Lenin
The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror
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Narrated by:
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Jonathan Aris
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By:
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Victor Sebestyen
About this listen
A fascinating biography of the man who helped launch the Russian Revolution, which uses the personal - including Lenin's key relationships with the women in his life - to shed light on the political<./b>
Since the birth of Soviet Russia, Vladimir Lenin has been viewed as a controversial figure, both revered and reviled for his rigid political ideals. Still, he continues to fascinate as a man who made history and who created the first Communist state, a model that would later be imitated by nearly half the countries in the world.
Drawing on new research, including the diaries, memoirs, and personal letters of both Lenin and his friends, Victor Sebestyen's unique biography - the first in English in nearly two decades - is not only a political examination of one of the most important historical figures of the 20th century but a portrait of Lenin the man. Unexpectedly, Lenin was someone who loved nature, hunting, and fishing and could identify hundreds of species of plants, a despotic ruler whose closest ties and friendships were with women. The long-suppressed story of the complex love triangle Lenin had with his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and his mistress and comrade, Inessa Armand, reveals a different character from the coldly one-dimensional figure of the legend.
Sebestyen also reveals Lenin as a ruthless and single-minded despot and a "product of his time and place: a violent, tyrannical and corrupt Russia". He seized power in a coup, promised a revolution, a socialist utopia for the people, offered simple solutions to complex issues, and constantly lied; in fact what he created was more "a mirror image of the Romanov autocracy". He authorized the deaths of thousands of people and created a system based on the idea that political terror against opponents was justified for the greater ideal. One of his old comrades who had once admired him said he "desired the good...but created evil". And that would include his invention of Stalin, who would take Lenin's system of the gulag and the secret police to new heights.
Bringing Lenin to life for the first time as a complex human being, Sebestyen casts a new light on the Russian Revolution, one of the great turning points of modern history.
©2017 Victor Sebestyen (P)2017 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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The country that gave us Vlad Dracula, and whose citizens consider themselves descendants of ancient Rome, has traditionally preferred the status of enigmatic outsider. But this beautiful and unexplored land has experienced some of the most disastrous leaderships of the last century. After a relatively benign period led by a dutiful king and his vivacious, British-born queen, the country oscillated wildly.
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A haunting look at Romanian history
- By Steve Adams on 07-19-24
By: Paul Kenyon
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Indian Summer
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At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the British Empire withdrew from India, igniting the exhilaration and turmoil of a newly free society. In this vivid, atmospheric popular history, Alex von Tunzelmann chronicles these times through the most prominent figures.
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Such an interesting piece of History made easy
- By Diego on 01-23-12
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Prague Winter
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Before Madeleine Albright turned twelve, her life was shaken by the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia—the country where she was born—the Battle of Britain, the near total destruction of European Jewry, the Allied victory in World War II, the rise of communism, and the onset of the Cold War. Albright's experiences, and those of her family, provide a lens through which to view the most tumultuous dozen years in modern history.
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History from a Personal Perspective
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Trotsky in New York, 1917
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Lev Davidovich Trotsky burst onto the world stage in November 1917 as coleader of a Marxist Revolution seizing power in Russia. It made him one of the most recognized personalities of the 20th century, a global icon of radical change. Yet just months earlier, this same Lev Trotsky was a nobody, a refugee expelled from Europe, writing obscure pamphlets and speeches, barely noticed outside a small circle of fellow travelers. Where had he come from to topple Russia and change the world? Where else? New York.
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Great Story; Ludicrous Conclusion
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In Petrograd, a fire is lit. The Tsar is packed off to Siberia. A rancorous Russian exile returns to proclaim a workers' revolution. In America, black soldiers who have served their country in Europe demand their rights at home. An Austrian war veteran trained by the German army to give rousing speeches against the Bolshevik peril begins to rail against the Jews. A solar eclipse turns a former patent clerk into a celebrity. An American reporter living the high life in Paris searches out a new literary style.
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Splendid in all respects
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In Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary, Stanford University lecturer Bertrand M. Patenaude tells the dramatic story of Leon Trotsky's final years in exile in Mexico. Shedding new light on Trotsky's tumultuous friendship with painter Diego Rivera, his affair with Rivera’s wife Frida Kahlo, and his torment as his family and comrades become victims of the Great Terror, Trotsky: Downfall ofa Revolutionary brilliantly illuminates the fateful and dramatic life of one of history's most famous yet elusive figures.
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Good Trotsky Book, BAD conclusions at end
- By Darius on 02-09-15
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Adolf Hitler
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Based on previously unpublished documents, diaries, notes, photographs, and dramatic interviews with Hitler's colleagues and associates, this is the definitive biography of one of the most despised yet fascinating figures of the 20th century. Painstakingly documented, it is a work that will not soon be forgotten.
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Strange Person
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Stalin
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In a seamless meshing of exhaustive research, brilliant synthesis and narrative élan, Simon Sebag Montefiore chronicles the life and lives of Stalin’s court from the time of his acclamation as “leader” in 1929, five years after Lenin’s death, until his own death in 1953 at the age of 73. Through the lens of personality - Stalin’s as well as those of his most notorious henchmen, Molotov, Beria and Yezhov among them - the author sheds new light on the oligarchy that attempted to create a new world by exterminating the old.
