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The Life and Death of Lenin
Who was Vladimir Ilyich Lenin?
He was a man with vast potential for good and evil.
He was one of the twentieth century’s political geniuses.
He was the revolutionary leader who envisioned backward, feudal Russia as the world’s first socialist country.
He bent Karl Marx’s theories into a weapon for conquering state power, and built the Bolshevik Party into an efficient political machine capable of leading the workers and seizing power.
He held the Russian Revolution together through a bloody civil war, and yet he lived to see the betrayal of his ideals by the rise of Stalin.
As much as any leader, his ideas and personality shaped the 20th century.
He was a man with vast potential for good and evil.
He was one of the twentieth century’s political geniuses.
He was the revolutionary leader who envisioned backward, feudal Russia as the world’s first socialist country.
He bent Karl Marx’s theories into a weapon for conquering state power, and built the Bolshevik Party into an efficient political machine capable of leading the workers and seizing power.
He held the Russian Revolution together through a bloody civil war, and yet he lived to see the betrayal of his ideals by the rise of Stalin.
As much as any leader, his ideas and personality shaped the 20th century.
672 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1964
70 people are currently reading
204 people want to read
About the author
Robert Payne
339 books35 followersPierre Stephen Robert Payne was born December 4, 1911, in Saltash, County of Cornwall, England, the son of Stephen Payne, a naval architect, and Mireille Louise Antonia (Dorey) Payne, a native of France. Payne was the eldest of three brothers. His middle brother was Alan (Marcel Alan), and his youngest brother was Tony, who died at the age of seven.
Payne went to St. Paul's School, London. He attended the Diocesan College, Rondebosch, South Africa, 1929-30; the University of Capetown, 1928-1930; Liverpool University, 1933-35; the University of Munich, summer, 1937, and the Sorbonne, in Paris, 1938.
Payne first followed his father into shipbuilding, working as a shipwright's apprentice at Cammell, Laird's Shipbuilding Company, Birkendhead, 1931-33. He also worked for the Inland Revenue as an Assistant Inspector of Taxes in Guilford in 1936. In 1937-38 he traveled in Europe and, while in Munich, met Adolf Hitler through Rudolf Hess, an incident which Payne vividly describes in his book Eyewitness. In 1938 Payne covered the Civil War in Spain for the London News Chronicle, an experience that resulted in two books, A Young Man Looks at Europe and The Song of the Peasant.
From 1939 to 1941 Payne worked as a shipwright at the Singapore Naval Base and in 1941 he became an armament officer and chief camouflage officer for British Army Intelligence there. In December, 1941, he was sent to Chungking, China, to serve as Cultural Attaché at the British Embassy.
In January, 1942, he covered the battle of Changsha for the London Times, and from 1942 to 1943 he taught English literature at Fuhtan University, near Chungking. Then, persuaded by Joseph Needham, he went to Kunming and taught poetry and naval architecture at Lienta University from 1943 to 1946. The universities of Peking, Tsinghua, and Nankai had converged in Kunming to form the University at Lienta. It was there that Payne, together with Chinese scholars and poets, compiled and co-translated The White Pony.
In China Payne met General George C. Marshall, Chiang Kai-shek, and Mao Tse-tung, who was elusive and living in the caves of Yenan, all of whom later became subjects for his biographies. From his time in China also came the autobiographical volumes Forever China and China Awake, and the historical novels Love and Peace and The Lovers.
From China, Payne briefly visited India in the summer, 1946, which resulted in a love for Indian art. Throughout his life, Payne retained a love for all forms of oriental art.
He came to the United States in the winter of 1946 and lived in Los Angeles, California, until he became Professor of English and Author-in-Residence at Alabama College, Montevallo, 1949-54. He was the founding editor of Montevallo Review, whose contributors included poets Charles Olson and Muriel Rukeyser. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1953.
In Spring, 1949, Payne visited Persia with the Asia Institute Expedition. He received an M.A. degree from the Asia Institute in 1951.
In 1954 Payne moved to New York City, where he lived the rest of his life, interrupted once or twice a year by travel to the Middle East, the Far East, and Europe, mostly to gather material for his books, but also to visit his mother and father in England. His very close literary relationship with his father is documented in the hundreds of highly personal and informative letters which they exchanged.
In 1942, Payne married Rose Hsiung, daughter of Hsiung Hse-ling, a former prime minister of China. They divorced in 1952. In 1981, he married Sheila Lalwani, originally from India.
