Robert Service (1)Recensioner

I am genuinely struggling to think of another book that has divided my opinion as to its worthiness so thoroughly, or so often.

When I started reading the book, I was concerned that the quoted praise from the press included the Telegraph (a right wing UK newspaper) but not the likes of the Guardian. As I began to read, I was delighted that this was, obviously, going to be a well researched book containing more facts about Lenin than anything else that I had found. By the time I was getting towards the middle of the book, I was beginning to see the right wing liking for it: too often for my liking, Mr Service was telling me how Lenin felt about this or that... HOW COULD HE KNOW??? One can write that a person reported feeling X or Y; one may say that someone else suggested that a person felt such an emotion but, only the subject really knows their feelings and Lenin was not the sort of man to believe that his feelings were important - far less, would he report them.

I may have stopped reading but, as I previously said, if there is a better source of the facts surrounding Lenin, I have yet to find it. Fortunately, I continued and Robert Service pulled the text around and we returned to fact, with any supposition clearly enunciated as that of the author.

I won't pretend to have a full understanding of Lenin. By the remarks of Mr Service in the concluding section of the work, he has not so done either but, I am much nearer to comprehending the father of Marxism-Leninism and, he is not the cardboard cut out figure of either messianic adoration or satanic loathing that is so often the result of these books.

Well worth reading.

Thank you.

Az alcím világosan fogalmaz: ez egy életrajz. Csak annyit közöl Lenin ideológiai építményéből, ami az életút megértéséhez feltétlenül szükséges, inkább a befutott pályával, mint annak filozófiai hordalékával foglalkozik. Csak említés szintjén jelennek meg benne olyan dolgok, amelyeket én talán fontosabbnak gondolnék (elsősorban az orosz polgárháború), de mivel a főhős életéhez nem szorosan kapcsolódnak, félhomályban maradnak. Ugyanakkor ad valamit, amire csak titkon számítottam, amiben csak csendben reménykedtem: megélhetően felvázolja azt a szellemi forrongást, ami a Romanovok utolsó évtizedeit jellemezte. Ebben az időszakban ugyanis a szinte agyalágyulásig merev cárizmus mint fedő kísérelte meg a lábosban tartani a számos nyugatról beszivárgott gondolatot – köztük a marxizmus eszméjét. De ezek a gondolatok annyira izgalmasak voltak, és olyan evidens gyógyírt kínáltak az orosz valóság véres sebeire, hogy teljesen érthetően ragadták meg minden valamirevaló értelmiségi fantáziáját – akik aztán a maguk módján értelmezve a tanokat, a terroristától a mérsékelt demokratáig szóródtak szét a spektrumon. (Izgalmas lehetett akkoriban az orosz illegalitás.) És messze nem a radikális Lenin és a bolsevikok voltak e szekták közül a legszámottevőbbek – ami azt illeti, ha nem jön közbe a háború, meglehet, a kommunista panteon csillagai egy békés, eseménytelen öregkor végén hunytak volna el ágyban, párnák közt az emigrációban (esetleg Szibériában), helyettük pedig talán valami puhább reformmozgalom alakította volna át Oroszországot lassan, fokozatosan. (Vagy nem.)

De a háború kitört, és hozta magával a kis tatyójában azt, amit szokott: a néptömegek radikalizálódását, meg a társadalmi rend felbomlását, amit aztán a Romanovok nem is éltek túl. És ez volt az a történelmi pillanat, amiben Lenin megtalálta a maga küldetését. Némi német segédlettel egyszer csak ott termett Péterváron, kihasználta a tömeges elégedetlenséget, és megalkotta azt a Szovjetuniót, ami aztán jó 70 évig mumusa lett a világ összes demokráciájának. De ha ez így leírva egyszerűnek is tűnik, valójában minden esetleges és kaotikus volt, amit Service szintén remekül ábrázol: az átalakulás káoszában ugyanis gyakran csak hajszálon múlt, hogy Lenin nem tűnik el a süllyesztőben*, és helyette nem valaki más (jobb? rosszabb? ugyanolyan?) ragadja meg a kormánykereket.

