The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive (Annals of Communism Series) [Paperback]

Professor Richard Pipes (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Annals of Communism Series | Publication Date: June 10, 1999

Was Lenin a visionary whose ideals were subverted by his followers? Or was he a cynical misanthrope, even crueler than Stalin? This book, which contains newly released documents from the Lenin archive in Russia, lays bare Lenin the man and the politician, leaving little doubt that he was a ruthless and manipulative leader who used terror, subversion, and persecution to achieve his goals. Edited and introduced by the eminent scholar Richard Pipes in collaboration with Y.A. Buranov of the Russian Center for the Preservation and Study of Documents of Recent History in Moscow, the documents date from 1886 through the end of Lenin's life. They reveal, among other things, that: • Lenin's purpose in invading Poland in 1920 was not merely to sovietize that country but to use it as a springboard for the invasion of Germany and England; • Lenin took money from the Germans (here we have the first incontrovertible evidence for this); • in 1919 Lenin issued instructions to the Communist authorities in the Ukraine not to accept Jews in the Soviet government of that republic; • as late as 1922 Lenin believed in the imminence of social revolution in the West, and he planned subversion in Finland, Turkey, Lithuania, and other countries; • Lenin had little regard for Trotsky's judgment on important matters and relied heavily on Stalin; • Lenin assiduously tracked dissident intellectuals and urged repressive action or deportation; • Lenin launched a political offensive against the Orthodox Church, ordering that priests who resisted seizure of church property be shot--"the more the better."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Since the fall of Communism in Russia, the Kremlin archives have yielded a hitherto hidden history of the Soviet regime. Richard Pipes, emeritus professor of Russian history at Harvard and author of Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, is the principal editor of this first collection of secret Lenin papers published in English. The collection reveals sides of the Bolshevik leader long guessed at in the West but never proven, particularly his efforts to subvert the West. Such revelations make this volume an invaluable historical tool that helps part the Iron Curtain of silence and disinformation. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Pipes, a Harvard professor and noteworthy author of numerous works, most recently The Concise History of the Russian Revolution (LJ 10/1/95), has edited and translated previously secret archived memos about Lenin from the Bolshevik period and after. In the introduction, he aptly points out that the "official" Lenin is significantly different from the "unknown" Lenin described by many thousands of secret unpublished documents. His book is very cumbersome to read; over 100 documents are given, with notes at the end of each. Some of the actual document illustrations are illegible, and Pipes's interpretation of what they portray is thinly veiled opinion. The information is very specialized academic information, unsuitable for most libraries.?Harry V. Willems, Southeast Kansas Lib. System, Iola
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (June 10, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300076622
• ISBN-13: 978-0300076622
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #910,942 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History should remember Lenin as the book presents him., May 1, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive (Annals of Communism Series) (Hardcover)

A review in simple words. The book reveals a Lenin like I have not read in any other book. The Lenin history should remember is the Lenin studied through his personal documents as the book shows. Although as the book explains, an even darker side of Lenin is still to be revealed as soon as more historian access the presidential archives in Russia. Lenin through his own documents reveals himself as man who scorned his own people, an opportunist, a murder and a master of terror and manipulation. I would also like to add that thanks to historians such as Richard Pipes, history will always reveal the true face of the master of the first terror state of this century. My admiration for Richard Pipes.

32 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Necessary correction., November 14, 2002

By 

Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive (Annals of Communism Series) (Paperback)

For many people from the left, Stalin was the ultimate gravedigger of the Revolution (Trotsky).
The first one was Lenin, by creating a one party state ruled by him.
One should remember that in the free elections of 1919 in Russia, the bolshevik party got only a good 17% of the votes. But Lenin kept his power. As Tomsky said : there was only one party, the others were in prison.
Pipes' picture is all too real: Lenin was - and there are reasons for it : his brother's death for instance - a cynical, ruthless, aggressive agitator, who despised humanity and the workers to whom he told he was to create a paradise for them.
He understood that farmers and industrial workers saw only their own interests, not his: to create a new society with new human beings.
The results of his policies were dreadful: the USSR stopped to communicate health statistics to the WHO in the seventies, because they were too disastrous.
When I was in Moscow, an important person in Russia (I saw recently a quote from him in an international newspaper) told me the following joke: why are Lenin's statues on the market place of every village? Because his arm indicates where vodka is sold. That was the future of the country.
No, Julia Voznesenskaya is more than right: communism was the power of the soviets and the alcoholisation of the country (The women's Decameron).
I recommend this necessary political essay to everybody.

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excelent book to start a biography of Lenin, May 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive (Annals of Communism Series) (Hardcover)

This book shows genuine documents, notes and other documents signed or sent to Lenin through out his life. This book is a good starting place for any history student doing a biographical essay of Lenin's life. Lenin is portrayed here as he really was. The documents show Lenin, ordering mass executions, conspirations and many other acts of terror which truly award him as the genuine creator of 'totalitarism'in the 20th century. Through the documents in the book one can see the pattern from which future communist and nazi dictators adopted Lenin's model of a totalitarian regime. After reading the book one can truly say that either Hitler, Stalin, Castro and many other dictators were only followers of Lenin's model of a totalitarian regime (in the domestic sphere and in the international area as well).