Lenin the Dictator

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Shortlisted for the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography Victor Sebestyen s intimate biography is the first major work in English for nearly two decades on one of the most significant figures of the twentieth century In Russia to this day Lenin inspires adulation Everywhere, he continues to fascinate as a man who made history, and who created a new kind of state that would later be imitated by nearly half the countries in the world.Lenin believed that the the political is the personal , and while in no way ignoring his political life, Sebestyen focuses on Lenin the man a man who loved nature almost as much as he loved making revolution, and whose closest ties and friendships were with women The long suppressed story of his m nage a trois with his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and his mistress and comrade, Inessa Armand, reveals a different character to the coldly one dimensional figure of legend.Told through the prism of Lenin s key relationships, Sebestyen s lively biography casts a new light on the Russian Revolution, one of the great turning points of modern history. New Read Kindle ePUB Lenin the Dictator by Victor Sebestyen – kino-fada.fr Accessible biography of Lenin from birth until death He comes across as a cold, calculating, argumentative, obsessive, paranoid leader He also adored cats and loved cleaning his bicycle Sebestyen has a gift for uncovering these personal details The personal becomes the political in Lenin s life The author takes care to mention Lenin s close relationship with his wife and mistress He turned to political radicalism after the execution of his brother in 1887 He wandered about in exile, supp Accessible biography of Lenin from birth until death He comes across as a cold, calculating, argumentative, obsessive, paranoid leader He also adored cats and loved cleaning his bicycle Sebestyen has a gift for uncovering these personal details The personal becomes the political in Lenin s life The author takes care to mention Lenin s close relationship with his wife and mistress He turned to political radicalism after the execution of his brother in 1887 He wandered about in exile, supported by a small network of friends and family, honing his craft, and yet was caught outside of Russia in 1917 when the Tsar was overthrown He was not quite a theoretician on the same level as Marx, nor as eloquent as Trotsky, b...Lenin The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror by Victor Sebestyen is a biographical look at Vladimir Illyich Ulyanov, or Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union and a life long communist revolutionary Lenin was born in provincial Russia to a fairly well off family His father worked as a school inspector in the region, and his mother was a Lutheran Christian Both his parents were monarchists ...Victor Sebestyen, through the life of Lenin, has supplied the missing pieces for me to understand the Russian Revolution This may be because Lenin was so central to it, or it may be that Sebestyen writes in clear, organized and engaging prose.Except for the first few pages the book is a chronology Each successive event provides context for the future events The reader is not distracted by great side stories they are in the footnotes or by keeping track of the long Russian names Principal C Victor Sebestyen, through the life of Lenin, has supplied the missing pieces for me to understand the Russian Revolution This may be because Lenin was so central to it, or it may be that Sebestyen writes in clear, organized and engaging prose.Except for the first few pages the book is a chronology Each successive event provides context for the future events Th...Page 468 my book Lenin 1920The dictatorship means unrestrained power and the use of force, not of law Page 120 Yuli MartovLenin has no talent for friendship, he uses people too much Page 138 Alexander Potresovfor Lenin Marxism was not a conviction, but a religion This is truly a highly impressive and readable portrait of the Russian leader who brought dictatorial communism to his country.This will disabuse anyone of the notion that Lenin was a communist Marxist humanitarian He sought Page 468 my book Lenin 1920The dictatorship means unrestrained power and the use of force, not of law Page 120 Yuli MartovLenin has no talent for friendship, he uses people too much Page 138 Alexander Potresovfor Lenin Marxism was not a conviction, but a religion This is truly a highly impressive and readable portrait of the Russian leader who brought dictatorial communism to his country.This will disabuse anyone of the notion that Lenin was a communist Marxist humanitarian He sought power first and foremost He violently oppressed any opposition He organized brigades some under Stalin to remove food from the peasants in the countryside which led to mass starvation Lenin hindered any attempt to aid these starving millions as foreign interference.Page 346 October 1917 Lenin knew that power...This book is thorough and clear I am glad I read it Maybe I ought to feel all excited about it, urging others to grab it immediately, but that is just not how I feel The book is interesting, but it never grabbed my heart I never felt I had to know what would happen next Is that because there isn t all that much new information provided There are tidbits about his wife, his longtime mistress and his mother, but I cannot say I got to know any of the women in his life well Vladimyr Ilyich Ul This book is thorough and clear I am glad I read it Maybe I ought to feel all excited about it, urging others to grab it immediately, but that is just not how I feel The book is interesting, but it never grabbed my heart I never felt I had to know what would happen next Is that because there isn t all that much new information provided There are tidbits about his wife, his longtime mistress and his mother, but I cannot say I got to know any of the women in his life well Vladimyr Ilyich Ulyanov 1870 1924 , better known as Lenin, his traits are made very clear His deeds speak, even if we do not get into the man s head.The book starts with the October 1917 coup, probably to immediately grab readers interests Then it backtracks giving information about his family, his roots We learn about his youth, about his older brother Sasha ...How could this obstinate little manever have become so important Stefan ZweigThe first time I saw a statue of Lenin in person was in early 2012, near the university in Kyiv The next time was a few months later in Donetsk, in east Ukraine, on a walk with my friend Paul, who lived there at the time Lenin was facing away from a nearby McDonald s, as if he can t bear to look , Paul joked The statue in Donetsk is most likely no longer standing, like many of that city s structures, and I kn How could...I should imagine that a person of Lenin s legacy deserves a multi volume, exhaustive biography Robert A Caro, Irwin F Gellman, Edmund Morris, and Arthur Schlesinger Jr have all written magisterial biographies about American presidents Add these to the two volumes by Stephen Kotkin,Stalin Waiting for Hitler 1929 1941next on my reading list Volume II only takes us to 1941 , and one appreciates definitive stories based on the latest available records This is not that type of biography I should imagine that a person of Lenin s legacy deserves a multi volume, exhaustive biography Robert A Caro, Irwin F Gellman, Edmund Morris, and Arthur Schlesinger Jr have all written magisterial biographies about American presidents Add these to the two volumes by Stephen Kotkin,Stalin Waiting for Hitler 1929 1941next on my reading list Volume II only takes us to 1941 , and one appreciates definitive stories based on the latest available recor...For many years historians have laid the blame for the oppressive and authoritarian regime that took root in Russia following its revolution on Joseph Stalin Names like NKVD, GPU or banishment to Siberia, political purges were all associated with the Russian dictator However, the credit for the darkness that pervaded the former Soviet Union first must rest at the feet of Vladimir I Lenin In 1973 Alexsandr S Solzhenitsyn publis...Mr Sebestyen has produced the most interesting and readable of biographies of Lenin His main focus is on his subject s personal life, with surprising detail on his family This is also the only biography to go in to detail about Leni...When we think of the Soviet Union, we mostly think of it as a fully realized totalitarian state We think of Stalin, of World War II and of the Cold War Lenin is a shadowy figure to most of us, usually lumped in with the chaos that preceded and surrounded the Russian Revolution As a result, biographies of Stalin and histories of the Cold War are a dime ...

Lenin the Dictator
  • 22 February 2017
  • Kindle Edition
  • 593 pages
  • Victor Sebestyen
  • Lenin the Dictator