De hát miért pont Lenin? Mit tudott ez a kopasz csávó a fura sapkájával, amit más nem tudott? Az biztos, hogy óriási hibákat vétett, és finoman szólva sem volt tévedhetetlen – sem a világháborút, sem a polgárháborút nem látta előre. Az is valószínű, hogy ha nem segítették volna időnként ellenfelei**, el sem jutott volna a hatalom megragadásának lehetőségéig. Beteges volt. Ronda egy vitapartner, és a ronda vitapartnerek közül is a legrosszabb fajta: az, aki addig képes vitatkozni veled, amíg kínodban már inkább egyetértesz vele. Igaz, sokat olvasott, de megdöbbentően szelektíven értelmezte olvasmányait, valahogy mindig azt találta meg a szövegekben, ami őt támasztotta alá. Súlyozni sem tudta a problémákat – a polgárháború csúcspontján például, amikor Trockij a Vörös Hadsereggel bíbelődött, ő azzal foglalta el magát, hogy vitairatot szerkesszen a német szocialista, Kautsky ellen. De mégis, csak tudott valamit. Munkabírása egyszerűen páratlan volt: csak a politika foglalkoztatta, és hát baromi nehéz ám olyasvalakivel harcolni ezen a páston, aki a politikával kel és fekszik, másra gondolni sem tud. Vérbeli pragmatikusként arra is képes volt, hogy bármikor felfüggessze az erkölcsöt és az elveket, ha ettől sikert remélhetett***, és nyoma sem volt benne a részvétnek, ami szintén nem árt, ha valaki a hatalom csúcsán akar berendezkedni. Ez utóbbi talán nem független attól, hogy azok közé az értelmiségiek közé tartozott, akik egyszerűen semmiféle ismerettel nem rendelkeztek azzal a néppel kapcsolatban, amiért elméletileg küzdeni akartak – számukra az olyan szavak, mint „paraszt”, „munkás”, „polgár” csak absztrakciók voltak, amelyeknek ugyan van értelme, ha matematikai egyenletbe helyezzük őket, de ha arcot rendelnénk hozzájuk, az csak összezavarná a kristálytiszta logikát. Mert így működik a diktátorok algebrája: ha egy paraszti közösség áll 90% szegényparasztból és 10% kulákból, akkor elég kivonni a 10% kulákot, és kapunk 100% vegytiszta hasznos parasztot. Csak hát az emberek nem olyan egzakt elemek, mint a nátrium vagy a stroncium, úgyhogy a valóságban ez az algebra nem működik – de ez a diktátort nem akadályozza meg abban, hogy addig-addig ismételgesse a fenti matematikai műveletet, amíg senki sem marad. Vagy amíg el nem viszi az ördög.

* Megesett például, hogy egyetlen moszkvai kocsikázás alkalmával Leninre kétszer is rálőttek, egyszer pedig fegyveres suhancok tartóztatták fel, akik nem hitték el neki, hogy ő a Szovjetunió első embere, és a legközelebbi rendőrőrsre szállították. És mindez egy diktátorral esett meg. El lehet képzelni, mennyire lehetett biztonságban egy átlagos mezei állampolgár.
** És nem csak a németek, akik aktívan segítettek neki abban, hogy Pétervárra jusson, és valószínűleg komoly összegekkel is támogatták a bolsevik célokat. A háború előtt Lenin – bár nem tudott róla – sokat köszönhetett a cári titkosrendőröknek is, akik a háttérben megtisztították neki a terepet, bebörtönözték riválisait, míg közvetlen munkatársait békén hagyták, mert benne látták azt a figurát, aki szét fogja zülleszteni a szocialista mozgalmat. Kicsit túlkombinálták az urak a konspirációt, azt hiszem.
*** Se szeri, se száma azoknak a helyzeteknek, amikor Lenin egyszerűen figyelmen kívül hagyta saját elveit egy nagyobb cél érdekében, de a legkülönösebb talán az volt, amikor a német kommunistákat arra utasította, hogy szövetkezzenek a szélsőjobboldali Freikorps egységeivel a német kormány megdöntése érdekében.

Finally a historian who keeps things factual and doesn't pass moral judgement.

