Customer Reviews

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

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1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

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.

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).

While this is a slender volume, it provides very important documentary evidence of what had been hinted at and alluded to previously. The criminal nature of the Soviet Union can no longer be explained away as a corruption by Stalin of the pure and noble ideology of Lenin. The documents provided here clearly demonstrate Lenin's criminality and his role in building the terror state that was the USSR.

Dr. Richard Pipes, a great scholar on Soviet history, has done a great service for us in putting this material together so concisely and powerfully. It is another important volume in the Annals of Communism series that I cannot praise enough.

Dr. Pipes provides an introduction and a biographical sketch of Lenin, a few pictures, commentary on the importance of each document. The documents themselves are often excerpts while many are presented in full translation. There are a couple of them also provided in the original by a photograph of the actual document.

This is a vital book in understanding the origins of the Soviet Union and the nature of the relationships among the founders of what led to so many horrors and so many deaths.

This book uncovers the true side of Vladimir Lenin and at the same time the book proves that very few was known about Lenin. Historians usually tend to focus more on Stalin as the totalitarian man in Russian history, however Lenin was the man who set all the patterns of totalitarism in the 20 th century. The documents in the book show the different facets of Lenin's life. Lenin is shown as the political ganster who trade the gold of churches in Europe without any care for his country's famine. Lenin is also shown as the criminal who murdered and repressed sectors of the population to set an example among the population. In particular I think the book provides a good source to use for a future biography of Lenin.

Richard Pipes' presentation of archival material concerning Lenin is of great value to anyone interested in the paper trail leading from the millions of corpses scattered across Soviet history to the feet of comrade Lenin. The reviews of this book are interesting since, speaking literally, Pipes did not write the book: Lenin et. al did. Lenin himself and his various murderer flunkies, wrote the documents that comprise the book. So those that squeal like a stuck pig over this book do so in the face of the fact that Pipes did not write it -- Lenin and his accomplices are the authors of most of the material. Pipes selected documents that demonstrate Lenin's hand in various murderous terror campaigns (the persecution of the Orthodox Church), his creation of a police-terror state, and his subversive work with the Germans. This is Lenin, these are the things he did. Others suggest that somehow Pipes' selection is 'unbalanced.' Hmmm . . . Does that mean that somewhere in all the archival material there is something like an order taken by Lenin's assistant asking that flowers be sent to his wife; a photograph of Lenin passing out candy to children; a letter where the diligent Lenin promises to come over to a common prole's house to roll up his sleeves himself and fix his leaking pipes? Better yet, perhaps in the Soviet archives there is a heartwarming birthday greeting Lenin sent to Dzhirnsky: 'Happy birthday! Don't gas too many peasants in the woods on this, your special day!" Did Pipes select only those documents that portray Lenin in a bad light? It is nonsense to suggest that Pipes purposely left out documents that allow a kind, gentle, loving, zany Lenin to come through. This book testifies to the fact that Lenin was simply a nihilist, someone who did not believe in anything and simply wanted to destroy out of hatred. There is no intellectual substance to communism. It is nihilism pure and simple and thrives on darkness. Read the book for yourself and don't let those who condone murder and destruction try and make it sound as if this book is somehow 'biased.' Lies beget lies and this is what nihilists live for.

If you believe that V.I. Lenin was an idealistic Quaker of the Inner Light variety, you might get really shocked by this book. If you are like everyone else, you might find "The Unknown Lenin" to be incredibly boring!

The "unknown" Vladimir Ilyich organized red terror, exported revolution with the aid of the Red Army, financed Communist organizations abroad, and hated the Russian Orthodox Church. He also spied on foreigners visiting Soviet Russia.

Yeah, really.

Somehow, this sounds pretty old hat. In fact, many of these things can be exegeted even from Lenin's published writings. Others are unsurprising, for instance that Soviet Russia often signed agreements they had no intention of keeping (standard practice in international diplomacy, but apparently verboten if Bolshies do it).

So who would get an ontological shock by reading "The Unknown Lenin" (edited by the talented Mr. Pipes)? Perhaps a very naïve member of the Khrushchevite-Brezhnevite CPUSA, who really believes that Nikita and Leonid were men of peace, and that this policy originated with Lenin. But surely such people no longer exist? Another possibility would be a super-revolutionary Trotskyist, who might get shocked by the fact that Lenin actually *invited* the Allies to Murmansk (in secret, of course). Later, he signed the (secret) Rapallo agreement with Germany. Lenin, the great anti-imperialist internationalist revolutionary, exposed as a common "bourgeois" diplomat.