Over a period of forty-seven years Payne had more than 110 books published. He wrote his first novella, Adventures of Sylvia, Queen of Denmark and China, when he was seven years old. Payne's first publication was a translation of Iiuri Olesha's Envy, published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf's Hogarth Press in 1936. A year later, T.S. Eliot published his novel The War in the Marshes under
Payne went to St. Paul's School, London. He attended the Diocesan College, Rondebosch, South Africa, 1929-30; the University of Capetown, 1928-1930; Liverpool University, 1933-35; the University of Munich, summer, 1937, and the Sorbonne, in Paris, 1938.
Payne first followed his father into shipbuilding, working as a shipwright's apprentice at Cammell, Laird's Shipbuilding Company, Birkendhead, 1931-33. He also worked for the Inland Revenue as an Assistant Inspector of Taxes in Guilford in 1936. In 1937-38 he traveled in Europe and, while in Munich, met Adolf Hitler through Rudolf Hess, an incident which Payne vividly describes in his book Eyewitness. In 1938 Payne covered the Civil War in Spain for the London News Chronicle, an experience that resulted in two books, A Young Man Looks at Europe and The Song of the Peasant.
From 1939 to 1941 Payne worked as a shipwright at the Singapore Naval Base and in 1941 he became an armament officer and chief camouflage officer for British Army Intelligence there. In December, 1941, he was sent to Chungking, China, to serve as Cultural Attaché at the British Embassy.
In January, 1942, he covered the battle of Changsha for the London Times, and from 1942 to 1943 he taught English literature at Fuhtan University, near Chungking. Then, persuaded by Joseph Needham, he went to Kunming and taught poetry and naval architecture at Lienta University from 1943 to 1946. The universities of Peking, Tsinghua, and Nankai had converged in Kunming to form the University at Lienta. It was there that Payne, together with Chinese scholars and poets, compiled and co-translated The White Pony.
In China Payne met General George C. Marshall, Chiang Kai-shek, and Mao Tse-tung, who was elusive and living in the caves of Yenan, all of whom later became subjects for his biographies. From his time in China also came the autobiographical volumes Forever China and China Awake, and the historical novels Love and Peace and The Lovers.
From China, Payne briefly visited India in the summer, 1946, which resulted in a love for Indian art. Throughout his life, Payne retained a love for all forms of oriental art.
He came to the United States in the winter of 1946 and lived in Los Angeles, California, until he became Professor of English and Author-in-Residence at Alabama College, Montevallo, 1949-54. He was the founding editor of Montevallo Review, whose contributors included poets Charles Olson and Muriel Rukeyser. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1953.
In Spring, 1949, Payne visited Persia with the Asia Institute Expedition. He received an M.A. degree from the Asia Institute in 1951.
In 1954 Payne moved to New York City, where he lived the rest of his life, interrupted once or twice a year by travel to the Middle East, the Far East, and Europe, mostly to gather material for his books, but also to visit his mother and father in England. His very close literary relationship with his father is documented in the hundreds of highly personal and informative letters which they exchanged.
In 1942, Payne married Rose Hsiung, daughter of Hsiung Hse-ling, a former prime minister of China. They divorced in 1952. In 1981, he married Sheila Lalwani, originally from India.
