On Conspirator (Rappaport, Basic Books, 2010.)
There are many good books, including this one, published about Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin,) and his spouse who survived him by years (Nadezhda Konstantinova Krupskaya,) though most of them examine his entire life starting with childhood through his passing in after the Russian Civil War. This text by Helen Rappaport gives a portraiture of only his pre - revolutionary resume as a brother of Aleksandr who conspired against the Tsar and was executed, up through his re - entering Russia as allowed by the Germans to pass through Switzerland and other territories. Almost in parallel with the death of Aleksandr was Lenin's time as a student at university in Kazan and where he was involved in student demonstrations that got him expelled from law school. The deaths of Aleksandr, his father and sister, all happening within a short time of each other, and with his exodus from university, Lenin started to travel abroad. It is important to note the text illustrates prominently his provincial location within old Russia at this point (1888 or so) and his life of intrigue and growing influence that began in rural Russia, his ideas about travel abroad and its educational qualities, his meetings with Swiss communists, and other pursuits including his study of Karl Marx in exile that captivated generations of Russians. Saint Petersburg was a likely hotbed of leftist ideas against the Romanovs, not only due to the location of the opportunistic opposition within Russia, but the town was quite easily reachable in Russia from most European capitols. Of these, and outside his time in Siberia, Lenin resided or visited virtually all the important ones, especially Prague, London, Paris, Berlin, Geneva, Krakow, Brussels, and of these, he naturally liked Geneva where the communists abroad were led at the time by Georgi Plekhanov, another name to remember.
Lenin's greatest achievement apart from the leader of the worldwide communist movement, in life and in his passing, was the overall successful publication of underground literature, including the newspaper Iskra, or "The Spark," which made the authorities of the time very wary as the Okhrana deliberately intercepted this publication in the mails several times. Lenin worked feverishly on all publishing projects, much like some people work feverishly on the same sorts of material today. He might have lived longer had he been more patient with himself, though no one like me really shares that opinion. The drama of this time that Ms. Rappaport illustrates very well is the political gamesmanship of the communists as led by Lenin abroad and then at home that concentrated on literary propaganda, spying, organised criminal activities, and other communist party actions of the day that resulted in the ouster of the Tsar and his family, popular dissension against the Russian royals, and the vengeance against them that resulted in their deaths after a new government had come to power. Not all of this is examined comprehensively, nor is the actual importance of the war in revolutionary times; and the book ends with the story of the Lenin train leaving from Switzerland with its destination as the Russian capitol, a trip that took place within the sinister framework of the conquered German territory at the time. This book seemed important to me as it illustrated the frenetic character of the communist leadership in pre - revolutionary days, the overall purpose of communism on a multi - national scale as a foundation for political success, and as a movement affected by and perhaps determinative of the chaos in Eastern Europe early in the 20th century.
THS
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