Lenin: A Biography

Rating:
Summary: To Date, the Definitive Biography
Review: Service has apparently examined, absorbed, and digested virtually all of the resources available before setting to work on the writing of this book. I rate it so highly for two reasons: it seems to be the definitive biography of one of the most influential political leaders of the 20th century, and, it anchors its reader in an historical context within which Lenin's influence can be seen in a proper perspective. For me, Service answers two separate but related questions: Why Lenin rather than someone else? Also, what was his subsequent impact on what became the U.S.S.R.? While answering these two questions, Service also helps his reader to understand at least some of the forces which still have influence, not only on the former member states of the U.S.S.R. but also on the contemporary world with which they continue to interact.

Rating:
Summary: Biography of the "bookish fanatic" who led a revolution
Review: Service is a British historian of Soviet Russian history who has written this quite good narrative of the life of Lenin. While not definitive, it is nevertheless the best synthesis of the political and personal life of Lenin

One of the better reasons to read Service is that while he has no qualms about outlining the viciousness and brutality of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, he is also not a hard line ideologue. He is a historian and he takes history as he finds it. There is none of the strident cold-war dogmatism of Conquest or the russophobia of Pipes that often make their writings come uncomfortably close to political diatribes rather than analytical histories.

Service walks the fine line between personal and political biography fairly well. He also has the added bonus of being a good narrative historian which makes this an immensily readable book.

Lenin's early life is covered in good detail. What Service does well is to show how, after brother Alexander's excecution, the Ulyanovs were marginalized by the very class of society they had aspired to, and how this effected both Lenin and his sisters. Service goes on to show the interaction between Lenin and his female relatives and how this carried on throughout his life.

Being a total biography- personal and political- the political side gets a bit of a short shrift at times. Lenin as shown as the "bookish fanatic" and hypocondriact who is all revolution all the time with little time to spare in life for other diversions.

His single-mindedness is such that he dictates executions (never naming individuals just groups) to achieve his ends. What Service show best is how his temperament in childhood carried on to his political life- never brooking disagreement- throwing tantrums and denounciations- and rarely compromising.

And yet Lenin is at heart, a middle class bourgeois in his social manners. His personal relationships with women are not especially notorious save for a life-long relationship with Inessa Armand who may or may not have been his mistress.

Personal without being gossipy and showing Lenin's idiocincracies without being psychoanalytical, Service handles his biography well. All in all this is a highly readable, not perfect, but enjoyable biography of the life of one of the century's most notorious figures.

Rating:
Summary: My personal favorite, as far as bio's go.
Review: The amount of biographies, good and bad,about Lenin would consume an entire werehouse, but the best, and most readable bio in my opinion is Robert Service's. In it, Service doesn't embark on a diatribe against Lenin's involvment in the development of the horrible gulag system, or his ruthlessness regarding "class enemies", like others authors. What Service does is describe to the reader the major influences on the development of Vladimir Ilich's ideology and abiltities. For instance, Service writes that the classical philosophers and orators had more of an effect on Lenin's sytem of philopsophy than had been purported by other writers(of course one only need to read Plato's Republic to understand where Lenin concieved his version of the "dictatorship of the proletariat"). In addition, Service brilliantly presents Lenin's ideology in the context of his time(sure prison camps, and executions seem barbaric in the 21st century, but in 1917, these sort of acts of brutality were the norm, need proof, just read Hemingway's war novel, a "Farewell to Arms"). I would predict that politically conservative and liberal individuals would enjoy this biography. It's not remarkably pro-Lenin, nor is it remarkably "blasphemous" to Lenin's image as an individual who wanted to lift humanity above it's selfishness and ignorance to inconcievable heights. Lenin led such a fantastically absurd life(Alexander II murdered Lenin's brother, so 30 years later, Lenin is essentially the "Tsar" of Russia, and destroys Nicholas II's entire family;it seems almost fictional!), this book could be anything but uninteresting.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but biased
Review: The author gives us great amounts of detail information of Lenin's younger and older life. However, the attempt to make him a "great" man (word or deed) was not worthy of the book. What I wanted to discover was WHY such a non-entity, one who rarely was in his own country, would be remembered as a savior despite having imposed the most tyrannical regime that ever existed on hundreds of millions people.

