The Life and Death of Lenin

The Life and Death of Lenin – by Robert Payne

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.