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Routledge Historical Biographies
Lenin: A Revolutionary Life
From a highly distinguished author on the subject, this biography is an excellent scholarly introduction to one of the key figures of the Russian Revolution and post-Tsarist Russia. Not only does it make use of archive material made newly available in the glasnost and post-Soviet eras, it re-examines traditional sources as well, providing an original interpretation of Lenin's life and historical importance. Focal points of this study A prominent figure at the forefront of debates on the Russian revolution, Read makes sure that Lenin remains in his place as a highly influential and significant figure of the recent past.
336 pages, Paperback
First published September 20, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
November 23, 2018
The historian is a jealous God and will punish the father for the iniquity of the children even unto the seventh generation. The traditional charge sheet against Lenin is long and has included responsibility for Stalinism, fascism, Maoism, indeed most of the great crimes and tragedies of the twentieth century. There are open questions here. Including the question: is this line of questioning sterile?
Given the final collapse of the USSR was only in 1991 it's perhaps unsurprising that a historical Lenin is only now emerging, neither demon nor god.
Read has written a lucid and concise biography that covers enormous ground. A great introduction to one of the seminal figures of the 20th century and beyond...
Given the final collapse of the USSR was only in 1991 it's perhaps unsurprising that a historical Lenin is only now emerging, neither demon nor god.
Read has written a lucid and concise biography that covers enormous ground. A great introduction to one of the seminal figures of the 20th century and beyond...
January 11, 2021
“However, it is most likely that the young Lenin was influenced, directly or indirectly, by Bakuninist ideas. In some respects the development of his thought, which involved Russifying Marx, showed certain key Bakuninst elements throughout his life. In particular, Bakunin prioritized political struggle especially against church and state, hence his encouragement of terrorism particularly against state officials. For Marx, the key was class struggle which involved very different dimensions and practices, Marx, like Lenin, being largely sceptical about the revolutionary value of isolated acts of terrorism. Such violence could, the Marxists argued, lead more easily to greater repression than to liberation.”
Pages 13-14
“ Second, the issue of the relationship between so-called economic struggle and political struggle began to raise its head. Economic struggle meant, essentially, building organizations such as trade unions which would primarily pur- sue workers’ economic interests. Political struggle implied action against the tsarist state and its repressive institutions. The relationship between these two aspects became increasingly controversial as the social-democratic movement emerged. As we have seen, Lenin already showed something of a ‘Bakuninist’ streak, that is he put great stress on political struggle and attacking the state though he seems to have always been sceptical about terrorism as a method of conducting such struggle.”
Pages 23-24
Here Read clearly proves his total lack of knowledge on Marxist thought, something he continues to do throughout the book. Read seems to assign economistic ideas to Marx. Marx was not some kind of mere trade unionist, he spend his entire career trying to build a unified international organisation to lead revolution when it broke out. Yet while almost every biographer of Marx spends many words on his time as a leader in the International Workingmen’s Association Read or of his writings against religion. The conflict between Marx and Bakunin was over whether the movement should be centralised and working partly above the service or decentralised and conspiratorial. Read does describe how Lenin tried to unite the various disjointed Marxist groups into a centralised party, exactly what Marx also tried to accomplish but when Lenin does this it suddenly in Bakuninistic, somehow. What I think happened, something that seems common among Sovietologists, is that Read was really trying something explicitly Russian, something inside his own field of enquiry, that influenced Lenin in some fundamental way. Had Lenin not tried to create a centralised party apparatus for struggle against the Russian state, then Read would have likely compared this to Bakunin’s conspiratorial strategy because when a historian is really looking for proof for some hypothesis, he will be able to find something.