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Stalinist Tyranny
- By Kindle Customer on 12-28-19
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The Whisperers
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Drawing on a huge range of sources - letters, memoirs, conversations - Orlando Figes tells the story of how Russians tried to endure life under Stalin. Those who shaped the political system became, very frequently, its victims. Those who were its victims were frequently quite blameless. The Whisperers recreates the sort of maze in which Russians found themselves, where an unwitting wrong turn could either destroy a family or, perversely, later save it: a society in which everyone spoke in whispers - whether to protect themselves, their families, neighbours or friends - or to inform on them.
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A Real Life Dystopian Nightmare
- By Timothy on 08-31-18
By: Orlando Figes
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Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia, and later the Soviet Union, became a one-party socialist state governed by the Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Leninism.
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Destruction of the Lenin Myth
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What listeners say about Lenin
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- Tomi
- 07-15-23
Humanizes the Villain
I think this is what Audiobooks are meant for; that is for listening to autobiographies of historical figures. I know for me, I couldn’t picture myself going to a bookstore to pick up a book on Lenin. But an audiobook like this, that was so captivating through and through, made me feel like I was watching one of those well made, top production, Netflix documentaries. This was just all audio. I highly recommend this book if you were ever curious to learn of what started the communist revolution, or learning about how dictators can get to power (fyi it’s not so hard), or what life in Russia was like 100 years ago, or seeing the effect one human being can have on history, and many many more insights. I’m already looking up the next “great” figure I can read up on.
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- Keep it real
- 02-02-23
Excellent history and presentation
Well-documented work, brilliantly written and equally brilliantly presented. I understand the origins of 20th century conflicts much better now.
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- Julio A Figueroa
- 08-27-18
Great primer and introduction to the Soviet History
Victor Sebestyen paints a broad and fairly objective portrait of the man Lenin. He neither deifies him or slanders Lenin, put provides an accurate account of the man Lenin with his particular quirks, failings and strengths. The author squarely places Lenin within his time and life of a Russian revolutionary in the last declining years of the obsolete, absolute monarchy of the Romanov Dynasty and how he directly and inadvertently established a « communist » dictatorship of the « proletariat », which was a façade for the absolute monarchy it replaced.
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- Philippe Chavanne
- 08-28-21
I wanted the book to continue...
As much as we could vainly wish Vladimir Ilitch had never become Lenin -- history can't but happen, whoever its actors are -- the end of the story had me wanting to hear more of it. 20 hours of listening... and I wanted 20 more. The story told by Viktor Sebestyen captures how the introvert child of a petit-bourgeois family in rural Russia finds himself at the crossroads of History with a sense of personal destiny. In the maelstrom of catastrophic political events that marked the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, what were the chances a would-be revolutionary zealot, financially supported by his mother, could become in the space of 25 years the head of the Bolchevik party and the founding father of the Soviet Union? Sebestyan weaves masterfully Lenin's personal life, his political convictions and struggles, his character, and the larger tapestry of the end-times of Tsarist Russia. His book leads its readers through Lenin's life and gives a fascinating account of his views through letters, diaries, Party documents, media articles (Pravda, Izvestia), as well as accounts and anecdotes told by those who fought with him or against him. It is a well-researched read, full of interesting details, always mindful of History with a capital H. It won't make you like Lenin (fortunately), but it reveals the man in his complexity and will give your mind something to chew on for a long time.
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- Cecil Otieno
- 09-13-22
Captivating and informative
Starting, I knew very little about Lenin, but by the end I somehow felt a guru on everything about the famous soviet.
The title led the painting of Lenin as dictator, but I am not convince the author tried to see his character from a neutral view point before the write-up. I think his sources and perception of Lenin going did not offer Lenin's past to draw it's own image and reasons.
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- Vincent M. Maysee
- 05-21-19
excellent!
Lenin. was an extraordinary man! I have not always agreed with Soviet style Marxism but Lenin's love for his country is indisputable!
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A real insight on Lenin’ life
I highly recomend this biography. It gives you a good perspective on the situation in which Lenin rose to power.
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- allan
- 02-27-22
Interesting, Informative and f Frustrating
Chose this book because I wanted to learn about a key figure of a current powerful nation. Russia has not been viewed favorable in my experience, growing up in the western part of the world. If I take this book at face value, it is difficult to understand and comprehend the culture of a country that allows so few people to hold that much power over life. not sure what effect this book will have on me in the short and far future.
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- Peter Riley
- 12-02-23
Excellent overview without getting too far in the weeds
Nice survey of Lenin’s life without the common surfeit of details found in so many biographies. We get a very good picture of his family life as well as his revisions to Marxist ideology. Excellent look at the timeline of the Bolshevik coop and the early days of the Soviet union.
Nicely read, easy to listen to.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-05-24
Very Informative
History classes in middle/high school always glossed over WW1 and the Russian Revolution. This book does a great job of filling in some of those gaps.
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