Hästi kirjutatud, hästi tõlgitud ja toimetatud. Üüratu kogus materjali, millest autor ennast läbi on närinud ja terve plejaad kodanikke, kellega vestelnud. Tõeliselt põhjalik kokkuvõte sellest, kui tähtis oli kogu Külma sõja lõppemisel just relvastuskontrolli kõnelused, kangekaelne Reagan ja NSV Liidu kokkukukkuv majandus. Ei sobi lugemiseks voodis, tahab ära lämmatada, kui hetkeks tukastad.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn commented that Nazism was worse than Communism, but Stalin was worse than Hitler (it could have been the other way around; I don’t have a copy of The Gulag Archipelago handy to look it up). It doesn’t really matter which way the comparison goes; the fact that a Russian WWII veteran even brought it up is significant of itself.


Robert Service introduces his biography of Stalin with an apology; that writing about a monster serves to “humanize” it. His rationale is that unless we accept the fact that Stalin was a human, we won’t be prepared for the next one to come along. Throughout the book he sometimes seems compelled to keep reminding readers of both facets; every time a little fact about Stalin might appear to make him more normal, Service drops in a little parenthetical note like “But of course he was a monster”. Service goes out of his way to keep attention focused on Stalin’s personality rather than Stalin’s crimes; for example we get a detailed political discussion of the institution of collective farms with only a passing reference to the resulting starvation of millions.


These are the only things remotely approaching flaws in this excellent book. I was reluctant to read it – for the same reason I’m reluctant to watch horror movies – but now I’m glad I did. I found the beginning and end of Stalin’s career the most interesting; the middle, through no fault of the author’s, tends to become a mind-numbing litany of death and destruction.


Everybody knows that the young Yoseb Dzhughashvili studied for the Orthodox priesthood; what surprised me was how well he did at it. Despite starting later than the rest of the students, (because he father wanted him to go to work), Stalin got the highest marks (5 out of 5) in Holy Scripture, Russian Literature, Secular History, Mathematics, Georgian Language (although he read and wrote Russian fluently, he always spoke with a Georgian accent), Old Church Slavonic singing, and Georgian-Imeretian Singing. He only managed a 4 out of 5 in Greek; the thought of Stalin whiling away his evenings reading Plato in the original while having his compatriots shot is disconcerting. On another unimagined note, he had a part-time job at the Tiflis Physical Observatory, where he recorded weather observations. Alas, the details of exactly why Stalin ceased to be a religious meteorologist and became a bank-robbing Bolshevik are unclear; Stalin wasn’t especially fond of having his past recalled – he had his mother-in-law sentenced to 10 years in the Gulag for commenting that she had know him when he was Dzhughashvili.


The period of takeover of the Communist Party is also unclear – it seems like one day Stalin was just one of many vying for Lenin’s position, and the next he was in a position to have all his competitors shot (which he promptly did). The subsequent years go by in a sort of blur – drop Lenin’s New Economic Policy, shoot anybody who objects, collectivize agriculture, shoot anybody who objects, institute The Great Terror, shoot anybody who objects (and a whole lot of people whether they objected or not – there were quotas for executions, which some local officials filled by picking people more or less at random); get in bed with Hitler, shoot anybody who objects; get out of bed with Hitler, shoot anybody who does an inadequate job of objecting to Hitler; and build a USSR bomb (Stalin, a believer in Leninist materialism, thought modern physics was a “bourgeois myth”; Beria had to plead with him to allow the nuclear physicists to actually do physics. Stalin finally yielded, telling Beria “Leave them in peace. We can always shoot them later”.)


It’s hard to convey the weirdness of the Great Terror. The upper echelons of the Communist Party all basically went nuts; in fear that each day would be their last, they turned to vodka and women (sometimes men) in abundance. Stalin himself was fairly restrained; although there are rumors about various romantic – if spending time with him can be called “romantic” – dalliances, but nothing solid. He enjoyed throwing lavish stag parties, where he drank tea out of a wine glass, while everybody else was served vodka in theirs. Numerous toasts were made, and Stalin got to see if anybody made incriminating comments while drunk.


