Robert Service, a lecturer in Russian history and biographer of Lenin, teams up with Vitali Vitaliev, a former Soviet journalist and author, to dissect Lenin's complex legacy. They discuss Lenin's role in shaping the Soviet state and the one-party regime, contrasting his mythic persona with his real character. Insights into Lenin's early life reveal the intricacies behind his revolutionary image. As Russia contemplates his burial, they explore how his ideologies continue to resonate in contemporary society, despite the removal of his statues across Eastern Europe.
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insights INSIGHT
Lenin's Mixed Heritage
Lenin's background included Jews, Swedes, Germans, and possibly Kalmics, challenging the notion of him as a purely Russian revolutionary. This complicated narrative was suppressed by the Soviet state to promote a Russian nationalist image.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Lenin's Childhood Behavior
As a child, Lenin exhibited troubling behavior, banging his head on the floor, which worried his parents. He was described as a selfish boy who didn't treat his siblings well.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Childhood Image of Lenin
As a child, Vitali idolized Lenin, believing he was a godlike figure. Nursery rhymes and stories often depicted Lenin in a miraculous light, establishing a cult of personality among the youth.
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This biography by Victor Sebestyen delves into the life of Vladimir Lenin, from his early years and radicalization following the execution of his brother, to his long exile in Europe and his return to Petrograd in 1917 to lead the first Communist revolution. The book highlights Lenin's complex personality, his relationships with his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya and mistress Inessa Armand, and his role in shaping the Soviet state through political terror and centralized power. Sebestyen uses newly available archives to provide detailed insights into Lenin's life and the Russian Revolution, portraying him as a sophisticated intellectual, a ruthless leader, and the precursor to Stalin's regime.
For some time, in some intellectual quarters in the West, Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov - also known as Lenin - was regarded as an understandable revolutionary, perhaps a necessary revolutionary given the actions of the Tsars, certainly a sympathetic revolutionary compared with his successor - Stalin. He became an icon in Russia - his body unburied, lying in Red Square in a state of permanent, imminent resurrection. The Russian Presidential Elections take place at the end of the month, and the Acting President, Vladimir Putin, promised that if he won he would finally take the body of Lenin from Red Square and bury him. But whether the country will be able to escape the extraordinary influence of the man, his ideas and his machinery of oppression is another matter. In his short period in power between 1917 and 1924 Vladimir Illyich Lenin invented the one party state, developed a model to export communism around the world and built a completely original political system that remained intact for over seventy years. What drove him and enabled him to achieve success?Robert Service, lecturer in Russian History and Fellow of St Anthony’s College, Oxford and biographer of Lenin; Vitali Vitaliev, author, columnist, broadcaster former Soviet Journalist of the Year.
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