Status Updates From Lenin: Responding to Catast...

Rosa Luxemburg in 1917: “The Russian Revolution is growing of its own accord into an international problem. For the peace efforts of the Russian workers bring them into acute conflict not only with their own bourgeoisie, but also with the English, French and Italian bourgeoisie… Thus the socialist proletariat of England, France and Italy has now a bounden duty to raise the banner of revolt against war.“

“Bolshevik slogans emphasize the need for workers to unite, not only in pursuit of these (varyingly distant) political objec- tives, but also to achieve more immediate improvements in their lives. And even the definition of these ostensibly more tangible objectives… are subtly adjusted to the differences in the mood and expectations of the various working-class groups to which they are presented”

Lenin shared his wife’s “genuine pleasure from associating with children and entertaining them,” though his “love of children was exceeded,” according to Isaac Don Levine, “perhaps by his fondness for cats.”