Lenin

by Victor Sebestyen

  3 The 10 October meeting was recounted by several of the people who were there, but not by Lenin. The best account is Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution, pp. 291–9, but Zinoviev’s is lively (www.​marxists.​org/​archive/​zinoviev/), and later interesting versions are Sukhanov, pp. 331–5 (his wife was there), Louis Fischer, pp. 345–34, Figes, pp. 468–70, and Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks Come to Power, pp. 286–90.

  4 Trotsky speech at Cirque Moderne: Sukhanov, p. 494.

  5 ‘Nobody wants the Bolsheviks’: Gippius, p. 183.

  37: POWER – AT LAST

  1 Revolution would not last: Gippius, p. 175, and Gorky, Novaya Zhizn, 26 October 1926. Vladimir Nabokov: quoted in Pipes, The Russian Revolution, p. 469. US Ambassador Francis: quoted in FRUS, digital.​library.​wisc.​edu/​1711.​dl/​FRUS.​1917.

  2 Lunacharsky: quoted in Figes, p. 492.

  3 ‘The bourgeois press is a weapon. Why place it in their hands’: Lenin to Trotsky, in Trotsky, On Lenin, p. 158.

  4 Gorky, ‘To Lenin the working class is like iron ore to a metalworker’: Novaya Zhizn, 17 November 1917.

  5 Plekhanov attacked: Volkogonov, p. 248. Zasulich quote: Jay Bergman, Vera Zasulich: A Biography, Stanford, 1983, p. 249.

  6 Hughes wire exchange, 26 October: RGASPI f. 201, op. 21, d. 15.

  7 Trotsky quote: Trotsky, My Life, p. 325, but also in The Trotsky Papers 1917–1922, Vols 1–2, The Hague, 1967–1971: Vol. 1, p. 145.

  8 Trotsky’s first day as Commissar of Foreign Affairs: Trotsky, My Life, p. 297.

  9 Raid on the Russian National Bank: Richard Pipes (ed.), The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archives, New Haven and London, 1996, p. 86; Louis Fischer, pp. 347–9; Alexander Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks in Power: The First Year of Soviet Rule in Petrograd, Bloomington, Ind., 2007, pp. 92–4.

  38: THE MAN IN CHARGE

  1 Lenin neglected his health: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 269.

  2 Sovnarkom members still thought they were conspirators: Figes, p. 489.

  3 Lenin at Sovnarkom meetings and punctuality: Trotsky, On Lenin, pp. 173–4. Lenin’s orders to Smolny staff: RGASPI f. 301, op. 32, d. 9.

  4 Nikolai Gorbunov: Clark, p. 324.

  5 Adolph Joffe, quotes from unpublished diaries and memoirs: ‘Kanun Oktyabrya. Zasedanie v Lesnom’, in Izvestiya Tsetral’nogo Komiteta Kommunisticheskoi Parti Sovetskogo Soyuza (1989–1991), or ITsKKPSS, a cache of Soviet Party documents from the 1920s. Joffe’s are in cache 4.

  6 Lenin quote, ‘Sverdlov is indispensable’: letter to Maria Ulyanova, 19 April 1918, CW, Vol. 45, p. 134.

  7 Lenin’s Decree on Libraries, RGASPI f. 32, op. 3, d. 22.

  8 Kamenev and Zinoviev, letter objecting to ‘one-party state’: Izvestia, 4 November 1917. Zinoviev recants: Izvestia, 1 December 1917.

  39: THE SWORD AND SHIELD

  1 Formation of Cheka and Dzerzhinsky, background: Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks in Power, pp. 104–10. Józef Piłsudski, quotes: Piłsudski, Memoirs of a Polish Revolutionary and Soldier, London, 1931. Isaac Steinberg, quotes: Ulam, p. 297.

  2 Lenin’s support for Cheka on first anniversary: CW, Vol. 26, p. 312; Pipes, The Unknown Lenin, p. 87; and Stephen Kotkin, Stalin, Vol. 1: Paradoxes of Power 1878–1928, London, 2014, p. 317.

  40: WAR AND PEACE

  1 Ambassador Francis to State Department, digital.​library.​wisc.​edu/​1711.​dl/​FRUS.​FRUS1917. Allied anger at the Soviets: Figes, pp. 501–4; Margaret MacMillan, Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference and Its Attempt to End War, London, 2001; and Lieven, Towards the Flame, pp. 201–9.