Over a period of forty-seven years Payne had more than 110 books published. He wrote his first novella, Adventures of Sylvia, Queen of Denmark and China, when he was seven years old. Payne's first publication was a translation of Iiuri Olesha's Envy, published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf's Hogarth Press in 1936. A year later, T.S. Eliot published his novel The War in the Marshes under
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
October 2, 2022
Having never read in-depth anything about Lenin, this was for me a deep dive into one of the more influential personages of the modern era. A minor aristocrat by birth, and a revolutionary somewhat by accident of life’s circumstances, even after 600+ pages he remains a confounding character. This book paints him in an unflattering light — well earned I might add — and it’s only major flaw to my ignorant eyes is an explanation of how he came to lead the proletariat revolution in Russia. That’s not to say that exhaustive detail is not given to his various exiles, voluminous writings, various associations with other revolutionaries, penchant / insistence on attaining and exercising power, all consuming arrogance, unwillingness to accept anything but blind obedience from others, and his other characteristics. Rather, I remain dumbfounded that someone who by virtue of being exiled elsewhere in Europe was literally on the periphery of the revolutionary overthrowing of the Tsar, let alone the toppling of the subsequent Provisional Government (though he was more intimately involved in the latter once he returned) gained nearly unquestioned power. Clearly, from early on, he considered himself the leader of the Bolsheviks, and acted accordingly, but how was he able to push aside so many others who rightfully could / should have guided the movement? How is it he could command the loyalty of legions of followers across the huge expanse of Russia? And yes, he went about seizing power via ruthless means, but he did it through the offices and actions of others. How were they convinced to obey him? Why did the other leaders accept his ruthlessness, especially so early on? How did the so-called dictatorship of the proletariat morph so easily into the dictatorship of one over the proletariat (and everyone else)? How and why were his never-ending stream of bombastic pronouncements and dictates from afar and later in-country so readily accepted and obeyed? He did survive an assassination attempt, but why were there not innumerable others? So while I thoroughly enjoyed this book I am stupefied that Lenin was able to do what he did, at least initially. Once he gained control of the government, it’s clear how he brooked no dissent and, via subordinates, set about murdering or otherwise ruining the lives of virtually everyone with whom he disagreed, including former close associates. The author contends Lenin was ultimately assassinated, though hotly debated that has never been proved. The book is populated with many characters who I know mostly only by name: Trotsky, Gorky, Bukharin, Kerensky, Stalin, Krupskaya, Marx, and more. If nothing else, it has prompted me to obtain more volumes of Russian history to see how all their lives fit together. Overall a fine book about a thoroughly complex and despicable character.
December 8, 2018
I’ve mentioned in some of my past book reviews that I think the standard of biography writing may have changed somewhat over the years. This book was written in 1964, and I’m not entirely sure a major publisher would have released this thing today without insisting that some changes and edits be implemented.
First, this is a very good book if you want to really learn about Lenin the man. This book goes into intricate detail of all of the man’s activities and feelings.
About half of this book covers the time frame before the first Russian Revolution that occurred in 1905. It’s quite the accomplishment for an author to have researched the comings and goings of his subject so thoroughly. We get many glimpses into the curious life of a rather well-off young man that seemed to have much more in common with the bourgeoisie than the proletariat. It’s never really uncovered why Lenin became such a mouthpiece for a cause that didn’t seem too close to him as he was growing up. Of course, his older brother was a radical revolutionary as a young man and his activities eventually led to his execution. This might have had some motivation for young Lenin, but we then must peel back the onion further and ask why his brother displayed such characteristics. These curious behaviors of Lenin and his older brother are never quite made clear.
We still get a feel for the man, and he’s not in the slightest bit likable. He is very gruff and nasty by nature and seems solely focused on bringing the bourgeoisie down by revolution. He seems to have no other interests at all. His marriage even seems to be one of convenience as opposed to him and his wife having any romantic feelings for each other. Throughout Lenin’s youth, we see him being exiled in Siberia and abroad, and his main focus always seems to be whether or not his new home has any sort of substantial library. All Lenin wants to do is study, read, and write about revolution.
As much detail that the author provides about his subject, I would have liked him to devote more of the pages in this book to the events going on around Russia that Lenin found himself engulfed in at the time. The author seems to think his reader doesn’t need any sort of primer, but I’m not entirely sure that’s a good assumption. Example: When the 1917 revolution ‘succeeds’, there is very little detail discussed about the Russian Civil war that would go on for the next 5 years or so. I felt that a brief chapter or two summarizing this time period would be a good addition for a book such as this.
Probably the thing that bothered me the most about this author is that he’s not content with simply making a reference to another piece of work when writing. He feels obligated to actually quote these sources word-for-word, and this book is filled with unnecessary detailed pages and passages from other sources that sometimes last several pages in length. He simply doesn’t care to summarize his findings. This is an area where a modern writer (or publisher, especially) would realize that such detail is unnecessary, and this brings down the whole experience for the reader. I mean, what’s the point of including a bibliography if you’re going to quote verbatim every single source that you uncover?
Then we come to the death of Lenin. Of course, the title of this book is The Life AND Death of Lenin, but, geez, I think we read 5 or 6 chapters on the last days of Lenin. He suffers multiple strokes and his confided to bed, yet we read on and on and on and on and on about his daily life during his prolonged illness. It’s incredibly tedious. We don’t really need to read about every day of his life as an invalid. Especially since, as I stated before, many of the historical events were glossed over. He even implies that Lenin was murdered by Stalin – an accusation that I’ve never heard anywhere before. His reasons for such a catastrophe are rather speculative and shaky. Again, though, this is an old book.
