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Lenin in Zürich

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This book gives a good view into what sort of man Lenin was really like. Built up by Soviet Communist propaganda as the wisest man in history who devoted his life to bringing a Bolshevik utopia to the world, Solzhenitsyn shows us, during this period when Lenin stuck in Switzerland by the First World War, that he was a man that had little sympathy or empathy for his fellow man, who criticized other emigres for enjoying life in exile from Russia even though he was doing the same thing, a man who never actually worked a day in his life, surviving by living off handouts from relatives and ill-gotten gains by other Marxists, and who had an affair with Inessa Armand while being married to Krupskaya (who went along with the whole thing). This man, who spent the 1905 Revolution on the sidelines, unlike Trotsky and Helphand-Parvus, was actually torn by self-doubts as to whether he could actually do something when the time came for action, also came to despair that the Czarist regime could ever be overthrown, just days before it actually happened. Suddenly, this man, whose biggest ambition was to cause a split in the Swiss Social Democratic Party, suddenly had the option to prove his abilities, and to the sorrow of Russian and world, he found that he did have such talents, first organizing the conspiratorial agreement with Germany's military autocrats which allowed him to travel through Germany in the infamous "sealed train" in order to subvert Russian participation in the war on the side of the Allies. He was also able to counter accusations that he was a Russian traitor working for the Germans, even though that was the way it looked to many people.
This book sheds a lot of light on Lenin's relationship with Helphand-Parvus who was instrumental in arranging the passage through Germany. Once a radical revolutionary, he became a wealthy businessman who enjoyed the good life while still working for revolution that preached against all the values he himself came to embody. He even offered to make Lenin a rich man, but Lenin stayed away from that temptation, at least at that theim (After the revolution, Lenin moved into the dachas of the former ruling class in Russia and finally got to enjoy the luxuries he denied to his people, so he ended up succumbing to the same tempations as Parvus). Parvus even ended up sympathizing with the Kaiser's Imperial regime in Germany, opposing a socialist revolution there, while at the same time, working for one in Russia. Thus, we see what kind of values these "revolutionaries" really had...they claimed to want to improve the lot of their people, but really all they cared about was grabbing state power and lining their pockets along the way.
It was during his Swiss exile during the War that he coined his infamous phrase "Turn the Imperialist War into A Civil War". Unfortunately, those who sided with the Reds in the wake of his Bolshevik October coup (that's what it was, it was no "revolution") either forget about or weren't aware of this slogan, and instead fell for his enticing "Peace, Land and Bread" which they thought meant a quiet, prosperous life for all. Lenin had no such intentions, instead he was very serious when he promised a Civil War which he unleashed on the country in order to tear down its old aristocratic, capitalist structure which he despised (his hate for this far outweighed any humanitarian motives to improve the lot of his fellow Russians whom he secretly despised). This led to civil war, mass executions, famine and chaos. This is Lenin's legacy to Russia. The country is still suffering from it 90 years later.

This is a hugely underrated book that deserves greater attention. Solzhenitsyn gets novelistically into the mind of Lenin, including his relationships with Swiss communists and other politicians, with the Russian emigre community, and his fellow Bolsheviks - key characters like Parvus whom history has now forgotten, and most of whom, were destined to be purged by "Koba" (Stalin). It is conveniently bracketed between the outbreak of WWI and Lenin's departure by sealed train to unleash the Bolshevik reolution on Russia. One gets to admire Lenin's firmness of mind and purpose, but he is not a sympathetic character, a tyrant in his household, contemptuous of dissent, and a despiser of democratic bourgeois Switzerland, which he tries vainly to overthrow. A glossary in the back makes all the characters clear. As an impressionistic attempt to portray Bolsheviks on the cusp of power, Solzhenitsyn drives the narrative with a good deal of irony and humour.

I am a big Solzhenitsyn fan. I'd read any novel of his. I'd read it if he wrote a book about paper clips. Well, he did, sort of. He wrote a book about Lenin's activities and thoughts in Zurich, Switzerland, before the Russian Revolution. Lenin did nothing in Zurich. The communist revolution hasn't happened yet in Switzerland, in case you haven't noticed.

So, Lenin's activities in Zurich are confined to his fruitless attempts to motivate the Swiss to a communist revolution. I get the feeling that he came to think of the Swiss as a bunch of cows going moooooooo. "Down with the bourgeouis (spelling?) state. Down with the rich pigs." "Mooooo."

We see how the author interprets Lenin's personality. As a thinker, a planner, a very suspicious person, with the mind of a chess player, always thinking several moves ahead, always bluffing, never simply honest and open.

In one conversation, the wealthy revolutionary Parvus is trying to convince Lenin to release his underground Russian forces for Parvus's planned revolution, financed by Germany. Parvus can't understand why Lenin refuses to join. He is counting on the powerful Leninist underground in Russia. What Lenin doesn't tell Parvus, as he stonewalls and counterattacks and raises innumerable objections about who will lead the revolution, is that Lenin doesn't have any damn underground. Nothing. All Lenin has at this time is a small group of bovine Swiss leftists.

I came away from the book believing that the Lenin in this book was a sincere humanitarian interested in protecting the masses (us) from abuse by those in power, and frustrated at our lack of spirit to stand up for ourselves. He was coming from a country where the peasants received an extremely raw deal from their tsar and ruling class, the patient and ever-suffering Russian peasants. From this background it is easy to understand Lenin's frustration. Any government as oppressive as that one needs to be overturned. Lenin's older brother was executed by the tsar. Now we seem to understand him better.

A recent book claims that Lenin was thoroughly evil, the author of the concentration camp and the cult of personality dictatorship. But this book is of questionable merit because it was written by someone who may just be an anti-communist party hack of the new Russian regime. Do we believe him or Solzhenitsyn?