  2 Lenin wanted Trotsky to delay Brest-Litovsk talks: Trotsky, On Lenin, p. 201. Background to the conference: John Wheeler-Bennett, Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace, March 1918, London, 1938. Trotsky’s queries about evening dress, ‘Go in a petticoat’: The Trotsky Papers, Vol. 1. Lenin forcing the Treaty through the Communist Party: a good background can be found in Figes, pp. 573–5, and Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks Come to Power, pp. 303–4 and pp. 109–18. Effect on Lenin: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, pp. 242–3.

  41: THE ONE-PARTY STATE

  1 Lenin to Petrograd Soviet, 17 November 1917, CW, Vol. 23, p. 217.

  2 Lenin wanted to cancel elections: Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks in Power, p. 186, and Trotsky, On Lenin, p. 199. Banning the Kadets as ‘enemies of the people’: RGASPI f. 11, op. 6, d. 23.

  3 Lindhagen quote to Trotsky: The Trotsky Papers, Vol. 1, p. 188. Lenin meets American reporter at Assembly: Rhys Williams, p. 253.

  4 Assembly closed down: Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime 1919–1924, London, 1994, pp. 97–100. Justifies the closure: Trotsky, On Lenin, p. 204.

  5 Murder of Kadet ministers: Isaac Steinberg, In the Workshop of the Revolution, New York, 1955, p. 97, and Ulam, p. 374. Murderers allowed to go free: Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks in Power, p. 218. ‘a war against the rich’: Pravda, 8 December 1917, CW, Vol. 24, p. 163.

  6 ‘Let there be blood’, call by Lenin to Fourth All-Russian Congress of Soviets,16 March 1918, CW, Vol. 26, pp. 98–102. To Isaac Steinberg, ‘we [can’t] be victorious…without…terror’: Steinberg, p. 175.

  7 Move to Moscow: Figes, pp. 564–5; Arthur Ransome, Six Weeks in Russia in 1919, London, 1919; and Zinoviev in Pravda, 13 March 1918. Lenin complains about repairs to his Kremlin apartment: RGASPI f. 168, op. 10, d. 24.

  42: THE BATTLE FOR GRAIN

  1 Starvation in Petrograd, Gorky quotes: Torvah Yedlin, Maxim Gorky: A Political Biography, Westport, Conn., 1999, and Emma Goldman, Living My Life, London, 1932, p. 239. Some friends ‘unrecognisable’: Gippius, p. 225.

  2 Lenin’s article ‘The Battle for Grain’: Pravda, 11 June 1918;‘The Socialist Fatherland in Danger’, Pravda, 21 February 1918.

  3 Requisition brigades: Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, pp. 189–92; Figes, pp. 583–5; and Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks in Power, p. 208. Lenin order to Penza Province to ‘hang 100 kulaks’: RGASPI f. 14, op. 17, d. 19. Stalin tells Lenin that ‘our hand will not tremble’: Kotkin, p. 297.

  4 Maria Spiridonova’s background: Isaac Steinberg, Maria Spiridonova: Revolutionary Terrorist, London, 1935.

  5 Left Socialist Revolutionaries’ Rebellion: The Trotsky Papers, Vol. 1, pp. 298–301; Steinberg, Maria Spiridonova, pp. 195–7; Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks in Power, pp. 251–4; and Louis Fischer, pp. 398–401.

  43: REGICIDE

  1 Lenin decides on execution on 12 July with Sverdlov: Sebag Montefiore, The Romanovs, p. 527, and Volkogonov, pp. 328–30. Sovnarkom meeting reporting on murders, 18 July 1918: RGASPI f. 177, op. 9, d. 13. Trotsky to Sverdlov: Trotsky, On Lenin, p. 203.

  2 Goloshchekin, background; and Ekaterinburg Soviet: Sebag Montefiore, The Romanovs, pp. 571–3; Helen Rappaport, Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs, London, 2008, pp. 276–8; and Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, pp. 294–6.

  3 Yurovsky, background: Sebag Montefiore, The Romanovs, pp. 530–2; Rappaport, Ekaterinburg, pp. 280–2; Radzinksy, pp. 387–90. Execution described: Sebag Montefiore, The Romanovs, pp. 530–3. Yurovsky, quotes: Rappaport, pp. 283–4.

  4 Bruce Lockhart, Memoirs of a British Agent, p. 296. Kokovtsov, quote: Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, p. 301.

  44: THE ASSASSINS’ BULLETS

  1 Uritsky, murder: Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks in Power, p. 296. Lenin to Trotsky, ‘applying the model of the French Revolution’: RGASPI f. 377, op. 10, d. 16.