A good study of the man, but I would recommend a period piece that focused more on the events of the time (A People’s Tragedy by Orlando Figes is an excellent source) to compliment your reading here. You learn a lot about the individual, but not enough about the events that shaped his behavior.
First, this is a very good book if you want to really learn about Lenin the man. This book goes into intricate detail of all of the man’s activities and feelings.
About half of this book covers the time frame before the first Russian Revolution that occurred in 1905. It’s quite the accomplishment for an author to have researched the comings and goings of his subject so thoroughly. We get many glimpses into the curious life of a rather well-off young man that seemed to have much more in common with the bourgeoisie than the proletariat. It’s never really uncovered why Lenin became such a mouthpiece for a cause that didn’t seem too close to him as he was growing up. Of course, his older brother was a radical revolutionary as a young man and his activities eventually led to his execution. This might have had some motivation for young Lenin, but we then must peel back the onion further and ask why his brother displayed such characteristics. These curious behaviors of Lenin and his older brother are never quite made clear.
We still get a feel for the man, and he’s not in the slightest bit likable. He is very gruff and nasty by nature and seems solely focused on bringing the bourgeoisie down by revolution. He seems to have no other interests at all. His marriage even seems to be one of convenience as opposed to him and his wife having any romantic feelings for each other. Throughout Lenin’s youth, we see him being exiled in Siberia and abroad, and his main focus always seems to be whether or not his new home has any sort of substantial library. All Lenin wants to do is study, read, and write about revolution.
As much detail that the author provides about his subject, I would have liked him to devote more of the pages in this book to the events going on around Russia that Lenin found himself engulfed in at the time. The author seems to think his reader doesn’t need any sort of primer, but I’m not entirely sure that’s a good assumption. Example: When the 1917 revolution ‘succeeds’, there is very little detail discussed about the Russian Civil war that would go on for the next 5 years or so. I felt that a brief chapter or two summarizing this time period would be a good addition for a book such as this.
Probably the thing that bothered me the most about this author is that he’s not content with simply making a reference to another piece of work when writing. He feels obligated to actually quote these sources word-for-word, and this book is filled with unnecessary detailed pages and passages from other sources that sometimes last several pages in length. He simply doesn’t care to summarize his findings. This is an area where a modern writer (or publisher, especially) would realize that such detail is unnecessary, and this brings down the whole experience for the reader. I mean, what’s the point of including a bibliography if you’re going to quote verbatim every single source that you uncover?
Then we come to the death of Lenin. Of course, the title of this book is The Life AND Death of Lenin, but, geez, I think we read 5 or 6 chapters on the last days of Lenin. He suffers multiple strokes and his confided to bed, yet we read on and on and on and on and on about his daily life during his prolonged illness. It’s incredibly tedious. We don’t really need to read about every day of his life as an invalid. Especially since, as I stated before, many of the historical events were glossed over. He even implies that Lenin was murdered by Stalin – an accusation that I’ve never heard anywhere before. His reasons for such a catastrophe are rather speculative and shaky. Again, though, this is an old book.
A good study of the man, but I would recommend a period piece that focused more on the events of the time (A People’s Tragedy by Orlando Figes is an excellent source) to compliment your reading here. You learn a lot about the individual, but not enough about the events that shaped his behavior.
March 10, 2023
A bit too essayistic but still worth reading. I am currently re-reading chapters on WWI and 1917. After the war started, Lenin was put in jail for a week or so for being a Russian citizen. He didn't know that the revolution broke out for a week. When Krupskaya's mother died, he should have been keeping an eye on her. Krupskaya asked him to wake her up in case she needed her. She asked him:
-Why didn't you wake me up?
He answered:
- Well, she didn't need you.
Such cruelty shows better what a person Lenin was than his letters when he asks to shoot his political opponents.
Also, I find extremely funny that he thought that the Czar is going to try to seize the power back by quitting the war which basically Lenin himself did later.
-Why didn't you wake me up?
He answered:
- Well, she didn't need you.
Such cruelty shows better what a person Lenin was than his letters when he asks to shoot his political opponents.
Also, I find extremely funny that he thought that the Czar is going to try to seize the power back by quitting the war which basically Lenin himself did later.
June 24, 2016
Detailed and thought provoking biography
An excellent exposition of the man, more than any other 20th century figure arguably, who changed the course of history. Having studied the Russian revolution, this book did change my perspective on Lenin as both a man personally and politically.
