Lenin: A Revolutionary Life

‘An excellent biography, which captures the real Lenin – part intel
lectual professor, part ruthless and dogmatic politician.’

Geoffrey Swain, University of the West of England

‘A fascinating book about a gigantic historical figure. Christopher Read is an accomplished scholar and superb writer who has produced a first-rate study that is courageous, original in its insights, and deeply humane.’

Daniel Orlovsky, Southern Methodist University

Vladimir Il’ich Ulyanov, known as Lenin was an enigmatic leader, a resolute and audacious politician who had an immense impact on twentieth-century world history. Lenin’s life and career have been at the centre of much ideological debate for many decades. The post-Soviet era has seen a revived interest and re-evaluation of the Russian Revolution and Lenin’s legacy.

This new biography gives a fresh and original account of Lenin’s personal life and political career. Christopher Read draws on a broad range of primary and secondary sources, including material made available in the glasnost and post-Soviet eras. Focal points of this study are Lenin’s revolutionary ascetic personality; how he exploited culture, education and propaganda; his relationship to Marxism; his changing class analysis of Russia; and his ‘populist’ instincts.

This biography is an excellent and reliable introduction to one of the key figures of the Russian Revolution and post-Tsarist Russia.

Christopher Read is Professor of Modern European History at the University of Warwick. He is author of From Tsar to Soviets: The Russian People and Their Revolution, 1917–21 (1996), Culture and Power in Revolutionary Russia (1990) and The Making and Breaking of the Soviet System (2001).

First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

© 2005 Christopher Read
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Read, Christopher, 1946– Lenin : a revolutionary life / by Christopher Read.-- 1st ed.

p. cm. --(Routledge historical biographies
)
Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Lenin, Vladimir Il’ich, 1870-1924--Juvenile literature.

1. Revolutionaries--Soviet Union--Biography--Juvenile literature.
   
2. Heads of state--Soviet Union--Biography--Juvenile literature.
   
3. Soviet Union--Politics and government--1917-1936--Juvenile
   

literature. I. Title. II. Series. DK254.L455R43 2005 947.084'1'092--dc22

2004026081

ISBN 0-203-64479-4 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-67416-2 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0–415–20648–0 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–20649–9 (pbk)
C
ONTENT
S

L
IST OF
P
LATES
vi A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
vii C
HRONOLOGY
ix

Introduction
1
1 Choosing revolution
4
2 Laying the foundations of Leninism (1896–1902)
29
3 Constructing Leninism
63
4 Imperialism, war and revolution
106
5 From the Finland station to the Winter Palace
142
6 From classroom to laboratory – early experiments
184
7 Revolutionary war
205
8 Re-evaluation, succession and testament
256
Conclusion: Lenin lived! Lenin lives! Lenin will live forever!
283

N
OTES
292 F
URTHER
R
EADING
300 I
NDEX
303

P
LATES

A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people have helped me understand something of Lenin and develop my ideas about him, especially colleagues, visitors and students in the History Department of the University of Warwick and at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies in Birmingham. I am deeply indebted to them all. While my ideas differ from theirs (and theirs differ from each other) two people I initially met as my teachers have exerted a lasting influence over the subsequent decades. James White, at Glasgow, opened up what were, for me, hidden aspects of the Russian Revolution and the creative differences we have had since con
tinue to stimulate. The influence of the late Leonard Schapiro also looms large over this study. His sharply critical but well-founded and path-breaking studies remain a model of liberal scholarship.

This volume was initially commissioned by Heather McCallum who has since left Routledge. She did, however, have a decisive influence on its emergence. When I signed up to write it I was attracted by two aspects above all: the challenge, for a temperamentally and unfashionably structuralist historian like myself, of writing about an individual and secondly the fact that no up-to-date one-volume scholarly study of Lenin’s life had been published for nearly two decades. However, the ink had hardly dried on the contract when I attended a study day in London for college students studying the Russian Revolution. During a break between lectures I was leaning on the imposing lectern in the hallowed Victorian lecture theatre of the Royal Institution. I turned to my two friends and fellow speakers asking them about the progress of their current research. Beryl Williams replied that she was in the throes of completing her one-volume biography of Lenin. Robert Service said he was nearing completion of his one-volume life of Lenin which was complementary to his three-volume political biography. Beryl’s excellent book came out some months later and Bob’s heavyweight tome went on to win prizes and appear in many ‘book of the year’ lists in the cultural journals. In the meantime, knowing by then that James White was also working on his biography of Lenin, I went back to Heather and pointed out that, apart from mine, there were at least three other
Lenin
s in preparation. Was it worth continuing? ‘Why ever not?’, she replied.

‘There are sixteen Gladstones out there being written.’ Only the reader will judge whether she was right to encourage me.

Since Heather’s departure Vicky Peters has been a friendly, supportive and patient editor. I am, above all, indebted to Robert Pearce, the series editor, for very helpful and detailed comments on the first draft and also to Dan Orlovsky and Geoff Swain who have made many pertinent, penetrating, helpful, positive and supportive observations on the typescript. Despite all their efforts to put me right there will still be errors and misunderstandings. These are entirely my responsibility.

C
HRONOLOG
Y

chronology

Year Lenin's Life Russian Events World Events

Russo–Japanese War begins

Treaty of Portsmouth ends Russo–Japanese War

Year Lenin's Life Russian Events World Events