The end of the Vozhd (leader) was finally something of a comeuppance. Although his dacha was guarded by patrols, Stalin was always alone inside – in a different bedroom each night. He then normally called some guards in for breakfast when he awoke. One day he didn’t – the guards were too intimidated to do anything, waiting until 22:00, when a package arrived, to finally enter the dacha. They found Stalin semiconscious on the floor, drenched in his own urine. Nobody called a doctor – instead they called various Party officials. Khrushchev, Malenkov and Beria eventually showed up and finally got some doctors. Unfortunately for Stalin, he’d just purged most of the USSR’s doctors, and the most qualified were languishing in the Lubyanka. This lead to a surreal episode; guards awoke the prisoners in the middle of the night, described the symptoms of a “hypothetical” patient, and asked what treatment they recommended. The doctors must have thought this was some new perverse form of interrogation and racked their brains for the correct Marxist-Leninist answer. Eventually they concluded that things didn’t look good for the subject. And they were right. Among Stalin’s papers were three notes he’d carefully saved – one from Lenin criticizing him, one from Bukharin asking why his death was necessary, and one from Tito recommending that Stalin stop sending assassins to Belgrade, else he’d start sending them to Moscow.


There’s one disturbing question that Service skirts. Suppose there was no Stalin – the Tsar remains or the Kerensky government doesn’t fall or somebody else becomes General Secretary. Would the USSR/Russia have been able to survive Hitler? And if Hitler had conquered the Stalin-less Russia, would he have had enough additional resources to preserve the Third Reich? I hate to think of Stalin as a necessary evil, but there is something to this argument.

Very flattering depiction of Reagan as holding a hard line on the Soviets while always being willing to negotiate if the Soviets made the right concessions on human rights and accepting Star Wars. Meanwhile, Gorbachev, understanding the USSR’s increasingly desperate economic circumstances, was forced to the negotiating table so he could stop spending so much on defense. However, if you read carefully, Reagan kind of went with the last person he talked with—so when George Schultz was the last person, he was more willing to negotiate, and when Cap Weinberger was the last person, he was a hawk.

The Last of the Tsars

Robert Service the distinguished Oxford University historian and expert in Russia and Soviet history, has surpassed himself once again with the Last of the Tsars.

Service has looked in to new evidence from the archives, which some historians either ignored or did not know what was there. It sheds new light on Nicholas II, after his abdication in February 1917 until his death sixteen months later alongside the rest of his family.

What we find that from 1887 until just before his death in 1918 Nicolas kept a diary and while his fifty volumes are a diligent record they actually revealed very little, other than he was dull and doting on his family, revealed nothing about the health and state of political life in Tsarist Russia. What they did do is reinforce how completely remote the Russian aristocracy was from the lives whom they reigned over.

We do learn that Nicolas was a voracious reader and kept an extensive library at the Royal Palace at Tsarskoe Selo outside of St Petersburg. While he was being held captive, he was able to revisit some of his favourite titles. What Service does note is that he reread many of the Russian classics as well as military history while being kept prisoner.

What the book does show is that Nicolas was a fastidious man of a nervous disposition with simple tastes, who loved to eat borscht. While it is true that he always put the service of the nation first he lacked the political intelligence and flexibility to run the country especially during a war. Service shows that he was a ruler who was stubborn, who always thought he was right and completely blind to the people’s suffering.

What this account does do is the character and flaws of Nicholas, challenges the claim that members of his family escaped from the cellar, where the family were shot. It explains why he didn't flee to England (also that if George V had allowed Nicholas a place of exile that it was doubtful the Bolsheviks and Lenin would have allowed him to leave), his thoughts on the Bolshevik coup, what it was alike around the places of Nicholas’ detention, and why the killings took place.

In recent years, a number of books have been written concerning the Romanovs and have been quite reverential in tone and adoration, this book challenges this, and quite rightly so. Service also corrects the view, held by many, that Nicholas was a meek man, and reminds us that he was a bloody tyrant, not afraid to kill his own, and that is without a war, when war did arrive he was simply not up to the task.

Robert Service has written an excellent and absorbing account of Nicholas II, deals with forgotten facts, and not afraid to remind people he was the Tsar and like all before him an autocratic tyrant. Even when faced with a rapidly changing world in Russia from the time of his abdication until his murder, Nicholas still preferred to look back rather than face the new world and times.

This truly an excellent account, which needs to be welcomed during the one hundredth anniversary of the revolution that shook the world.