Poor Trots. I suppose they have to publish another resolution in 22 points, delineating the true "position" on this matter (and on Outer Mongolia), sharply rebuking petty-bourgeois centrism.
But no, not even the Trots will be shocked by Lenin attacking Poland in the hope of reaching Germany...

Sorry, Prof. Pipes, but you will only get two stars for this splendid little publication. Into the archive!

Reading the editorial reviews of this book, I expected to find an epithany on every page, but instead, I came away angry at the fact I spent money for it. The title of the book, 'The Unknown Lenin', implies that what it contains has not been hinted at or stated in other publications. Contrary to the title, 'The Unknown Lenin', contains information already alluded to in other books, such as the Bolshevik's acceptance of monies from the German government, Trotsky's insignificance following his brilliant performance during the October Revolution, Lenin's ruthlessness during the Russian Civil War, Lenin's "supposed" anti-semitism, Bukharin's incompetence as a politician, etcetera, and etcetera.

Regardless of the fact Richard Pipes is a rabid anti-Communist, the archival information represented in "The Unknown Lenin" is not devestatingly incriminating to Lenin's image(unless of course the image is the official charicature of Lenin represented in official Soviet biographies of him!). The fact the Bolsheviks accepted monies from the German Government does not mean Lenin was a German agent, he was simply following Necheyev's Revolution catechism, specifically, "...at all times and in all places the revolutionary must obey, not his personal impulses, but only those which serve the cause of the Revolution". Certainly, Trotsky's genius has been recognized by most people, but only a fool would believe Lenin would openly embrace a man who feuded with him for more than fourteen years, and called Lenin a 'dictator', and the next 'Robespierre'. In addition, Pipes attempts to inveigle the reader into believing Lenin was a bloodthirsty madman, because he ordered mass executions during the Russian civil war, as numerous authorians have stated, Civil wars are significantly different from conventional wars, the rules of war established at the Geneva convention do not neccesarily apply. And if I'm not mistaken, the US cavalry murdered hundreds of defenseless native Americans at Wounded Knee in the 1890's, rougly thirty years after the US civil war(where exactly are the books admonishing Capitalist crimes during the past three centuries?[Communism has recieved a thorough admonishment with such trash as 'the Black Book of Capitalism' and 'the Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire']). 'The Unknown Lenin' doesn't provide any new information on Lenin's excesses, as the title would suggest, but it does provide the reader with insight into Lenin's writing style, such as the format of his letters, and memos, a fact which is somewhat informative. In conclusion, I would recommend this book if you're purchasing the paperback version(it's only about $15), and if you can find an inexpensive HB version, but I wouldn't recommend purchasing the $32 HB, it's honestly not worth the investment, although it is a good shelf filler!

I read this book and I felt dissapointed. The author (who I later discovered is a well-known anti-communist in America) simply shows a serie of notes and documents that, according to him, say how ruthless Lenin was. I am sayin "according to him" because sometimes he dare to guess what those notes say, even when you can't possibly read them (some are illegible). The book has a total lack of impartiality and it reminds me to those books by Dmitri Volkogonov, whose hate against communism blinds him from doing a good and impartial book. My opinion is that if you want to read a good book on a political personality (or on any other theme) try to find an author that has no direct implication in the story (like Volkogonov) or that has not a blinding hate to the topic (like Pipes).

even or especially from Harvard, should be treated carefully. Lenin 'scholars' are given a great deal of 'intellectual leeway' in presenting the facts.

Richard Pipes, a Polish emigre whose family were Polish nobility and a pro-monarchist (see his comments on the Czar failing to co-opt the workers' movement in Russia) is a well-known historian whose hatred of communism overrides the quality of his scholarship.

In this case, expect more of the same.

Too bad, because Leninism fails to rise to the tasks of workers' power. However, I have no pity for the capitalists, white army officers, landlords, etc. that Lenin and the Bolsheviks executed. It was a civil war and the people responsible for drowning millions of workers in blood from 1914-1918 finally paid the price. So what?

That Lenin created a state hostile to the workers who made the revolution means more and has more of value. Any person revolted by capital's filthy butchery should read Lenin, but without the dogmatism of the Orthodox Left or the full time anti-communist ideologues.

Check out International Socialist Forum on the web for a better critical discussion of Lenin and Leninism or Marx at the Millenium by Cyril Smith (available at Amazon.com!)