Read again blunders when describing Lenin’s controversy with Bernstein. Marx noted that the conditions of the workers could improve under capitalism, even for extended periods of time, something many classical economists did not believe. He noted that there was a tendency for the rate of profit to fall and of capital to concentrate and that this would lead to a fragile monopolistic economic system largely dependent on the state (state capitalism as Lenin calls it). When Bernstein notes that conditions aren’t worsening this is not an argument against Marx’s theory, and the doesn’t treat it like that. Bernstein argued that Marx was wrong because workers were gaining more influence on business through shares and cooperatives. He did not understand that was not an argument against the concentration of capital since it was still being concentrated in large companies and the money workers gained from shares amounted to nothing but higher wages, they generally could not su sure in themselves through speculation or profit. Or in other words, Bernstein thought workers were turning into members of the [petty] bourgeoisie while according to correct definitions they weren’t. Read is so uneducated on the topic that he concludes that in Marx’s day did not yet “have nothing to lose but their chains”. Marx meant their income was spent on necessities and thus they had nothing apart from the means to keep them alive while Read seems to equate this with the workers having not even an income they are immediately forced to spent on necessities, as he described in “Wage Labour and Capital”. Yet using his own wrong definition Read concludes that the controversy was about whether the wage labours had nothing to lose and whether such a scenario would some to be in the future.
Continuering his long line of mistakes he concludes Lenin called the Mensheviks “liquidators” because they wanted a less centralised party while the word was actually used to refer to Rozhkov and Co. as they wanted to “liquidate” the underground party and operate legally. Then Read asserts that Rosa Luxemburg was some kind of Polish nationalist, even though Lenin wrote his most important defence of national self determination in response to Luxemburgs strong anti-nationalism, see “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination” by Lenin. He states the Mensheviks were opposed to their own organisational doctrine of Democratic Centralism, actually one of the most important similarities between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks but Read doesn’t seem to have any real knowledge of how either operated or of their principles and disagreements. Read also asserts that Lenin was opposed to religious people joining the Bolsheviks and that Blanqui was an anarchist, both false, combined with the way in which Read describes Bakunin this implies to me that Read just assumes any even slightly authoritarian leftist to be an anarchist.
Pages 13-14
“ Second, the issue of the relationship between so-called economic struggle and political struggle began to raise its head. Economic struggle meant, essentially, building organizations such as trade unions which would primarily pur- sue workers’ economic interests. Political struggle implied action against the tsarist state and its repressive institutions. The relationship between these two aspects became increasingly controversial as the social-democratic movement emerged. As we have seen, Lenin already showed something of a ‘Bakuninist’ streak, that is he put great stress on political struggle and attacking the state though he seems to have always been sceptical about terrorism as a method of conducting such struggle.”
Pages 23-24
Here Read clearly proves his total lack of knowledge on Marxist thought, something he continues to do throughout the book. Read seems to assign economistic ideas to Marx. Marx was not some kind of mere trade unionist, he spend his entire career trying to build a unified international organisation to lead revolution when it broke out. Yet while almost every biographer of Marx spends many words on his time as a leader in the International Workingmen’s Association Read or of his writings against religion. The conflict between Marx and Bakunin was over whether the movement should be centralised and working partly above the service or decentralised and conspiratorial. Read does describe how Lenin tried to unite the various disjointed Marxist groups into a centralised party, exactly what Marx also tried to accomplish but when Lenin does this it suddenly in Bakuninistic, somehow. What I think happened, something that seems common among Sovietologists, is that Read was really trying something explicitly Russian, something inside his own field of enquiry, that influenced Lenin in some fundamental way. Had Lenin not tried to create a centralised party apparatus for struggle against the Russian state, then Read would have likely compared this to Bakunin’s conspiratorial strategy because when a historian is really looking for proof for some hypothesis, he will be able to find something.