I drifted midway. Must begin again.

Un somme sur un montagne d'orgueil et de naïveté... Consternant, mais un excellent ouvrage.

Service writes awkwardly, and clumsily repeats himself a lot. At least 20% of the 'fat' should be skimmed in my view, much of which includes downright bizarre formulations and half-baked pop psychology.

I'm hoping that Kotkin's three-part volume makes for a significant improvement.

Amato e odiato come pochi protagonisti della storia, Lenin ha dominato il Novecento. Il suo volto ha campeggiato sui manifesti di tutto ; il mondo, il suo nome è stato scandito dalla voce di milioni di persone che forse non sapevano chi fosse veramente il loro mitico leader. Numerose sono le opere che gli sono state dedicate, ma troppo spesso quello che è prevalso è il ritratto ufficiale fornito dalle istituzioni sovietiche, attorno al quale si è battuta la propaganda pro e contro il ruolo che ha esercitato. Robert Service, uno dei maggiori esperti di storia russa del ventesimo secolo, si è prefisso di ristabilire in questo libro la verità sul personaggio storico, grazie anche all'apertura,
nell'ultimo decennio, degli archivi centrali del Partito comunista a Mosca e al ritrovamento di documenti fino allora censurati perché non corrispondenti alle esigenze dell'agiografia. Minuziosa e ricca di particolari inediti è la ricostruzione della sua vicenda umana: la famiglia della piccola aristocrazia emarginata perché progressista, l'infanzia già segriatà da un carattere violento, l'adolescenza traumatizzata dall'impiccagione del fratello maggiore, complice nell'attentato allo zar Alessandro III, gli studiclassici e giuridici, la turbolenta militanza nel movimento socialista rivoluzionario, l'asservimento della fedelissima (e tradita) Oglie Nadja Krupskaia, la salute malferma e poi, con l'esilio e l'attività politica crescente, una vita privata che si confonde sempre di più con quella pubblica, fino all'avventura rivoluzionaria e oltre. Di grande interesse è anche la nuova prospettiva dello studio di Service, che mette in luce le contraddizioni e . il disinvolto praqrnatismo del leader politico e del pensatore: dal marxismo formativo, sempre subordiniato alle·diverse esigenze della rivoluzione, all'intransigente ortodossia comunista che non esclude: va alleanze di compromesso col nemico, al mito del proletariato contadino e operaio che fece posto a spietate repressioni «giustificate» dalla ragion di stato. E, soprattutto, quel sogno iniziale di democrazia libertaria trasformatosi nella cupa realtà della dittatura e dello stato monopartitico, mentre sfumano le promesse di una pluralità di culture nazionali all'interno dell'URSS e all'orizzonte già spunta l'astro dispotico di Stalin.

Out of Service's books on Communism, this is both his broadest and unfortunately, his weakest. The scope is impressive, particularly in the particulars of communism in lesser-known situations such as in Chile or during the Spanish Civil War. However, it often feels like the author is merely rushing over facts without much time for further analysis or in-depth study.

As with Service's biography of Stalin, this biography of Lenin is well-researched and reads very well, covering in detail his youth, rise to power, rule, death and legacy in Russian society today. Very interesting as with Service's other political biographies.

Service's biography of Stalin is an excellent treatment of one of history's most notorious figures. Well written and researched, Service charts Stalin's life from Georgia in his youth to his death as master of Eastern Europe, and does not try to hide Stalin's great crimes. Yet, he also shows Stalin as a human being, which make his crimes even worse. Alongside an excellent biography, there is an epilogue that deals with Stalin's legacy in Russia today, and how often he is looked upon fondly.

An excellent companion to Service's biographies of Lenin and Trotsky.

This book does a nice job of simplifying the complicated early years of the Russian Revolution. From the Bolsheviks, the Germans, the Western Powers and all the deluded fans, it provides fascinating reading.

Interesting Facts
Even today, British attempts to undermine Communist Russia in 1918 remain classified in Britain.

Lloyd George, by authorizing a British trade agreement with the Soviet government in 1921, save the communist government from near certain economic collapse.

In April 1918, Britain landed about 2500 troops in Murmansk including some French and Serb troops. This was kept secret from the British people due to fear of public opinion.