An excellent exposition of the man, more than any other 20th century figure arguably, who changed the course of history. Having studied the Russian revolution, this book did change my perspective on Lenin as both a man personally and politically.
June 14, 2007
yek zendeginameye badbinane dar bareye lenin!
Currently reading
August 22, 2007I will never finish this book.
August 3, 2018
Finally done. Much detail on his early life. Informative. Unfortunately, some pictures did not have titles with them. Mostly writing in Russian.
February 4, 2022
Robert Payne is one of the most readable historians I have ever encountered. He is in that rarified atmosphere -- I'm talking prose here, storyelling, and passion for his subject, not necessarily scholarship or accuracy -- occupied in my mind by John Keegan, Shelby Foote, David Irving and just a handful of others. His bio of Hitler, for all the looseness of the back half of the narrative and the factual errors, is far and away the best book I've ever read on Hitler as a person: you feel everything he experienced, seem almost to live alongside him and experience the tactile reality of his early life. LENIN is not as pleasing a book, and it has all the same flaws as HITLER, but it also has most of its qualities. Namely, it's by and large a very good read.
Payne's picture of Lenin is rather startling. Far from an embattled revolutionary bandit of peasant stock, living a life of intrigue and danger until he shot and bombed his way into power, Lenin is depicted as being born into privilege -- indeed, the petty nobility -- raised in a fairly loving atmosphere, and given the finest education, which was not wasted on his admittedly brilliant mind. He came to Marxism through his older brother, executed for a clumsy attempt to assassinate the tsar, but his brand of Marxism was curiously vague and more inspired by anarchism and nihilism than communist doctrine. He was interested in burning down the existing world, but extremely vague about what would come after, falling back on empty phrases, platitudes and broad generalizations when pressed about the world he wanted to build, and how it would be constructed. Like Hitler, he believed in what he eventually came to do, but also like Hitler with Nazism, he viewed Marxism foremost as tool to obtain arbitrary power: and it was power that he really wanted, unlimited power. According to Payne, Lenin was the typical intellectual revolutionary: a man who had been born into comfort, never done an honest day's labor in his life, and yet felt both an affinity for, a contempt of, and an absolute stewardship over, the workers and peasants of the world. They were his students, he was their schoolmaster, and if they got out of line, well, they got the cane. By the millions.
Lenin's psychology was not as carniverously bloodthirsty as that of Hitler or even worse, Stalin: he never killed for pleasure or jealousy. But never having committed any violence himself, and never having witnessed any of the violent effects of his orders firsthand, he could afford to order executions by the basketful, impose policies that led to mass starvation, and generally behave "as if human lives were mere figures to be erased." What's more, being "the sort of man who had the look of wanting to give other men orders," his naturally autocratic personality, his overwhelming need to dominate and his inability to stomach even slight disagreement, caused him to view all human beings as either assets or threats. The assets were used until they were no longer useful and then discarded. The threats were shot. Yet he was also capable, in his private life, of much consideration, tenderness and warmth: those who REMAINED useful loved him dearly for the human side he showed them. And the broad masses, even when they hated him, understood he was something special in history, that he cared absolutely nothing for money, women, pomp, circumstance, glory, or the trappings of power (he lived like a monk); and that his goals were noble even if his methods were soaked in blood.
Payne clearly admired Lenin to a degree, and some of this admiration leaks through the early and middle portions of the narrative: interestingly, this admiration turns to horror at roughly the time Lenin himself seems to have grasped the full horror of what he himself had done, and what he was going to be remembered for -- opening the gate for the beast, Stalin.
This book is undoubtedly too long by at least 100 pages, and the brute fact is that Lenin's life, while interesting, is not actually fascinating until he came to power. Unlike Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, Lenin did not fight in wars or ride the countryside as a bandit nor engage in beer hawl brawls. He was a thinker, an intellectual of vast energy and total fanaticism. His weapons were ideas, speeches, writings, and his ferocious personality. He paved the way for the Russian Revolution with his mouth and with his pen, mostly from positions of relative comfort, and even when he was in Siberia he lived a life better than 95% of the rest of the population of Russia. His formation and rise is interesting to read about, but it lacks the real drama of the lives of those others. LENIN does pick up speed once he's back in Russia in 1917, and closes fairly strongly. But taken all in all, it's a book that could have used much harsher editing, and only Payne's wonderful prose and curious angle of looking at events through human eyes rather than historical lenses makes it really worthwhile.
