Product Description

Lenin is a colossal figure whose influence on twentieth-century history cannot be underestimated. Robert Service has written a calmly authoritative biography on this seemingly unknowable figure. Making use of recently opened archives, he has been able to piece together the private as well as the public life, giving the first complete picture of Lenin.

This biography simultaneously provides an account of one of the greatest turning points in modern history. Through the prism of Lenin's career, Service examines events such as the October Revolution and the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, the one-party state, economic modernisation, dictatorship, and the politics of inter-war Europe. In discovering the origins of the USSR, he casts light on the nature of the state and society which Lenin left behind and which have not entirely disappeared after the collapse of the Soviet regime in 1991.

'Immensely scholarly but also vivid and readable. This is a splendid book, much the best that I have ever read about Lenin ...I was overwhelmed by the power and vividness of this portrait.' Dominic Lieven, Sunday Telegraph

'He has managed skilfully to depict the surreal life of an obsessive, brilliant and stubborn individual' Guardian

'Lenin's life was politics, but Service has succeeded in keeping Lenin the man in focus throughout . . . This book deserves a place among the best studies of one of the most fascinating figures in modern history' Harold Shukman, The Times

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34267 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Few political reputations have collapsed quite as quickly as that of Lenin, the ideological guru of Russian Communism, the hero of the revolution of October 1917, and the first leader of the Soviet Union. Just as the Berlin Wall was pulled to the ground, so were thousands of statues of Lenin toppled across Eastern Europe and the new Russia in the early 1990s. But now that the dust has settled, and the Cold War is over, historians can be more objective about the life and achievements of Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov (Lenin was his adopted revolutionary name). Robert Service's book is the first major biography of Lenin for several decades and it benefits from the thaw that has opened up previously inaccessible material, particularly on Lenin's family and his medical history. Born into a wealthy family of landowners, lawyers and government officials, Lenin's revolutionary path was marked out when his elder brother was executed for his part in an assassination plot on the Tsar. From that point on, aided by his sisters, his wife and a loyal but argumentative band of Bolshevik followers, Lenin committed himself to the overthrow of the Tsarist regime, enduring exile, prison and ostracism in the process. This compelling and action-packed book brings Lenin and Leninism to life in a way that no previous account has managed to do. --Miles Taylor

Review
'Immensely scholarly but also vivid and readable. This is a splendid book, much the best that I have ever read about Lenin...I was overwhelmed by the power and vividness of this portrait.' Dominic Lieven, Sunday Telegraph; 'He has managed skilfully to depict the surreal life of an obsessive, brilliant and stubborn individual' Guardian; 'Lenin's life was politics, but Service has succeeded in keeping Lenin the man in focus throughout... This book deserves a place among the best studies of one of the most fascinating figures in modern history' Harold Shukman, The Times

From the Publisher
Praise for LENIN
'Political biography at its best . . . This is a splendid book, much the best that I have ever read about Lenin . . . I was overwhelmed by the power and vividness of this portrait' Dominic Lieven, Sunday Telegraph

'This book deserves a place among the best studies of one of the most fascinating figures in modern history' Harold Shukman, The Times

'The great strength of this remarkable book is the author's ability to blend the personal history with a convincing analysis of the Lenin oeuvre and a confident reconstruction of the wider political and social milieu of Russia in the age of revolution.' Richard Overy, Literary Review

'It succeeds triumphantly in portraying the relationship of Lenin as a person to his historic achievement . . . splendid biography' Raymond Carr, Spectator

'On the personal detail, Service is unbeatable' Craig Brown, Mail On Sunday

Customer Reviews

Theory is Grey, but Life is Green
"Theory is grey but Life is green" said Goethe, a citation used by Lenin more than once. This book is not dry and grey but lively and it does bring to life a figure otherwise and usually drawn as dry as dust, not least by his own misguided followers. The book is particularly good (using declassified Soviet documents only available since the Soviet "empire2 toppled) at building up a picture of the young Lenin (Ulyanov)and his family background. I knew (and even before 1989, assumed) Lenin to be partly Jewish on the maternal side, but until I read this book was unaware that he was also part-Jew on the paternal side of the family. Of course, virtually all the leading members of his party were, among others, Martov, "Trotsky" (L.D. Bronstein), "Zinoviev" (G. Apfelbaum) etc. etc.

