Lenin: Life and Legacy by Dmitri Volkogonov; Harold ShukmanReview by: R. C. ElwoodThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 74, No. 2 (Apr., 1996), pp. 332-334Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4212096 .

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332 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

himself, when he produced his national income estimates for the period. It is only necessary to read Gatrell's textbook 7The Tsarist Economy I85o-I9I7

(London, I986), to see a sign of the general acceptance of this revisionist position.

The volume finishes with some comparisons of tsarist and Soviet economic performance. Gregory contends that, if the tsarist economy had continued to exist, then living standards in Russia today would be 'relatively close' to those of Western Europe (p. I 37). This, of course, raises a fundamental counterfac- tual question and, as Gregory notes, this conclusion holds only if there would have been no continuing political turmoil. He passes for consideration by other scholars the question of the likelihood of socio-political events bringing about the demise of the tsarist society and economy without the First World War.

Gregory's general conclusion is that Russia has had a successful market economy in the past and can have one in the future.

Department of Economic and Social Histogy ROBERT LEWIS University of Exeter

Volkogonov, Dmitri. Lenin: Life and Legacy. Translated and edited by Harold Shukman. HarperCollins, London, 1994. Xxxix + 529 pp. Maps. Photo- graphs. Notes. Index. /25.00?

OVER thirty years ago Stefan Possony set out to 'debunk' the legend of Lenin. Using Western police archives and hearsay evidence but very few Russian sources, he painted a picture of a devious, unscrupulous and promiscuous 'compulsive revolutionary'. Dmitri Volkogonov has now completed the task but with far more skill, perceptiveness and accuracy. Based on unique access to previously closed Soviet archives, as well as on extensive use of Russian emigre material often overlooked by Western biographers, Lenin: Life and Legacy has contributed decisively to the current de-Leninization campaign in Russia and is destined to influence Western historiography on Lenin for years to come.

Volkogonov's credentials to write this biography are as unique as the sources he has employed. The son of a purged agronomist, he joined the Russian army in I 945 at the age of seventeen. By I 984 he had become deputy chief of the Main Political Administration with the rank of Colonel-General and was head of its psychological warfare branch. While serving as a professional soldier, he also earned doctorates in philosophy and history and wrote some twenty books, among them revisionist biographies of Stalin and Trotskii. In I988 he was named Director of the Institute of Military History where he supervised preparation of a new ten-volume History of the Great Patriotic War. The draft of this work, deemed 'un-Soviet' by his superiors, cost him his job in June I99 I and accelerated a switch to a new career in politics. Under Gorbachev he had been elected to the Supreme Soviet and to the last congress of the Communist Party. More recently he has sat in the Duma where he has been associated with the reformist Russia's Choice faction. As a member of the Presidential Council, Volkogonov has advised Boris El'tsin on

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REVIEWS 333

defence matters and was instrumental in rallying army units to the President's side in October I993. He was also given the task of supervising the de-classification of party and police records. It was in this capacity that he had unrestricted access to over 3,700 unpublished Lenin documents which provide much of the factual evidence for his new biography.

Harold Shukman, who translated Volkogonov's Stalin in I 99 I, has provided a fluid, accurate and abridged translation of the 970-page, two-volume Russian text by eliminating many of the author's 'philosophical reflections' and background discussions to events 'excessively familiar to a Western reader' (p. xxiv). He has also inserted occasional explanatory material, reorganized some of Volkogonov's chapters, and expanded the endnotes (there is no bibliography) to include references to Western scholarly literature which the author himself did not cite. Even so, such standard works on Lenin as those by Robert Service, Neil Harding, Dietrich Geyer and even Stefan Possony are notable by their absence. Shukman has chosen to retain 'material demonstrating Volkogonov's own thesis, namely that Stalin, his system and his successors, all derived directly from Lenin, his theories and practices' (p. xxiv). 'The seeds of the murderous collectivization', writes Volkogonov, 'the appalling purges of the I 930s and the end of the Second World War, and the post-war "punishment" of entire nations, had been sewn by post-October Bolshevik practice' (p. 213). This is the 'legacy' of Lenin. Volkogonov has no patience with 'had Lenin lived' arguments, or suggestions often heard in the Gorbachev era that salvation lay in returning to the principles of NEP. Russia lost her chance for salvation, according to the author, when politicians failed to make the October Manifesto work and when Menshevik social democracy was subverted and destroyed by Bolshevism in 19 I 7.