After killing the Romanovs on July 17, 1918, the Bolsheviks managed to keep this a secret from most of their own party even up to March 1919.

At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the British politician raising the most concerns about a Communist Russia was Winston Churchill.

While Woodrow Wilson was secretly supplying arms to the Whites in Russia through Russian gold reserves in the United States, the first anti-interventionist Republicans were beginning to attack. In September of 1919, Republican Senator Hiram Johnson of California asked why American boys were being shot at in Russia.

In late 1919, a New York Times editorial made the wild claim that the October 1917 revolution was effected "by men from America who went to Russia."

Maryland Republican Senator Joseph I. France was first U.S. Senator to visit Russia after the Russian Revolution and led his colleagues in advocating official recognition of Soviet Russia. France was able to get Henry Cabot Lodge to lead this effort in committee hearings.

In this excellent biography of Stalin, Robert Service provides an informative and balanced account with a high level of readability.

The inescapable conclusion is that Stalin was a suspicious and aggressive "Gang Boss", selecting his gang members, and deciding who would join and who would leave. He also informed them of who their enemies were.

Massive violence didn't worry him at all if it enhanced his power and removed his real, potential or imagined enemies, and he retained a direct oversight of the killings which proceeded on an epic scale with something like 15.000.000 mostly Russian and Ukrainians being killed from 1917 onwards by the Cheka/NKVD, in the Gulag death camps and in artificial death famines (see Google "Holodomor, Kaganovich").

Service shows that Stalin was a master of power relationships, for example playing Lenin's chosen successors off one against another while building his own Secretariat power base including future figures like Molotov and Kaganovich and gaining sufficient power to finally attack his erstwhile colleagues. The author makes the point that unlike Trotsky, Stalin wasn't an intellectually superior "distant" leader and had a habit of close contact with direct rewards for his followers, which is not to say that he didn't have a considerable intellectual capacity. He was well read but understated his ability for political advantage.

The book also interestingly covers the cult status of Lenin developed by Stalin with himself as the high priest.

Some weaknesses in a basically excellent book could be 1) not making completely clear that the Bolsheviks did not have popular support in October 1917 and gained power in a violent coup, 2) not dedicating a full chapter to the extreme inefficiency of the Soviet system - which eventually brought it down, 3) not making clear that from 1917 to the late 1930's the Bolshevik leadership was overwhelmingly Jewish and not evaluating in more detail Stalin's relationship with them - not just after 1938.

The book says that the Bolsheviks were the largest party in the 1917 Second Congress of Soviet Workers and Soldiers Deputies which could be somewhat misleading since they had nothing like a majority in the much more representative national Constitutional Convention which they violently broke up when their minority status became clear.

The author does say that the Soviet economy was a consistent failure, "It had never been as adaptive (efficient) as capitalist societies in the West, and the conditions after the 2nd WW rendered its inflexibilities stronger that ever." It was also corrupt, "Not only in politics but throughout the administrative strata of the USSR there was theft, corruption, nepotism, informal patronage, misreporting and general disorder. Regional, institutional and local interests were defended" . Stalin also had a paranoid tendency to see "saboteurs and foreign agents" everywhere leading to a general fear of telling him the truth.

Service does say that Jews were 2% of the Russian population and developed Bolshevism through the sequence Marx > Lenin > Trotsky/ Zinoviev/ Kamenev > and finally Stalin's Jewish administration with all the "Terror" directorates run by Jews eg. NKVD (Genrikh Yagoda, Yakov Agranov), the Gulag (Aron Solts, Yakov Rappoport, Lazar Kogan, Matvei Berman, Naftaly Frenkel) and the 1932/33 Ukrainian death famine organized and executed by Lazar Kaganovitch. The author could have usefully evaluated Stalin's relationship with his Jewish "gang" and their highly protected and favoured status prior to his 1937/38 conversion to Russian nationalism.

Nevertheless, a great book and highly recommended.

Dense and meandering biography on Lenin, who remains an impenetrable figure. Good focus on his early life, but it starts to lose focus after an endless recounting of meetings and conferences and denunciations.

