Just Finished Reading: Conspirator – Lenin in Exile: The Making of a Revolutionary by Helen Rappaport (FP: 2009) [293pp]

It was only a matter of time before they came for him. After the execution of his older brother for his involvement in the plot to assassinate the Czar the activities of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (known to history simply as ‘Lenin’) were under a constant police microscope. It wasn’t long therefore before he was arrested for political activities and sent into internal exile. On his release his mother advised him, for his own safety, to leave the country. So began 17 years outside Russia, a country he was working tirelessly to bring to a new and revolutionary path. Crossing and criss-crossing Europe during those wilderness years Lenin, along with a small band of close supporters including his wife, her mother and his sometimes lover, hammered home the need for revolution in his homeland in pamphlets, newspaper articles and impassioned speeches often to the detriment of his health. Both demanding of effort (as well as absolute loyalty to the cause and himself) and a total commitment he managed to alienate almost everyone he met. Causing and widening any split in the party as well as denouncing any deviation from his plans as nothing less than treachery he was a hard task master who managed to make few friends but many enemies. Moving from Russia to Germany, France, England and Switzerland (and back around again) due to money worries, political infighting and local police attention he only returned to Russia after the 1917 revolution had already started. Assisted by the German government (much to the disgust of his fellow revolutionaries) in the confident hope that he would undermine the Russia war effort he set about with his well-known ruthless style to make a Russian revolution into a Bolshevik one – to make it his Revolution.

Most of this book was an eye-opening surprise to me. I knew the highlights of course. I knew that Lenin returned to Russia in 1917 to the Finland station to prosecute the long hoped for revolution after travelling across German held territory in a ‘sealed’ carriage. What I didn’t realise is both how long he spent in exile and just how ineffective his activities across Europe turned out to be. Not only did he, and his small entourage, live most of that time close to abject poverty but the production of political tracts and radical newspapers had almost no discernible effect back home. About the only thing he did have was a laser like focus on exactly what he wanted – regardless of whatever anyone else thought either within or outside his organisation. He, apparently, never compromised his position no matter the consequences. He was right. Anyone who debated or disagreed with him was either a fool, a tool for the opposition (in other words a traitor) or compromised in some other way. No wonder he had few friends – either political or personal. It seems that he only really made a mark on the revolution and world history after he returned to Russia in 1917 and essentially muscled his way into a fledgling organisation that was already involved in the Revolution. He certainly had some influence in things before everything kicked off but the actual revolution on the ground was far from his to control. That, as we know, came later and at the cost of many lives.

Told in great detail – sometimes a little too much I thought – this was definitely an interesting insight into Lenin’s life before he really hit the world stage. Much more about his travels and travails than his politics it is a valuable addition to anyone’s library on the Russian Revolution. Reasonable.