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A review by nghia
Lenin the Dictator by Victor Sebestyen
4.0
I thought this was a fantastically readable biography about a person I know virtually nothing about. When I compare it to the other "great communist revolutionary" biography I read recently, [b:Ho Chi Minh: A Life|564927|Ho Chi Minh A Life|William J. Duiker|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1385191000s/564927.jpg|552040], this one was vastly superior. Partly that is because Sebestyen has the advantage of the fall of the USSR unsealing lots of documents about Lenin that had been kept secret for decades. But beyond that, Sebestyen has simply created a very readable book. (Maybe it is his background as a journalist?)
The book is 600 pages but fairly flew by for me, which is interesting because Lenin really didn't do much with most of his life. He spent most of it in exile writing books and newspaper articles. Hardly the stuff of a dashing revolutionary. He let others take all the risks, even his own allies sometimes wondered if he was a coward.
This book is focused on Lenin -- some biographies have a tendency to wander and go in depth on other topics & people beyond just the subject. This means that some topics where Lenin isn't present get short shrift. The planning for the October 1917 revolution and the Russian Civil War are the two biggest examples. But I'm okay with that. The book is already 600 pages. Lenin's story is complicated enough that the alternative would be a multi-volume biography.
But one victim of this -- and the reason I gave this otherwise tremendous biography 4-stars instead of 5-stars -- is that Lenin's philosophy always remained murky to me. His actual writings never get more than a sentence or two of thumbnail synopsis. And once he is actually in power, there is very little written about his governance. There's some kind of land reform, I gather? And a brief mention of people being paid in-kind? And when the New Economic Plan comes along, it is a temporary retreat but...what exactly Lenin planned -- how they were going to regroup and continue the transition -- was unclear.
At some point I'll get around to reading a biography of Mao to complete the trio of big three communist revolutionaries.
The book is 600 pages but fairly flew by for me, which is interesting because Lenin really didn't do much with most of his life. He spent most of it in exile writing books and newspaper articles. Hardly the stuff of a dashing revolutionary. He let others take all the risks, even his own allies sometimes wondered if he was a coward.
This book is focused on Lenin -- some biographies have a tendency to wander and go in depth on other topics & people beyond just the subject. This means that some topics where Lenin isn't present get short shrift. The planning for the October 1917 revolution and the Russian Civil War are the two biggest examples. But I'm okay with that. The book is already 600 pages. Lenin's story is complicated enough that the alternative would be a multi-volume biography.
But one victim of this -- and the reason I gave this otherwise tremendous biography 4-stars instead of 5-stars -- is that Lenin's philosophy always remained murky to me. His actual writings never get more than a sentence or two of thumbnail synopsis. And once he is actually in power, there is very little written about his governance. There's some kind of land reform, I gather? And a brief mention of people being paid in-kind? And when the New Economic Plan comes along, it is a temporary retreat but...what exactly Lenin planned -- how they were going to regroup and continue the transition -- was unclear.
At some point I'll get around to reading a biography of Mao to complete the trio of big three communist revolutionaries.