Customer Reviews

Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Whilst many may claim that this book is a celebration of the machine that allowed Stalin to instigate genocide upon Russia, it is the underlying satire and wit that guide's the reader through the basics of the Russian revolution and to more complex questions that pose themselves in the post-glasnost era. This is not a complete overview of Russia in the grips of socialism, but that was never the purpose. The book highlights the important aspects of the period and introduces the more multifaceted situations. A superb read and a good buy.

It is difficult to believe that a figure as complex as Vladimir Lenin could be successfully presented in a simple and humorous manner, but this book does exactly that. It is excellent not only for beginners seeking a quick overview of Lenin and the Russian Revolution, but also provides a refreshing antidote for experts who have grown weary of trying to plough through the biased and deadly dull works of hacks like Richard Pipes and Dmitri Volkogonov. You'll get a much more informative portrait of Lenin from this book's 175 short pages of cartoons mixed with facts than you would from Volkogonov's 500 page diatribe (_Lenin: A New Biography_).

Is this book a case of "Schoolhouse Rock" meeting the Russian Revolution? Not exactly. It is more ideally suited for high-school students and young adults, but readers of all ages will enjoy the light-hearted format. It occasionally displays a slight bias in Lenin's favor, but this should be seen as a good thing when you consider that even the better biographies of Lenin accessible to American readers (Adam B. Ulam's _The Bolsheviks_, for example) all contain a much more decided bias against him.

Considering that it is inexpensive and will only take a day or so to finish, I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Lenin and the Russian Revolution. You'll get a few laughs from it, too.

Now I've read just read this book and have come up with a few important mistakes in the text. A small example is that it claims that Martov "has first-hand experience of stick-action among Jewish socialist workers (the Bund). The first mass strike of 15,000 Bundists occurs at a Bialystok textile industry in 1895." (p.48)
This is all very nice except that Martov was a Jewish Socialist, yes, but not a Bundist, which is obvious from page 70 onwards when the Bund walks out of the 27th session, but Martov stays with the Mensheviks. Another problem with this statment is that it would have been impossible for the Bund to organise a 15,000 worker, mass-strike in Bialystok in 1895, becuase the Bund wasn't formed until 1897. And no the name was not simply chosen for the organisation because it was popular and therefore it was an easy mistake. The name of the Bund was debated over and changed three times before it got it's full name.

Good idea, but really, these factual errors are embarressing.

This small book is good for a quick overview of the the Russian Revolution and Lenin's life. It explains the basic ideas pretty well and has the important facts laid out in an interesting and easy to understand way.

Still, this book is biased towards Lenin's cause, and justifies to too great an extent Lenin's killing of hundreds of thousands of people in the Red Terror.

If you need a quick study guide on the Russian Revolution, this book is fine - just keep in mind that Lenin was not really as benevolent a person as he is made out to be in the cartoons. But, if you are trying to really understand the topic or write a serious research paper on it, save your money and buy another book on Lenin, such as "Lenin" by Robert Service.

Okay, some of the "factual" stuff, dates and events is worth reading - if you can ignore the fact that this book basically celebrates a man who killed millions (much of it genocidal) and instigated the enslavement of half the planet.

With the opening of the Soviet archives (an event that happend after the writing of this book) it became apparent that Stalin wasn't the first "bad-boy" of the Soviet Union. The purges, the pograms, the elimination of political rivals (a tactic later modeled by Hitler) started with Lenin. But you won't hear about that in this book. Like a Holocaust denier, the author avoids anything resembling facts and uses rhetoric to paint a warm picture of one of the most evil men of the 20th Century.

... Appignanesi ignores earlier works like Gulag Archipelago to paint a portrait of a loving socialist seeking to better the world.

Old school communist apologists like Appignanesi have a difficult time realizing that "the great experiment" failed miserably. This book is ample proof of how far they'll go to rationalize their devotion to their anachronistic ideology.

Read it in the same light as you would watch Triumph of the Will (Sans the homoerotic scenes of Germans bathing each other (shudder)). It's the work of someone so blinded by their ideology, they can't see the blood on the walls.