The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive

Annals of Communism

by Richard Pipes (Editor)

Edited and introduced by an eminent Russian scholar, a collection of newly released documents from Russia's Lenin archive and dating from 1886 to the end of Lenin's life exposes him as an utterly ruthless and manipulative leader. UP.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Russia, Politics

204 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Born in Poland, Richard Pipes fled the country with his family when Germany invaded it in 1939. After reaching the United States a year later, Pipes began his education at Muskingum College, which was interrupted in 1943 when he was drafted into the Army Air Corps and sent to Cornell to study Russian. He completed his bachelor's degree at Cornell in 1946 and earned his doctorate at Harvard University four years later.

Pipes taught at Harvard from 1950 until his retirement in 1996, and was director of Harvard's Russian Research Center from 1968-1973. A campaigner for a tougher foreign policy towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War, in 1976, he led a group of analysts in a reassessment of Soviet foreign policy and military power. He served as director of Eastern European and Soviet affairs at the National Security Council from 1981 until 1983, after which he returned to Harvard, where he finished his career as Baird Professor Emeritus of History.

Reviews

[Noella · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ik had dit boekje vroeger al eens gelezen. Ik was er nu terug in begonnen, maar vond het niet meer zo interessant en heb het niet meer uitgelezen.

[Michael Neltner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uniquely organized. This book is a mass of documents written by Lenin and co. apropos of events in the initial years following the Russian Revolution 1917. Pipes introduces many of these letters with a paragraph on their importance and relevance.
The letters could be organized better (i.e. by author, by topic, by lesson learned) and the book was at times a drudge to read.
High points are the subtexts that give brief notes on otherwise unknown people and background information as well as the paragraphs of introduction explaining the significance of certain letters.

Be that as it may, Pipes does God’s work in elucidating, 70 years hence, the misconceptions many half-baked history buffs have about Lenin: he was a monster ‘a egalite’ with Stalin, just perhaps wilier and with only a fledgling bureaucracy to support his Terror.

[Frau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book but I was surprised to learn that Lenin was a simp. His letters to his love was... yeah.

[Shane Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book and others warns us that Lenin would have been as much a monster as Stalin....but he would have done it with more nuance......and erudition....