Payne's picture of Lenin is rather startling. Far from an embattled revolutionary bandit of peasant stock, living a life of intrigue and danger until he shot and bombed his way into power, Lenin is depicted as being born into privilege -- indeed, the petty nobility -- raised in a fairly loving atmosphere, and given the finest education, which was not wasted on his admittedly brilliant mind. He came to Marxism through his older brother, executed for a clumsy attempt to assassinate the tsar, but his brand of Marxism was curiously vague and more inspired by anarchism and nihilism than communist doctrine. He was interested in burning down the existing world, but extremely vague about what would come after, falling back on empty phrases, platitudes and broad generalizations when pressed about the world he wanted to build, and how it would be constructed. Like Hitler, he believed in what he eventually came to do, but also like Hitler with Nazism, he viewed Marxism foremost as tool to obtain arbitrary power: and it was power that he really wanted, unlimited power. According to Payne, Lenin was the typical intellectual revolutionary: a man who had been born into comfort, never done an honest day's labor in his life, and yet felt both an affinity for, a contempt of, and an absolute stewardship over, the workers and peasants of the world. They were his students, he was their schoolmaster, and if they got out of line, well, they got the cane. By the millions.
Lenin's psychology was not as carniverously bloodthirsty as that of Hitler or even worse, Stalin: he never killed for pleasure or jealousy. But never having committed any violence himself, and never having witnessed any of the violent effects of his orders firsthand, he could afford to order executions by the basketful, impose policies that led to mass starvation, and generally behave "as if human lives were mere figures to be erased." What's more, being "the sort of man who had the look of wanting to give other men orders," his naturally autocratic personality, his overwhelming need to dominate and his inability to stomach even slight disagreement, caused him to view all human beings as either assets or threats. The assets were used until they were no longer useful and then discarded. The threats were shot. Yet he was also capable, in his private life, of much consideration, tenderness and warmth: those who REMAINED useful loved him dearly for the human side he showed them. And the broad masses, even when they hated him, understood he was something special in history, that he cared absolutely nothing for money, women, pomp, circumstance, glory, or the trappings of power (he lived like a monk); and that his goals were noble even if his methods were soaked in blood.
Payne clearly admired Lenin to a degree, and some of this admiration leaks through the early and middle portions of the narrative: interestingly, this admiration turns to horror at roughly the time Lenin himself seems to have grasped the full horror of what he himself had done, and what he was going to be remembered for -- opening the gate for the beast, Stalin.
This book is undoubtedly too long by at least 100 pages, and the brute fact is that Lenin's life, while interesting, is not actually fascinating until he came to power. Unlike Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, Lenin did not fight in wars or ride the countryside as a bandit nor engage in beer hawl brawls. He was a thinker, an intellectual of vast energy and total fanaticism. His weapons were ideas, speeches, writings, and his ferocious personality. He paved the way for the Russian Revolution with his mouth and with his pen, mostly from positions of relative comfort, and even when he was in Siberia he lived a life better than 95% of the rest of the population of Russia. His formation and rise is interesting to read about, but it lacks the real drama of the lives of those others. LENIN does pick up speed once he's back in Russia in 1917, and closes fairly strongly. But taken all in all, it's a book that could have used much harsher editing, and only Payne's wonderful prose and curious angle of looking at events through human eyes rather than historical lenses makes it really worthwhile.
September 5, 2018
This is a long read. I bought the book on Kindle for a quid in Nov 2017 and just finishing in Sept 2018, largely because the first half of the book is slow and perhaps overdone and I had to put it down frequently due to the boredom.
Recently I resolved to finishing the book and so got it done, made easier because this book turns around at the half way mark and becomes quite fascinating as we approach Lenin's death and the machinations of his various successors, Stalin in particular.
I think the book could've been better with tighter editing and a reduction of at least one third of the text. I enjoyed Karl Marx by Orlando Figes better for that reason.
I was surprised at the end of the book where the author contends the likelihood that Lenin was poisoned by Stalin, something which has never been suggested in mainstreeam history. Recent newspaper articles have also suggested Lenin died from Syphiis, interesting because this author makes no mention of Lenin's sex life. We know that his wife was mainly a glorified maid and slept in a seperate room. We also know thanks to this author that Lenin had dalliances with other women with revolutionary sympathies such as Inessa Armand.