Read again blunders when describing Lenin’s controversy with Bernstein. Marx noted that the conditions of the workers could improve under capitalism, even for extended periods of time, something many classical economists did not believe. He noted that there was a tendency for the rate of profit to fall and of capital to concentrate and that this would lead to a fragile monopolistic economic system largely dependent on the state (state capitalism as Lenin calls it). When Bernstein notes that conditions aren’t worsening this is not an argument against Marx’s theory, and the doesn’t treat it like that. Bernstein argued that Marx was wrong because workers were gaining more influence on business through shares and cooperatives. He did not understand that was not an argument against the concentration of capital since it was still being concentrated in large companies and the money workers gained from shares amounted to nothing but higher wages, they generally could not su sure in themselves through speculation or profit. Or in other words, Bernstein thought workers were turning into members of the [petty] bourgeoisie while according to correct definitions they weren’t. Read is so uneducated on the topic that he concludes that in Marx’s day did not yet “have nothing to lose but their chains”. Marx meant their income was spent on necessities and thus they had nothing apart from the means to keep them alive while Read seems to equate this with the workers having not even an income they are immediately forced to spent on necessities, as he described in “Wage Labour and Capital”. Yet using his own wrong definition Read concludes that the controversy was about whether the wage labours had nothing to lose and whether such a scenario would some to be in the future.
Continuering his long line of mistakes he concludes Lenin called the Mensheviks “liquidators” because they wanted a less centralised party while the word was actually used to refer to Rozhkov and Co. as they wanted to “liquidate” the underground party and operate legally. Then Read asserts that Rosa Luxemburg was some kind of Polish nationalist, even though Lenin wrote his most important defence of national self determination in response to Luxemburgs strong anti-nationalism, see “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination” by Lenin. He states the Mensheviks were opposed to their own organisational doctrine of Democratic Centralism, actually one of the most important similarities between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks but Read doesn’t seem to have any real knowledge of how either operated or of their principles and disagreements. Read also asserts that Lenin was opposed to religious people joining the Bolsheviks and that Blanqui was an anarchist, both false, combined with the way in which Read describes Bakunin this implies to me that Read just assumes any even slightly authoritarian leftist to be an anarchist.
February 26, 2025
read for history 427.
i have to be completely honest there was a fair amount of this book i didn’t read because i was so overwhelmed with other coursework. however, what i did read i really enjoyed. read did a good job encapsulating the life of lenin.
while it was a fun read, there were definitely points where i wanted him to just wrap it up and move on.
i have to be completely honest there was a fair amount of this book i didn’t read because i was so overwhelmed with other coursework. however, what i did read i really enjoyed. read did a good job encapsulating the life of lenin.
while it was a fun read, there were definitely points where i wanted him to just wrap it up and move on.
February 25, 2016
Pretty good introductory book on Lenin. One of the more unbiased ones I've read as well. Good read for anyone wanting a biography of his life that isn't crazy long.
November 6, 2025
Finding books on Lenin in English that aren't "he was an insane psychopath and the progenitor to Hitler" is somewhat difficult, but Read, although he is a liberal says up front that he only relies on Lenin's wife's memoirs, Lenin's writings and Soviet archives in writing this piece, to avoid any sort of overcontextualization that Cold War authors typically made when writing about Lenin. While there are some probable errors (based on the accepted western record of events) and some bias, I will say that this is probably as good as you're going to get for a Lenin biography written by a westerner in English.
As with Karl Marx's biography, Lenin's also doubles as a history book, and so those who are looking to learn more about the Russian Revolution in the context of the Soviet narrative, this is a pretty good find. Also similar to Marx's bio, since Lenin was also a prolific writer himself, the book goes into what was going on when Lenin was writing some of his most famous and critical works, such as What is To Be Done and Imperialism, putting them into the clear context of what was happening and what the debates were between different communist factions at the time.
Read also seems sympathetic to Lenin in general, though placing the blame of the "brutal" Soviet regime onto Stalin's policies. However, he does give a balanced account of the Lenin's testament arc, while not taking a position on Stalin and Trotsky's rivalry, though he does assume that the testament is genuine and not fabricated, based on the fact that the secretary had typed it up for Lenin herself (though of course, nothing is certain).
As with Karl Marx's biography, Lenin's also doubles as a history book, and so those who are looking to learn more about the Russian Revolution in the context of the Soviet narrative, this is a pretty good find. Also similar to Marx's bio, since Lenin was also a prolific writer himself, the book goes into what was going on when Lenin was writing some of his most famous and critical works, such as What is To Be Done and Imperialism, putting them into the clear context of what was happening and what the debates were between different communist factions at the time.