Lenin possessed (like Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Saddamn) the same ruthless, myopic, self-centered outlook as a child as he did as an adult. In other words, he never matured. Only the violence increased as he grew older. Indeed, one is still stunned that millions can be casually ordered to die due to economic status or political views. The author follows Lenin's activities both chronologically and philosophically as he meets, adopts then implements (through force, of course) his version of "Heaven on Earth" (what the Socialists used to call Socialism).

Lenin's brand of class hatred, his campaign against whole groups of people is not surprising in a country where individual rights had never found root. What was expected was the annihilation of whole groups due to their status as "enemy of the state". The first modern totalitarian state was the result and the human costs have been mind-boggling. Vladimir Bukovsky estimates that 50 million have been murdered (starved, tortured, sent to Siberia, shot outright etc) since 1917. Stalin simply raised Lenin's policies to a new level.

Despite its attempts to paint Lenin in a somewhat rosy light (a difficult task), this is still an informative book.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but biased
Review: The author gives us great amounts of detail information of Lenin's younger and older life. However, the attempt to make him a "great" man (word or deed) was not worthy of the book. What I wanted to discover was WHY such a non-entity, one who rarely was in his own country, would be remembered as a savior despite having imposed the most tyrannical regime that ever existed on hundreds of millions people.

Lenin possessed (like Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Saddamn) the same ruthless, myopic, self-centered outlook as a child as he did as an adult. In other words, he never matured. Only the violence increased as he grew older. Indeed, one is still stunned that millions can be casually ordered to die due to economic status or political views. The author follows Lenin's activities both chronologically and philosophically as he meets, adopts then implements (through force, of course) his version of "Heaven on Earth" (what the Socialists used to call Socialism).

Lenin's brand of class hatred, his campaign against whole groups of people is not surprising in a country where individual rights had never found root. What was expected was the annihilation of whole groups due to their status as "enemy of the state". The first modern totalitarian state was the result and the human costs have been mind-boggling. Vladimir Bukovsky estimates that 50 million have been murdered (starved, tortured, sent to Siberia, shot outright etc) since 1917. Stalin simply raised Lenin's policies to a new level.

Despite its attempts to paint Lenin in a somewhat rosy light (a difficult task), this is still an informative book.

Rating:
Summary: Lenin the man - superb; Lenin the Russian - needs work.
Review: This biography is incredibly thorough, and is entirely fixated on Lenin. In fact, that would be my one complaint. The book was so thoroughly focused on Lenin (and I can appreciate how silly this must sound as the book was a biography of Lenin), that it missed properly characterizing what was going on in Russia. In certain sections the book did discuss what was taking place in Russia, but usually only within the very limited scope of how Lenin was responding to the problem. I felt the narrative on Lenin would have benefited from an expanded discussion of what was going on socially within Russia as Lenin came to power. This weakness of the book is perhaps exacerbated by the fact (something I did not know) that Lenin lived for 18 years outside of Russia as an adult man. As his ideology was developing he was fully outside of Russian culture.

Lenin was an average ideologue, but he was an above-average politician. His works on political philosophy, as Service says, were barely above the standard of a college student. They were not insightful and were not worthy of prominent distinction. Lenin was a consummate politician who did believe in the essential goals of socialism.

I believe he would have been disgusted at what Stalin did with the gulag system; however, Lenin was a pragmatist. He did not allow Stalin to rise to power on accident. Did he see Stalin as a balance against Trotski who Lenin may have feared would be more willing to compromise? The life of Lenin illustrates the core problem of socialism: it has never been embraced by people who did not prove to be brutally totalitarian and completely unwilling to allow individuality.