The reason this is important is because the autopsy conducted on Lenin showed that he died from a brain disease and although the original autopsy doesn't mention syphiis, perhaps that detail was withheld for obvious reasons by the doctors involved or the party heirarchy. If the author had discussed Lenin's sex life in more detail the reader would have been in a better position to determine the possibility of syphiis as the actual cause of death.
Despite this glaring omission in the book it remains a worthwhile read and the story of the Kronstadt Sailors is an intriguing one. The book also offers insights into Trotsky and Stalin if you don't also want to read their biographies.
Recently I resolved to finishing the book and so got it done, made easier because this book turns around at the half way mark and becomes quite fascinating as we approach Lenin's death and the machinations of his various successors, Stalin in particular.
I think the book could've been better with tighter editing and a reduction of at least one third of the text. I enjoyed Karl Marx by Orlando Figes better for that reason.
I was surprised at the end of the book where the author contends the likelihood that Lenin was poisoned by Stalin, something which has never been suggested in mainstreeam history. Recent newspaper articles have also suggested Lenin died from Syphiis, interesting because this author makes no mention of Lenin's sex life. We know that his wife was mainly a glorified maid and slept in a seperate room. We also know thanks to this author that Lenin had dalliances with other women with revolutionary sympathies such as Inessa Armand.
The reason this is important is because the autopsy conducted on Lenin showed that he died from a brain disease and although the original autopsy doesn't mention syphiis, perhaps that detail was withheld for obvious reasons by the doctors involved or the party heirarchy. If the author had discussed Lenin's sex life in more detail the reader would have been in a better position to determine the possibility of syphiis as the actual cause of death.
Despite this glaring omission in the book it remains a worthwhile read and the story of the Kronstadt Sailors is an intriguing one. The book also offers insights into Trotsky and Stalin if you don't also want to read their biographies.
August 10, 2018
This is an old school history book, not saying that this makes it bad, it is just old school in how it presents the narrative of Lenin’s biography. Once you are done finishing it, you feel as if you have accomplished a personal feat—like reading War and Peace or Ulysses.
It is very impressive in the fact of how much research Payne (author) performed in providing the details of Lenin’s life. Another redeeming quality is Payne’s analysis of almost every written work by Lenin from youth to the hour of his death. The overall narrative also helps to shed light on how little Lenin actually tried to implement socialist and Marxist principles in any way shape or form. In fact, Payne provides evidence over and over again on how Lenin desired to tear down all aspects of government and progressive reform with absolutely no plan whatsoever on what should replace it—even after 20 years of complaining about the then current system.
Once done with the book, one cannot help but notice a similarity between Lenin’s way of acquiring power and the current contemporary Right’s attack on liberal democracy—they both use the same arguments and techniques! It is downright eerie and, subsequently, the most important lesson in which this book offers to contemporary readers.
It is very impressive in the fact of how much research Payne (author) performed in providing the details of Lenin’s life. Another redeeming quality is Payne’s analysis of almost every written work by Lenin from youth to the hour of his death. The overall narrative also helps to shed light on how little Lenin actually tried to implement socialist and Marxist principles in any way shape or form. In fact, Payne provides evidence over and over again on how Lenin desired to tear down all aspects of government and progressive reform with absolutely no plan whatsoever on what should replace it—even after 20 years of complaining about the then current system.
Once done with the book, one cannot help but notice a similarity between Lenin’s way of acquiring power and the current contemporary Right’s attack on liberal democracy—they both use the same arguments and techniques! It is downright eerie and, subsequently, the most important lesson in which this book offers to contemporary readers.
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May 2, 2024This is less a biography of Lenin and more a giant rant against him. Is the story of Lenin's life told here? Yes. And there are good facts amid a gripping tale of his life. Make no mistake about it, this book is a page-turner. Yet the author spends so much of this book disparaging, insulting, and denigrating Lenin that it makes the head spin. This happens so much as to dash the author's credibility. Any attempt by a reader not already familiar with Lenin to parse the wheat of fact from the chaff of falsehood is a fool's errand. The picture this author paints of Lenin indicates the man should have thoroughly been despised and reviled by Soviet citizens by the time of his death. That basically the opposite was true- a fact reluctantly acknowledged by the author as if he is pulling his own teeth by acknowledging it, is entirely a mystery to the reader who's only knowledge of Lenin is this 'biography.'
