A revolutionary look at the Tsar and Lenin

Picks the best of the many new books published to coincide with the centenary of the Russian Revolution RUSSIA IN REVOLUTION: AN EMPIRE IN CRISIS, 1890-1928 by S A Smith (OUP, £25) LENIN THE DICTATOR: AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT by Victor Sebestyen (W&N, £25) TH

lapse of tsarist autocracy or even of the democratic government that briefly succeeded him. Contrary to popular belief, the tsarist regime was not “blind” to change and had, from the 1860s onwards, introduced a series of social and political reforms, culminating in the October Manifesto of 1905, which could have provided a framework for further modernisation. That it did not was thanks to the myopia of Nicholas II, the last tsar, “who would not countenance any diminution of his authority as an autocrat”.

Even then, argues Smith, revolution was not inevitable. Despite political stasis, Russia was stabilising as industrial output picked up and the armed forces were streng thened. What doomed the regime was the outbreak of the First World War.

The conflict “placed huge demands on a backward economy that could only be met at the expense of the living standards of the civilian population”. Eventually even high-ranking generals and politicians agreed that Nicholas had to go.

The provisional government that replaced him was faced with a number of acute problems, not least the popular classes’ expectation of real economic power and a heavily “socialised” conception of democracy. The gap might have been bridged if the government had withdrawn from the war. It did not do so, and the door was thus opened to the Bolsheviks and their leader Lenin, who displayed “brilliant political instincts” by insisting on “implacable opposition” to the impe- rialist war and to the new government of “capitalists and landowners”.

The Bolsheviks had high hopes for a “socialist society rooted in soviet power, workers’ control, abolition of the standing army and far-reaching democratic rights”. They were never realised, partly because the legacy of the First World War — the desperate struggles to win the civil war, to feed the towns, to deal with the ravages of famine and disease — constrained their scope for action; and partly because of the personalities of Lenin and his successor Stalin, men united in the belief that the Communist Party should enjoy a monopoly of power, socialist opponents should be crushed and civil and political freedoms curtailed. “Lenin,” writes Smith, “must bear considerable responsibility for the institutions and culture that allowed Stalin to come to power.”

Smith describes Lenin as “a man of broad intellect and tremendous industry, of iron will and self-discipline, selfconfident and intolerant of opponents”. In his excellent new biography, Lenin the Dictator, Victor Sebestyen does not disagree. Lenin, particularly after the revolution, was ruthless, brutal and dictatorial, executing enemies and stifling opposition.

What Sebestyen adds, however, is the human side of Lenin: his liking for chess, bicycles and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery book Uncle Tom’s Cabin; the fact that he was born a member of Russia’s minor nobility and only turned to revolutionary politics after the execution of his terrorist brother in 1887; and, most revealingly, Lenin’s love of women, particularly his mother, wife Nadya Krupskaya and mistress Inessa Armand (living in a happy ménage-à-trois with the latter pair for a number of years).

Sebestyen explodes the myth that Lenin was a talented orator. Instead, the secret to his success was his brilliance at presenting “simple solutions to complex problems” in “direct, straightforward language that anyone could understand”. It’s a useful talent in a politician, and one manifestly lacking in the subject of Robert Service’s brilliant, original and compelling study,