"Lenin" by Victor Sebestyen
Above: Lenin - The Man, The Dictator, and The Master of Terror. Victor Sebestyen. 569 pages.
I wondered, while reading the Sebestyen's biography of Lenin, if it was a handbook for Bolshevik heirs, today's American progressives, to hold onto power. A careful reader of this book will easily recognize political tactics used by Lenin such as lying, intimidation, show trials, prison camps, assassination encouragement, etc. to hold on to power... all this accompanied by a Lenin-like, dogged, go-to-work-early, stay-at-work-until-late relentlessness in being committed to the mission. "There is nothing new under the sun."
I completed reading this book today.
Lenin was one of the most important figures of the twentieth century.
Lenin grew up upper middle class in Simbirsk, Russia. His father was a regional school administrator. Before becoming a committed Marxist, Lenin lived a privileged upper middle-class life. He hunted, he fished, and he was an expert at chess. He was radicalized following the execution in 1887 of his older brother, Alexander, who had been accused of plotting against the Tsar.
Sebestyen chronicles Lenin's school age affiliations with underground Marxist organizations. Lenin was booted out of the University of Kazan for his anti-Tsar leanings before being allowed to complete his law education at the University of St. Petersburg at the top of his class as the then equivalent of an online student. Due to his pro Marxist proclivities, Lenin was not allowed to attend class but could study remotely and take the exams.
Post-graduation Lenin worked in a St. Petersburg law office, but he continued participating in anti-Tsar, Marxist cells. Three years after graduating with his law degree, he was exiled to Siberia. His girlfriend, Nadezhda Krupskaya, also an activist, obtained permission to join him in exile, where they were married. Nadezhda was a lifelong supporter and aid to her husband in his revolutionary pursuits. Exile/prison seems to have been a necessary credential to be a full-fledged member of the Bolshevik revolutionary movement. Josef Stalin and other Bolshevik (Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharan) leaders also spent years in Siberian exile. I am reminded of former Trump acolyte Steven K. Bannon, who seems, drawing from the Bolsheviks' exile experiences, to be seeking a conviction for Contempt of Congress and a jail term in return for elevated Ultra MAGA status if Donald Trump retakes the US presidency. We'll see. Bannon was convicted today. I'm guessing he is hoping for some jail time to solidify is "take one for the team" bonafides.
Lenin went into long self-imposed exile in Europe, where he founded the revolutionary newspaper Iskra. Iskra was smuggled into Russia becoming a platform to unite Russian Marxists fellow travelers in Europe and Russia.
In 1917 Lenin returned to St. Petersburg, now Petrograd, to lead the first Communist revolution in history.
Lenin's closest relationships were with women: his mother, his aforementioned wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, sister Maria, and his mistress, Inessa Armand. Sebestyen's is one of the first detailed accounts in a full biography of Lenin's relationship with Inessa Armand, a French Marxist operative, whom Lenin met in Paris in1909. Awareness of the relationship between Lenin and Armand was long suppressed by the Russian Communist government and it has only been within the last twenty years that researchers have been able to access information about the relationship in Russian archives. Armand moved to Russia after the 1917 revolution and continued as a strong contributor to the Bolshevik effort even after Lenin's death on 24 January 1924. Interestingly, Nadezhda accepted Inessa's relationship with Lenin. The two women got along very well as team members in the revolutionary quest.
With Lenin's personal papers and those of other leading political figures now available, Sebestyen reveals new details that bring to life the chilling story of how Lenin seized power in a coup and how he ran his revolutionary state. Lenin cruelly authorized the deaths of thousands of people and created a system based on the idea that political terror against opponents was justified for a greater ideal: class struggle leading to socialist and later communist revolution...worldwide, not just in Russia. An old comrade that had once admired him said that Lenin "desired the good . . . but created evil." This included his invention of Stalin, who would take Lenin's system of the gulag and the secret police to horrifying new heights. An aphorism comes to mind. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
I wondered, while reading the Sebestyen's biography of Lenin, if it was a handbook for Bolshevik heirs, today's American progressives, to hold onto power. A careful reader of this book will easily recognize political tactics used by Lenin such as lying, intimidation, show trials, prison camps, assassination encouragement, etc. to hold on to power... all this accompanied by a Lenin-like, dogged, go-to-work-early, stay-at-work-until-late relentlessness in being committed to the mission. "There is nothing new under the sun."