Paving the Way for Stalin
Victor Sebestyen has written a masterful
biography of V.I. Lenin in which he covers both the personal and the political.
On the personal side it is obvious Lenin, the son of an upper middle class
family was no proletarian. His tastes and lifestyle strived to be middle class.
Although he lived austerely he was very sensitive for the need for creature
comforts. He enjoyed mountain walks and hunting. He also skillfully managed his
very socialist ménage a trois with his wife Nadya Krupskaya and his 10 year
mistress Inessa Armand.
However it is on the political side
where Lenin becomes a man of history. He was strategically inflexible in
pursuing a socialist dictatorship for Russia, and oh did he succeed.
Nevertheless on the tactical side Lenin was extraordinarily flexible and was
willing to be expedient to further his strategic goals. He could be for
democracy and against democracy, he could hate the Germans and then become
their ally, and when “war communism” failed he flipped and supported the
proto-capitalist New Economic Program (NEP). All of this was in the service of
his communist dictatorship.
Sebestyan clearly portrays how Lenin
paved the way for Stalinism. It was Lenin who created the Cheka (forerunner to
the KGB) with its terror cells for political opponents. It was Lenin who
initiated the forced grain requisitions from the peasantry and made villains
out of the better off by calling them Kulaks. Stalin would kill millions of
them a decade later. It was Lenin who attacked deviations from the Left and the
Right turning those into anti-party enemies. And it was Lenin who showed no
mercy when he crushed the Kronstadt sailors rebellion. All of this was in place
by 1924, the year he died. All Stalin had to do was to refine it and make a
cult out of Lenin in whose name he ruled.
On two minor notes, I am glad that Sebestyen
highlighted the role of the Russian feminist Alexandra Kollontai as one who was
very close to Lenin and was in the room when the decision was made to overthrow
the Kerensky government in October 1917. I did catch one error in that
Sebestyen described Armand Hammer as an oil magnate when he entered into deals
with the Soviet government under the NEP. True Hammer was an oil magnate, but
that came much later. In Russia he sold pencils.
All told Sebestyen has told the story of
a personality whose iron will made Soviet communism possible. For reader
interested in learning more about this period in history I would suggest the
Stephen Kotkin biographies of Stalin.
For the full Amazon Review see: https://www.amazon.com/review/RD5VLEG2EEQ64/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv
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