Trotsky, the real Emmanuel Goldstein, the real Snowball, has always aroused something between fascination, pity, and hero-worship from fellow travelers and sympathetic intellectuals. The idea that someone more intellectual could have led the Soviet Union on a path different than Stalin's is only too tempting for fans of alternate history.

Yet in this new source, the author aims to tear Trotsky down from his pedestal, and he does it hard. To be fair, he describes Trotsky's brilliance, his surprising military leadership, but also his political blunders with no mercy, and also does the most acidic attacks on his rough and arrogant character. Some go too far - I highly doubt that his daughter committed suicide solely because of him, for example. But some repair of distorted history occurs.

With this violent personality, would he have been any better than Lenin or Stalin? Well, those two set the bar abysmally low. In this time and place of black-and-grey morality, any man who offers the slightest chance of redemption is only too willing to be painted as the brightest star.

Still an interesting book, but treat it with a critical eye, as you should any Soviet history. I will leave with the end quote: "Death came early to him because he fought for a cause that was more destructive than he ever imagined."

For an expert on Communism, Robert Service doesn't have many kind words to say for his subject which must make for a depressing speciality. In fact this is less a history of communism than a history of Russian Communism. Although Service feels obliged to add chapters on China, which feels somewhat outside his competence, and does include a sympathetic treatment of Cuba, other communist regimes globally are dismissed in a couple of pages. In fact Service is best on the growth of Communism before WWII - he is expert on the rise of the government in Russia, internal disagreements, the Second and Third International, Comintern, Communism in Europe etc. But after the war really all Service wants to do is rant about lack of freedoms, human rights abuses - and look these are things we know about already. The leaders of Eastern Europe are particularly scantily treated; we know they were under the thrall of Moscow but there must be something more to say about them than that? So a good half a book but it didn't add much to my knowledge of post war Communism½

What to say about this quite extraordinary man whose actions had such profound effects on the history of the 20th century? As Service says at the end of this excellent biography: “To a considerable extent the history of inter-war Europe was a struggle over the consequences of 25 October 1917. The situation did not disappear after the Second World War.” And the success of the Russian revolution that led to the creation of the USSR was very much the success of Valdimir Ilich Ulyanov. Without his single-minded focus and energy and drive and instincts and capacities, the seizure of power would not have occurred, nor would the Bolsheviks have held onto power in the turmoil post-revolution stretching into the civil war and beyond.

One of the strengths of this biography is that Service draws upon previously secret personal memoirs and reports of Party and government discussions and decisions to produce a more complete picture of Lenin, not just as the revolutionary leader, but as a man, as a person. Service describes Lenin as, “…this short, intolerant, bookish, neat, valetudinarian, intelligent, confident politician…The brilliant student who became a gawky Marxist activist and factional leader made the most of what History pushed his way.”

On the human side, Service describes well the influences of Lenin’s family and its history, and his not well-documented but undoubted affair with Inessa Armand and the impact of that on his marriage with Nadezhda Krupskaya, a marriage that grew into support and caring but was at the beginning, and always, sacrificed to the demands of Lenin’s political life and travels. It is surprising to be reminded how much Lenin travelled and lived outside of Russia before the Revolution during what Service calls the “carousel of European emigration”, 1900-1917. Lenin was very familiar with London, Geneva, Munich, Paris, Zurich, Bern. He came from a family of minor-nobility and although he qualified as a lawyer, his only work was his total and all consuming dedication to politics and revolution in Russia. He was supported by his mother, by income from writing and translating, by sympathizers, and later, by the Party as it evolved.

A noticeable feature of Lenin’s life was the continuous factionalism that characterized his political life from the very beginning, and how this was almost always a result of his own intransigence and intolerance of any difference from his interpretations of Marxism and the best ways forward in Russia. His life was littered with people whom he once revered (Plekhanov) or with whom he worked closely (Martov), but if any failed to embrace unquestionably Lenin’s sense of direction or actions required or his interpretations of theory and historical developments, they were not just ostracized but vilified. And it wasn’t always easy to keep up with Lenin because, despite the theoretical framework of (his) Marxism, his single focus was on seizing power and in he would often shift positions (with no inconsistencies in his mind) if it served to further that objective. This of course also played out in the internecine struggles amongst socialists of all stripes individually and through numerous congresses and conferences, decades prior to, and after, the October revolution on how best to move to ‘socialism’ in Russia and more broadly in Europe. Even after the Revolution it is striking how much Lenin had to deal with factions to get support for his views and tactics; it was not until the final consolidation under Stalin that control of any and all utterances and actions was total.

