| Lenin - A New Biography
(1994)
|
| Front Cover |
Book Details |
|
| Genre |
Biography; Non-Fiction |
| Subject |
Heads of state - Soviet Union - Biography; Lenin, Vladimir Ilʹich, 1870-1924; Soviet Union - History - 1917-1936 |
| Publication Date |
10/12/1994 |
| Format |
Hardcover (9.4
x
6.3
mm)
|
| Publisher |
Free Press |
| Language |
English |
| Extras |
Dust Jacket; Dust Jacket Cover |
|
| Description |
| For years, westerners have wondered what secrets were preserved not only in the KGB archives, but also in dozens of other off-limits locations. Now that Dmitri Volkogonov, historian and former general in the Soviet Army, has been entrusted with the management of the archives as a Special Assistant to Boris Yeltsin, we at last have a chance to find out. For the last three years he has combed through more than 3700 once-secret documents covering every piece of information in the archive system concerning Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin and his legacy. He has woven this mountain of information into a compelling story of the Soviet founding father and the system he created. Volkogonov offers a radical departure from the traditional interpretation of Lenin as an idealist. Many of the characteristics of so-called Stalinism, he shows, arose in Lenin's lifetime, often on Lenin's direct orders. From the creation of concentration camps, to brutal repression of the church and the media, to the strategic cultivation of a cult of personality, Lenin's leadership was cruel and totalitarian. Volkogonov also offers select revelations from the post-Lenin years in order to demonstrate that the worst excesses of the Soviet state all had their roots in its founding father. In Volkogonov's words, for years "we asked ourselves where Stalin had acquired the cruelty which he inflicted on his fellow countrymen. None of us - the present author included - could begin to imagine that the father of domestic Russian terrorism, merciless and totalitarian, could have been Lenin." |
| Personal Details |
| Store |
Bookman's |
| Purchase Price |
$8.00 |
| Acquire Date |
1/12/2017 |
| Condition |
Very Good/Very Good |
| Rating |
0 |
| Links |
Library of Congress
|
|
| Product Details |
| LoC Classification |
DK254.L4 .V587 1994 |
| Dewey |
947.0841092 |
| ISBN |
9780029334355 |
| Cover Price |
$30.00 |
| No. of Pages |
529 |
| First Edition |
No |
| Rare |
No |
|
| Notes/Review |
I struggled for a while over the choice of which Lenin biography to read. My concern was that anything written by westerners would be slanted against the man and that anything produced by a Soviet author would be hagiographic. I settled on Volkogonov's book as perhaps in that sweet spot in the middle. He was a Soviet general, and as such would have found it impossible to advance without embracing Leninism, or at least appearing to. At the end of the Soviet era, he was chairman of Yeltsin's commission examining the Soviet archives.
Of course, it would not be possible to have a biography of Lenin without covering Leninism, the Bolshevik revolution, and, indeed, no small portion of Soviet history. It would be possible to cover these things without including a biography of Lenin. This book seems, to me, to be closer to the latter than the former. That is, this book struck me more of a history of Leninism than a biography of the man.
I accept that biographies of political leaders do not conform well to strict chronological telling. There are many cases where the large issues of the day should be addressed by topic rather than according to the calendar. This book, though, goes to a bit of an extreme. The first few pages cover Lenin's life before October, 1917, and a chapter near the end covers the months of his decline. The vast middle is more accurately a history of the revolution rather than the story of the man.
Also, in my experience, a whole life biography ends with a short denouement covering, perhaps, the funeral and a few pages of legacy. As a book more about Leninism than Lenin, Volkogonov devotes quite a bit of space to all the Soviet leaders - Stalin, obviously, who was a contemporary of Lenin, but also to the rest: Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, and Gorbachev.
None of this is meant to malign the book in any way. It's more that it failed to meet my expectations. It's a pretty good book about the Bolshevik revolution, its underpinnings, the motives of the principal actors, and not least, its brutality. |
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