Rating:
Summary: Lenin the man - superb; Lenin the Russian - needs work.
Review: This biography is incredibly thorough, and is entirely fixated on Lenin. In fact, that would be my one complaint. The book was so thoroughly focused on Lenin (and I can appreciate how silly this must sound as the book was a biography of Lenin), that it missed properly characterizing what was going on in Russia. In certain sections the book did discuss what was taking place in Russia, but usually only within the very limited scope of how Lenin was responding to the problem. I felt the narrative on Lenin would have benefited from an expanded discussion of what was going on socially within Russia as Lenin came to power. This weakness of the book is perhaps exacerbated by the fact (something I did not know) that Lenin lived for 18 years outside of Russia as an adult man. As his ideology was developing he was fully outside of Russian culture.

Lenin was an average ideologue, but he was an above-average politician. His works on political philosophy, as Service says, were barely above the standard of a college student. They were not insightful and were not worthy of prominent distinction. Lenin was a consummate politician who did believe in the essential goals of socialism.

I believe he would have been disgusted at what Stalin did with the gulag system; however, Lenin was a pragmatist. He did not allow Stalin to rise to power on accident. Did he see Stalin as a balance against Trotski who Lenin may have feared would be more willing to compromise? The life of Lenin illustrates the core problem of socialism: it has never been embraced by people who did not prove to be brutally totalitarian and completely unwilling to allow individuality.

Rating:
Summary: Great writer, great book
Review: This book reads like a good novel as the author is a decent storyteller. He also has a decent sense of humour as well. The story is a fascinating one of fascinating times and of a really ruthless man who led it all: Lenin.

Some people have said that it was solely political; there is no doubt that you will walk away from this book knowing more about the kind of theoretical aspects of Marxism that were prevalent in his times that he was involved in, however, I think that the author does his best to portray him as a man as well.

Rating:
Summary: Well written and informative
Review: This is a well presented account. It reads very well, I finished this rather long book pretty fast. It goes over all the aspects of Lenin's life, as well as putting them in a good historical context. This is a good book to have, and a good read for anyone interested in Lenin, or Russian history. Some readers might be left wishing more a little more substance, but for the length of the book and the readability of it, it is a great account.

Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: This is one of the more readable history books I have read in some time. It is able to deal with Lenin in a way that is fresh and interesting for two reasons. One is the availability of material from the soviet archives. The other more important reason is the distance in time since the events of Lenin's life have lead to a more measured evaluation of what is important.

Lenin is of course the inventor of communism. In the modern mind socialism and communism tent to run together as political systems in which the state takes over ownership of the means of production and extinguishes the private sector. In reality communism was a political system developed by Lenin both in this theoretical writings and in what he did when he ruled Russia. Communism was an anti democratic system in which power was controlled by one party. The press was censored, the judicial system became a mockery and coercion was the basis of state control. Communist parties were set up quickly following Lenin's seizure of power in 1917 to see if they could gain control of other countries. Their actions were regarded with revulsion by what had been the main heirs of the Marxist tradition the Social Democratic Parties of Europe.

Traditional histories of Lenin have focused on his role in the creation of the Russian Social Democratic Party. This party had a long history prior to 1917 and the traditional biographies of Lenin have focused on the feuds and splits of the Social Democrats and the creation of the Bolshevik faction. It has been held traditionally that these endless small fights were important in giving Lenin an organisation with which he was able to gain power.

This book is refreshing as it suggests that this approach is nonsense. The party that Lenin set up was of no importance prior to 1917. It had few members, was little known in Russia and very few of its publications were read by Russians. In fact its most successful members were double agents working for the Czarist police. Lenin became important when he was able to enter Russia in 1917 and launch a coup against what was a close to a democratic system. He was able to set in place a repressive regime involving the suppression of press freedoms and the creation of the Checka later to become the KGB. By distributing land to the peasants and pulling Russia out of the war he was able to form a basis for his regime to cling to power. His repression had the effect of stating a civil war which he was able to win. He was then able to ensure the survival of the communists in Russia by making concessions to the peasantry with the NEP.

Apart from the importance of the focus, the book is able to show the development of Lenin's life in a way that has not been done before. It has always been well known that Lenin's older brother was executed for an assignation plot. This book however shows how Lenin's family existed on the margin of privilege and how the death of his brother led to the social ostracism of the family. This in turn led to a hatred of Russia's ruling class by the young Lenin.

All in all a readable book which is able to shape free of the ideological limitations of previous works by both the right and the left.