Over the years, some have argued that had Lenin lived longer, the Soviet regime would not have evolved into the despotism and terror that it did under Stalin. Service shows, with many references, that this is simply not true. From a very early stage, Lenin argued for mass terror and once in power he was ruthless, dogmatic, unforgiving, and cruel in his unrelenting demands for it; utterances and writings that were kept secret for decades in the USSR. During the civil war, Lenin called for public hangings with, as Service describes it, “a vicious relish…He reverted the practices of twentieth-century European war to the Middle Ages. No moral threshold was sacred.” Nor was his animus directed only at the “expected” enemies of the Revolution; he had no patience with a summertime feast day of St.Nicholas and demanded, “We must get all the Chekas up on their feet and shoot people who don’t turn up for work because of the ‘Nicola’ festival.” This was not just inflammatory rhetoric. For Lenin, terror was integral to state policy. During the civil war Lenin demanded that, “The speed and force of the repressions” should be intensified. He stated, “The greater the number of the representatives of reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeoisie we succeed in shooting on this premise [i.e. show trials], the better. It is precisely now that we ought to deliver a lesson to this public so that they won’t dare even think about resistance for several decades.” Stalin didn’t invent anything in terms of terror and repression, he simply expanded and deepened its application to the point of executing several of Lenin’s oldest Bolshevik comrades.

Lenin liked children and often played well and boisterously with some in his extended family. But on the political side, there was nothing soft, nothing forgiving, nothing empathetic about him, and he was a man with a long memory who held grudges.

Historical circumstances provided the opportunity for the October Revolution, but it was by no means a foregone conclusion in either its immediate success or in the more prolonged struggle to consolidate power through the aftermath of WWI, the civil war, foreign intervention, famine, industrial turmoil, economic devastation, peasant and worker unrest, and political opposition within and outside the Party. Lenin’s iron will was the driving force that held the success of the Revolution together through all these trials. In so doing, he founded a despotism that helped to define international and national politics throughout the 20th century and around the world.

I'm normally a very quick reader (if I have nothing else to do I can finish a whole book in less than two days) but this book took me over a week to read!
This isn't a criticism, in fact it bears testimony to how comprehensive the book is, at least with regards to the post-Tsarist regime.

It was a good introduction to Russian history, but I kind of wish I had known about the conditions under tsarism before I started it. The title is a little misleading in this sense because tsarism is only mentioned very briefly, at a point where it is already on the verge of collapsing, and the actual misfortunes suffered by the Russian people under Tsar Nicholas aren't described - we are simply told that people weren't happy.

Pre-reading comment; I'm a little dismayed that the UK Pan 2010 paperback cover is peppered with quotations from avowedly Right-wing writers. (This is meant as a criticism of the packaging, not of the book or any sort of indication of my own view!) Also: this edition carries an ISBN [9781447201830] which cannot be identified. Strange, that.

More when I've actually read it...

Service does a fantastic job of creating a readable overview of modern Russian history. One of his biggest strengths is his ability to write a remarkably non-biased account of a period of history that is so controversial, admitting both the strengths and weaknesses of Soviet leaders.

For my full review, see: http://bookswithoutanypictures.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/a-history-of-modern-russ...

Robert Service's focus in this book is fairly narrow, as he explains at the beginning. It is not a history of the Soviet Union, it is a history of RUSSIA, and he deals with events in other parts of the Soviet Union (and other countries) only as they affected Russia proper. Also his focus is unrelentingly political, dealing with things like economics, social structures and transformations, and military strategy only as they affected (or were affected by) politics and political structures and decisions in Russia. His tone throughout the book is accusatory, as if his reason for writing it was to convict various Russian and Soviet leaders of nefarious deeds and plots. The narrative seems to be accurate as far as it goes, but its narrow focus and harsh attitude toward its subject matter leaves one wanting to consult other sources for more complete and balanced information.

Very interesting and convincing portrait. I wish it would be a little more compressed.