  2 Lenin shot: Service, Lenin, pp. 388–9; Bonch-Bruevich, p. 266; Professor Vladimir Rozanov (ed.), ‘Iz vospominaniya o Vladimire Ilyiche, in Po Vospominayam perepeske i dokumentam, Moscow, 1935; and Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 274. Inessa’s letter to her daughter Inna: cited in Pearson, Inessa, p. 198.

  3 Fanny Kaplan’s background: Volkogonov, pp. 237–8, and Service, Lenin. Arrest and interrogation: Archives of the President of the Russian Federation (APRF) f. 9, op. 21, d. 170.

  4 Execution of Kaplan: Pavel Malkov, Zapiski komendata Kremlyna, Moscow, 19
87.

  5 Launch of Red Terror, Sverdlov’s statement on attempted murder: RGASPI f. 678, op. 11, d. 17; Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks in Power, p. 21. Executions in Petrograd: Pravda, 2 September 1918. Stalin to Sverdlov, RGASPI f. 19, op. 11, d. 19. Cheka officials shoot clown Bom: Figes, p. 567. Cult of Lenin, Zinoviev’s speech ‘Lenin, leader by the Grace of God’: Pravda, 5 September 1917.

  6 Photographs and film of Lenin: Bonch-Bruevich, p. 193. Krasin to his wife: cited in Louis Fischer, p. 307.

  45: THE SIMPLE LIFE

  1 Lenin’s apartment in Kremlin: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 297, and Clara Zetkin, Reminiscences of Lenin, www.​marxists.​org/​archive/​zetkin/​1924/​reminiscences-of-lenin.​htm.

  2 Dacha in Gorki: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 291. Spiridon Putin was Lenin’s cook: Kotkin, p. 413.

  3 Privileges for Party officials: Louis Fischer, p. 398. Lenin’s justification: RGASPI f. 14, op. 9, d. 23.

  4 Stalin refuses to investigate Zinoviev’s luxury lifestyle: Kotkin, p. 354.

  5 Joffe depressed by corruption: letter to Trotsky, 19 September 1919, The Trotsky Papers, Vol. 1, p. 276.

  6 Lenin’s office: personal visit by the author, May 1987. Work habits: Lidia Fotieva, Pages from Lenin’s Life, Moscow, 1960, pp. 45–8. Lenin loved to laugh: Gorky, Days with Lenin, p. 58. Lenin appears dressed in Bokharan national costume: Fotieva, p. 63.

  7 Lenin orders Lunacharsky to place busts in public places: RGASPI f. 637, op. 10, d. 7. Loses temper at Sovnarkom meeting over bust of Marx: Ulam, p. 388. Reprimands commandant of Kremlin about lift repairs: APRF f. 13, op. 7, d. 13. Wastes time on trivia: Trotsky, On Lenin, p. 173. Hunting trips with Krylenko, ‘the fox too pretty to shoot’: Louis Fischer, p. 397. Hunting with Rudzutak: Ralph Carter Elwood, The Non-Geometric Lenin: Essays on the Development of the Bolshevik Party 1910–1914, New York, 2011.

  8 Visits to the theatre: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, pp. 301–3. Lunacharsky says Lenin is a philistine about art: Lunacharsky, Revolutionary Silhouettes, www.​marxistsfr.​org/​archive/​lunachar/​works/​silhouet/​index.​htm. Admits to Zetkin he is a ‘barbarian’: Zetkin, p. 62.

  9 Lenin on Tolstoy: ‘Lev Tolstoy as the Mirror of the Russian Revolution’, CW, Vol. 8, 1908, pp. 103–8. On Dostoyevsky to Valentinov, p. 232. Loathed Mayakovsky and wanted his poems published in smaller print runs: RGASPI f. 19, op. 11, d. 21.

  46: REDS AND WHITES

  1 Whites ‘the last dream of the old world’: Marina Tsvetaeva (ed. James Gambrell), Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries, 1917–1921, London and New Haven, 2002. The Whites’ ‘old regime psychology’: Pyotr Struve, The End Results and the Essence of the Communist Enterprise, Paris 1921, CW, Vol. 11.

  2 Trotsky as Commander of Red Army: Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, pp. 178–81; Robert Service, Trotsky: A Biography, London, 2009, pp. 285–91; and Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War, Edinburgh, 2008. Trotsky recruits Tsarist officers: Figes, pp. 513–15 and Gippius, p. 135. Holding Tsarist officers hostage: Order Number 30, RGASPI f. 24, op. 8, d. 12. Lenin supports Trotsky: RGASPI f. 17, op. 8 1, d. 18.