The weaknesses of the book are twofold, really. The author does tend to let his own opinions show through a lot (but not as much as other writers have done, and to a far greater extent, when compiling "histories" or biographies of Hitler. William Shirer was among the worst offenders but there have been many many others). The second weakness is that the book is heavily weighted in dealing with events before 1917 and particularly pre-1921 (i.e. the end of the Civil War, when the Bolsheviks started to exercise something approaching "state" power). Little is said about the effects of Leninist policies on the country as a whole. The author does concentrate very much on Lenin as a person, though he is puzzled by Lenin's final illness and seems unaware that Professor Forster, one of Lenin's doctors, who is mentioned in the text, found at autopsy that Lenin's brain was almost entirely calcified or sclerotized, something which usually brings upon the sufferer derangement and swift death. By the medical measure, it is amazing that Lenin lived as long as he did. He should, so to speak, have been dead years before.

I was interested to see that Service is intellectually alive enough to note just how extraordinary was the decision both to embalm Lenin's body and to put it in a step-pyramidical structure (the Mausoleum in Red Square). The only explanation I have read or heard of about this is contained in Sergei Prokofieff's book The Spiritual Origins of Eastern Europe and The Future Mysteries of the Holy Grail (available on Amazon and well worth reading).

Despite it flaws, this is really the only book on Lenin I have read which brings its subject to life, plausibly.

Robert Service on Lenin
A book that tells us a lot more about Robert Service than it does aboutLenin. Despite the extensive research, it is packed with irritatingspeculation and blunt assertions and the events it describes are too oftenburied under Service's indignation. What are we to make of sentences suchas: "Lenin was not feeling in the best of sorts either physically oremotionally. And it served him right."?
We have endless speculation about what Lenin may have thought at any giventime. Among my favourites were: "It cannot be proved that Lenin held thetotal physical liquidation of the middle classes as a party objective" and"If Lenin dreamed of heading a European socialist federal regime, herefrained from giving vent to the notion". The Economist was right when itdescribed the book as: "... far more than a comprehensive summary of theestablished facts..."
In his haste to represent Lenin as a monster Service repeatedly confusesdictatorship by a class with dictatorship by an individual. Why couldn'the argue, if he thought it was true, that Lenin advocated the former butparticipated in a government controlled by a political elite? Why muddlethis point - "It was a fine dictatorship when the supreme leader wastreated contemptuously by his underlings!" It's nonsense and it appearsintentional.
Robert Service does not share Lenin's class-based view of history, whythen should he expect Lenin to share his moral scruples? To learn thatLenin's conduct might not be acceptable at a posh dinner party is about assurprising as finding out that Mozart didn't play heavy metal.

Lenin - The Genius
What do you know about Lenin? I knew he was chief instigator of the October Revolution and the man behind Leninism and inside the mausoleum. That was all until this book came along. It turns out that Volodya was an intellectual jagganath and an egoist of manic proportions.

It is instructive to trace how someone so well educated can turn out to be so tunnel visioned and so monstrous. I think Robert Service provides an incredible account from Lenin's youth and his stellar academic record to his conversion to the cause through to his duplicitous rise to power. This is an amazing tale of a madcap without whom the history of the 20th century would have been so very different and arguably better.

The problem here is that Service spoils the good work with a healthy sprinkling of personal comments like "that serves him right" etc. This give the writing a polish of amateurism. Nevertheless, this is the only Lenin book that I will read. If you're looking for a book heavy on political writings and revolutionary theory then this is probably quite not the book for you. However if you just wish to understand this oddball of a genius - spoilt brat, lover, anarchist, marxist, fervid revolutionary, friend and foe, doublecrosser, rhetorician, leftist saint - then you should read this.

Take care to step over the author's irritating opinions.