Very few characters have left quite as large a crater in the story of humanity as Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The revolution that he spearheaded in early 1900s would set the whole world onto a different course after his death, the reverberations of which are still being felt today.
Opinions surrounding the man couldn't be more divided.
A popular opinion amongst those with more left-wing inclinations is that Lenin was a great idealist whose dream of a communist utopia became corrupted only after he died, under the hands of Joseph Stalin.
A popular opinion amongst those with more left-wing inclinations is that Lenin was a great idealist whose dream of a communist utopia became corrupted only after he died, under the hands of Joseph Stalin.
However, Robert Service, the Oxford University scholar behind this biography, convincingly shows that this is far from the case without portraying Lenin as the power-crazed sociopath that many others believe him to have been.
Service introduces us to Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, later to rename himself "Lenin", a brilliant young polymath whose life took an unexpected turn when his elder brother was executed by the tsarist monarchy.
The young Vladimir, forever scarred by the incident, would channel every ounce of his uncanny genius into taking revenge on monarchy and continuing in his brother's footsteps to bring about a Russian revolutionary transformation.
Lenin is presented to be dependent on the unwavering love and support of his mother & the other women who surrounded him throughout his life.
He is shown to be a lover of life, a dutiful son & husband, & a paranoid obsessive with little to no regard for the suffering of others.
He is shown to be a lover of life, a dutiful son & husband, & a paranoid obsessive with little to no regard for the suffering of others.
Lenin would never pull the trigger himself, always insisting on taking a scholarly approach to revolution from the safety of his armchair, and yet the atrocities sanctioned by him could only have come from the mind of a demented human being.
Robert Service's account of Lenin's life is by no means flattering, and the author has been accused of having an anti-Soviet agenda , but this biography seems to be honest and informative.
This is an interesting and mostly enjoyable biography on a fascinating individual living through a critical period of world history. Read it and gain a unique insight, and a better understanding of the world today.
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