  3 Whites’ strategy and leaders: Mawdsley, pp. 73–80; Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, pp. 179–88; Anton Denikin, The Russian Turmoil, Berlin, 1922; and Alexander Kerensky, The Kerensky Memoirs, New York, 1965, pp. 297–301.

  4 Western aid to the Whites: Mawdsley, pp. 186–92; British Cabinet discussion on support for Whites: Figes, p. 597, and David Lloyd George, War Diaries, London, 1938. American Secretary of State: quotes from FRUS 1918, Russia, Chapter 13, digital.​library.​wisc.​edu/​1711.​dl/​FRUS.​FRUS1918.

  5 Lenin, war telegrams, to Trotsky, Simbirsk: RGASPI f. 567, op. 13, d. 9; to Party leaders, Saratov: RGASPI f. 16, op. 91, d. 21; to Baku: RGASPI f. 16, op. 91, d. 10. Orders hostage-taking: Pipes, The Unknown Lenin, pp. 44–5, and document 20 from RGASPI f. 16, op. 91, d. 18.

  6 Rivalry between Trotsky and Stalin, who see Kollontai with her lover Dybenko: cited in Sebag Montefiore, The Young Stalin, p. 319. Stalin wants Trotsky removed as Red Army chief: RGASPI f. 18, op. 61, d. 17. Trotsky demands Stalin recalled from Tsaritsyn: The Trotsky Papers, Vol. 1, p. 399. Lenin needed both of them: Kotkin, p. 376.

  7 Whites’ atrocities: Kerensky, p. 347. Wrangel quote: Peter Wrangel, Always with Honour, New York, 1957.

  8 Pogroms by Whites: Figes, pp. 638–44, and Volkogonov, pp. 337–41. Red pogroms: Volkogonov, p. 242. Reports by Reds to Lenin: RGASPI f. 15, op. 91, d. 12. Lenin’s gramophone recordings ‘On Pogroms’ and ‘The Persecution of the Jews’: CW, Vol. 40, pp. 287–9.

  9 British use chemical weapons against Reds: Milton, pp. 186–8, and Mawdsley, pp. 157–8. Lloyd George asks Churchill to keep quiet about Russia: Louis Fischer, p. 398. Woodrow Wilson’s peace initiative: William Bullitt, The Bullitt Mission to Russia, New York, 1919, and Figes, pp. 609–10. Why the Whites lost: Gippius, p. 188.

  47: FUNERAL IN MOSCOW

  1 Lenin overcome with emotion at Inessa’s funeral: Alexandra Kollontai, quoted in Body, p. 34, and Balabanova, p. 135.

  2 Lenin’s letters to Inessa before her final illness: RGASPI f. 127. Letter to Inès, ‘give the letter personally to V.I.’: quoted in Bardawil. Inessa’s last letter to Lenin: RGASPI f. 127, op. 13, d. 19.

  3 Inessa’s last journey to Caucasus: Lenin to Ordzhonikidze, RGASPI f. 127, op. 13, d. 12. Inessa’s diary of her illness: RGASPI f. 127, op. 6, d. 12. Details of illness: Polina Vinogradskaya, Sobytiya i pamiatnye vstrechi, Moscow, 1926.

  4 Lenins unofficial guardians to Inessa’s daughters: Varvara Armand, ‘Zhivaya nit’, Novyi Mir, No. 4, 1967; Polina Vinogradskaya, in Nadezhda Krupskaya (ed.), Pamyati Inessy Armand, Moscow, 1926; Pearson, Inessa, pp. 213–15. Nadya’s affection for Inessa: McNeal, p. 202. Grigory Kotov, in Kollontai, Pamyati Inessy Armand, p.36.

  48: THE ‘INTERNATIONALE’

  1 Clara Zetkin, ‘his face shrank’: Zetkin, p. 16.

  2 Creation of the Comintern: report of First Comintern Congress, APRF f. 23; Pipes, The Unknown Lenin, pp. 127–33; and Volkogonov, pp. 219–21.

  3 War with Poland, background: Service, Lenin, pp. 390–3; Figes, pp. 623–5; and Volkogonov, pp. 228–31. Lenin admits defeat at Tenth Communist Party Congress, 9 March 1921: CW, Vol. 38, pp. 239–42. Explains to Clara Zetkin: Zetkin, p. 28.