Read also seems sympathetic to Lenin in general, though placing the blame of the "brutal" Soviet regime onto Stalin's policies. However, he does give a balanced account of the Lenin's testament arc, while not taking a position on Stalin and Trotsky's rivalry, though he does assume that the testament is genuine and not fabricated, based on the fact that the secretary had typed it up for Lenin herself (though of course, nothing is certain).
October 22, 2025
This is an excellent concise biography that looks at Lenin’s life as a series of events which have caused historical controversy. He is very conversant in the then scholarly investigations of these controversies. He rejects the Pipes and Shapiro view of the single minded quest for power and unconcern for those harmed by his evil enterprise. He tends to see hm as a cantankerous professor who thrived in library as well as the halls of power. He had no interest in comfort and sacrificed his health for his work. He had very close relationships with his partner Krupskaya and his soulmate Innessa Armand. His other friends were people he had business relationships with. He was very close to Martov, but he hated his politics so no contact. He had many strange characteristics, did not smoke, drink, and had no patience for those that did. I think it would be a great candidate for updated edition to include the recent scholarship. It is a very useful analysis that leaves room for future insights.
May 6, 2020
এই বইয়ের লেখকের একটা প্রবণতা হলো উনি ভেবেই নিসেন পাঠক লেনিন সম্পর্ককে আগে থেকেই বেসিক কিছু জানে। লেনিনের ভাই আলেকজান্ডার উলিয়ানভের ব্যাপারে মাত্র ২-১ বাক্য ব্যাবহার করেই কাজ সারছে। লেখক-কে বায়াসড না হলেও অতিরিক্ত ক্রিটিকাল মনে হইসে। ইন্টারেস্টিং লাগছে যযে লেখক লেনিন এর তাত্ত্বিক চিন্তাধারাকে যতটা না মার্ক্সিস্ট তার চেয়া বেশী বুকানিনপন্থী বলে চিহ্নিত করছে। লেখা অত্যন্ত সহজ-সরল।
February 23, 2021
A very nuanced take on an extraordinarily complex man. This is definitely the book to read if you want a bigger, more well-rounded picture of Vladimir Lenin than those offered by admirers and critics
June 24, 2013
Not having read or learned much about Russian history, and hearing so much negativity bout Lenin and Stalin, I decided to start with this biography as my entry point. I am so glad I did. The author portrayed Lenin as a sympathetic character that you can root for, and then sympathize with when everything turns to crap, and then root for once again as he perseveres and tries to bring it all back together again.
This was a great entry point, now I'm looking forward to reading about Trotsky and Stalin.
This was a great entry point, now I'm looking forward to reading about Trotsky and Stalin.
February 3, 2016
Read perfectly manages in Lenin: A Revolutionary Life not to justify but to try to explain Lenin and make the reader understand him in this age of post-revolution. Focuses on Lenin's work, deeds and words and thereby gives a different approach to a character of history shrouded in mystery and uninformed slander (the work demystifies). Honest in admitting failure to implement elections, properly combat corruption and implementing wages equal for both workers and bureaucrats.
September 3, 2015
It was an easy to read biography of Lenin. However the book made no refference to the shooting of the Tsar family. Also it hasn't been made very clear how did Lenin earn his income, before the revolution. It's not a culturally important reference book, but it's the best insight you need on lenin, unless you're a historian.
May 24, 2007
I started to like this more toward the end. I think I'll have to read more about the formation of the USSR to really appreciate this book, though.
February 10, 2009
Pure brilliance. Everything that a historical biography should be: scholarly but humane.
October 8, 2013
Honestly, that one was really good and informative. The author tried to be as impartial as possible and simply told the story of Lenin's life. Plain and simple.
February 6, 2016
Easy to read, fairly unbiased account of the life of Lenin.
October 10, 2017
Great biography of the most prominent and influential revolutionary of 20th century.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews