only war, but capitalism, and inspired him to write One Man's Initiation: 1917. In 1928, he went to the Soviet Union to study socialism, and later became a leading participator in the 1935 First American Writers Congress sponsored by the communist-leaning League of American Writers. He was in Spain in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War, when the murder of his friend Jose Robles soured his attitude toward communism, and led to severing his relationship with fellow writer Ernest Hemingway."