  4 Balabanova, first Secretary of Comintern, ‘spend millions’: Balabanova, p. 164. Lenin approves vast sums to foment revolution in Afghanistan: Volkogonov, pp. 391–7, and APRF f. 27, op. 3, d. 9; in Finland: APRF f. 27, op. 4, d. 10; in Korea: APRF f. 27, op. 4, d. 8. Approves money for John Reed: Central State special archive, TsGOA f. 4, d. 13.

  49: REBELS AT SEA AND ON LAND

  1 Kronstadt rebellion, background: Louis Fischer, pp. 415–16; Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment in Russia, London, 1925, pp. 146–9; Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, pp. 213–16. Trotsky ordered to suppress uprising: The Trotsky Papers, Vol. 2, pp. 57–60.

  2 Petrichenko’s last appeal to Trotsky, 4 March 1921, Kronstadt Izvestia, and Emma Goldman, p. 151. Tukhachevsky, ‘not a battle, an inferno’: Russian State Military Archive, TsGASA f. 339986, op. 3, d. 56.

  3 Cheka killed suspects by accident: cited in Figes, p. 635. Lenin to Gorky, ‘they are good people…that is why we must arrest them’: Yedlin, p. 218. Lenin, ‘dictatorship means use of force, not of law’, to Zinoviev: RGASPI f. 16, op. 9, d 12.

  4 Gorky saves dissidents from prison, Lenin released Ivan Volny, 12 April 1919: RGASPI f. 18, op. 12, d. 34; asks Lenin for release of Blok’s secretary, March 1920: RGASPI f. 19, op. 8, d. 13. Dzerzhinsky told to investigate case of actress Nadezhda Nikulia: RGASPI f. 19, op. 9, d. 114.

  5 Volga famine, background: Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, pp. 386–90, and Henry Fisher Report on American Relief Administration effort in Russia, ARA files, Hoover Foundation, Stanford, California. Lenin ordered Molotov to spy on Hoover’s relief volunteers: APRF f. 20, op. 11, d. 9.

  6 Peasant revolt in Tambov Province: Volkogonov, pp
. 345–7, and Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, pp. 281–3. Tukhachevsky uses chemical weapons and burns down villages: TsGASA f. 339727, op. 2, d. 13.

  7 Lenin’s campaign against Church, background: Pipes, The Unknown Lenin, pp. 119–23; Volkogonov, pp. 387–92; and Figes, pp. 624–7. Patriarch Tikhon excommunicates Bolsheviks: cited in Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime. Lenin’s note to Central Committee, ‘we can smash the church’: Volkogonov, pp. 381–3.

  8 Millions seized from Church: APRF f. 18, op. 9, d. 11.

  50: INTIMATIONS OF MORTALITY

  1 Lenin had been considered ‘of robust health’: Trotsky, On Lenin, p. 201.

  2 ‘I am unwell’: letter to Zetkin, CW, Vol. 45, p. 167. Requests leave of absence from colleagues in July: RGASPI f. 11, op. 7, d. 9; again in December: RGASPI f. 11, op. 9, d. 4. Tells doctors to remove one of the bullets in his body left after Kaplan murder attempt: Rozanov, p. 3.

  3 Bertrand Russell meeting with Lenin: Russell, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism, London, 1920. ‘Lenin always wore the same tie’: Simon Liberman, cited in Clark, p. 398. Sculptor Clare Sheridan makes a bust of Lenin: Sheridan, Russian Portraits, London, 1921.

  4 Bonch-Bruevich, Vospomonaniya o Lenine, p. 53.

  51: REVOLUTION – AGAIN

  1 Bukharin explains the NEP, ‘We are making economic concessions to avoid having to make political ones’: APRF f. 12, op. 6, d. 9.

  2 Lenin defends NEP to Party Central Committee, 12 June 1921: CW, Vol. 45, p. 238. Speech toTenth Party Congress, 16 March 1921: CW, Vol. 45, p. 217.

  3 Campaign against bureaucracy, ‘We should be hanged for creating red tape’: cited in Louis Fischer, p. 498.

  52: THE LAST BATTLE

  1 Maria Ulyanova on Lenin’s stroke: Maria Ulyanova, O leine i sem’ye Ulyanovikh, RGASPI f. 16, op. 3, d. 6.

  2 Lenin wanted to kill himself and ‘die like the Lafargues’: ibid. Stalin saw Lenin and said he would give him cyanide ‘if it becomes necessary’: Kotkin, p. 313.