January 5, 2022
Ugly revision
A racist hate filled polemic. A racist diatribe masked as an historical treatise. The author concludes very early in the book that Lenins’ greatest crime was being of German extract. He constantly alludes to his ‘Germanic’ character. Disgracefully opinionated & distorted. Clearly, Lenin was no saint but the constant denigration of Lenin as a man with no redeeming features is embarrassing. If you want to reinforce the capitalist character assassination of Lenin, this will be of considerable help. However, you may need to suspend any pretence of critical thought.
A racist hate filled polemic. A racist diatribe masked as an historical treatise. The author concludes very early in the book that Lenins’ greatest crime was being of German extract. He constantly alludes to his ‘Germanic’ character. Disgracefully opinionated & distorted. Clearly, Lenin was no saint but the constant denigration of Lenin as a man with no redeeming features is embarrassing. If you want to reinforce the capitalist character assassination of Lenin, this will be of considerable help. However, you may need to suspend any pretence of critical thought.
August 30, 2022
Fascinating look at a very complicated man, rendered in simplistic terms. There’s nothing simple about Lenin and his life, but the author manages to boil it down. Remarkably detailed, remarkably unsympathetic. Yes, Lenin was responsible for millions dead, but surely he did some good? The book never really addresses this.
It’s worthwhile to note this book was written at the height of the Cold War, when communists were deadly enemies duty bound to destroy us. Biography written today would not be quite as one-sided.
It’s worthwhile to note this book was written at the height of the Cold War, when communists were deadly enemies duty bound to destroy us. Biography written today would not be quite as one-sided.
September 18, 2021
I got this book off my Grandpa’s shelf when he was downsizing. I thought the early chapters about Lenin’s childhood were fascinating. The final chapters in which Lenin realizes he is “strongly guilty” for bringing about a more tyrannical government than tsarism were also illuminating.
The book looks at Lenin as if through a microscope and so does not give as much historical context as I would have liked.
The book looks at Lenin as if through a microscope and so does not give as much historical context as I would have liked.
July 8, 2025
Excellent
This book, part of a trilogy, concerning prominent Russian leaders, constitutes a well-written, very readable, extensively researched chronicle of its eponymous subject and his times, a tour de force!!!
This book, part of a trilogy, concerning prominent Russian leaders, constitutes a well-written, very readable, extensively researched chronicle of its eponymous subject and his times, a tour de force!!!
November 22, 2023
Read this in less than a week nearly 20 years ago and I still think about things I learned from it to this day. Really well written.
November 25, 2023
One of my favorite biographies.
March 9, 2015
Instead of being a biography, I think this doorstop I just finished is more a primer on communism, with a little bit of biographical information on this guy thrown in for good measure.
We get it. He wanted the proletariat to be in charge, and thought nothing but violence would accomplish such. We can also thank him for the scourge that was Josef Stalin. He attempted to rectify that before he died, with a document of succession, but Stalin had other ideas.
It got interesting in about the last four chapters. It was a long hard slog, but I DID it!
This is going in the box to Value Village. Now I need to read something fun and fluffy. Gah.
We get it. He wanted the proletariat to be in charge, and thought nothing but violence would accomplish such. We can also thank him for the scourge that was Josef Stalin. He attempted to rectify that before he died, with a document of succession, but Stalin had other ideas.
It got interesting in about the last four chapters. It was a long hard slog, but I DID it!
This is going in the box to Value Village. Now I need to read something fun and fluffy. Gah.
February 3, 2014
It was okay. I guess it would be no surprise to say that it was about the Life and Death of Lenin. I didn't take away a great deal from it. I wish the author gave me better insight into why so many people followed this man and continued to idolize him after his death. It seems to me that his popularity at the time was based on hope and promise rather than any real change from life under the Tzars. He didn't deliver nor did anyone after him.
December 27, 2009
A solid biography. The author likes to throw in a few odd details, as in "He was a great sharpener of pencils."(actual sentence).
This book is worth a purchase if only for the nihilist masterpiece, "The Revolutionary Catechism," by Sergey Nechayev, included in the introduction.
This book is worth a purchase if only for the nihilist masterpiece, "The Revolutionary Catechism," by Sergey Nechayev, included in the introduction.
October 28, 2014
another in the old Reader's Digest condensed collection. Nothing all that great about the man or the writing comes though to me, just one of those larger than life figures in history that I thought I aughta know more about.
January 20, 2011
I love to read biographies. Who was Lenin? This one should be really interesting. Hope I can gain some insights about how he became who he is....
August 2, 2022
Um documento importante para perceber a vida e o percurso desta personagem central do século XXI.
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