Volkogonov is less successful in articulating the 'life' of Lenin. Since his interest lies in the post-19I7 period, only a fifth of the book is devoted to Lenin's first forty-seven years. Even this part, which is more thematic than chronological, is interrupted by flash-forwards to reveal how his successors continued what he had begun. Nothing is said about his activities at pre-war Party congresses, at the Longjumeau school, or in trying to manipulate the pre-war Pravda. Many will feel these oversights are offset by new information Volkogonov provides on more controversial aspects of Lenin's biography. For Russian readers, numerous 'blank spots' in Soviet mythology have been filled in; and for Western scholars, many of the missing footnotes have been provided.

Volkogonov, for instance, traces the Ulianov family tree and finds firm evidence of its roots in German, Swedish, Jewish and Kalmyk soil. Lenin's love-life receives similar attention. On the basis of seven archival letters five from Lenin and two from Inessa Armand plus excerpts from Armand's unpublished diary, Volkogonov provides stronger evidence than has existed heretofore that the two were lovers before the Revolution. The author has combed the archives for proof that Lenin was supported by illegal expropria- tions and the Schmidt inheritance before the war, and by German money after 1914. He has no doubt that Lenin's 'treason' in I 9 I 7 was financed by the Germans and that he had 'debts to repay' at Brest-Litovsk (p. I89), but admits Russian archives now contain little to prove it, perhaps because they too were

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334 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

purged or because few of the deals were committed to paper. There is no scarcity of documents, however, to show that the Bolsheviks financed early Comintern attempts at world revolution with massive amounts of gold and gems confiscated from the wealthy and the Church at the same time as famine was sweeping Russia. New information, supplemented by revealing photo- graphs from the Central Committee Archives, is also provided about Lenin's fatal illness and its deleterious effects on his political judgment in 1922 and I923. Contrary to some accounts, Volkogonov found no evidence that Lenin 'felt repentant about anything' (p. 420) during his last days.

This is not the proverbial 'definitive biography'. It has, however, accom- plished its primary objective: to challenge the view many Russians had of their once-revered leader. While the resulting picture may not be so startling to a Western audience, all researchers will welcome a new and meaningful Russian perspective on Lenin as well as access, however indirect, to the voluminous archives on the first Soviet leader.

Department of Histogy R. C. ELWOOD Carleton University, Ottawa

Pitcher, Harvey. Witnesses of the Russian Revolution. John Murray, London, I 994. xiii + 303 PP. Map. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. XI'9.99.

THERE are numerous collections of eyewitness accounts of the Revolution of I917. How does this new one match up? In the first place the structure is radically different in that the chapters are divided up according to the chronological sequence of events with extracts from the sources, some only a few lines long, others of several pages, linked by the editor to form as continuous a narrative as possible. The aim is to provide the story of the Revolution told by those who were there at the time. As an often engaging piece of storytelling the text is easy to read and, like any story, is capable of stimulating the imagination. As history, however, it suffers from the pitfalls of reliance on eyewitness evidence, notably the biases of the observer, the fortuitous nature of who happened to be in the right place at the right time and the sometimes spurious sense of authority given to someone who 'was there' and 'saw it for themselves'. The editor does little to redress the balance towards a broader and more objective picture. Most seriously misleading, perhaps, is the account of the February Revolution, since the street observers saw nothing of the crucial meetings among the elite and exchange of telegrams between the generals which put the decisive pressure on Nicholas II. General Alekseev, for instance, is not mentioned anywhere in the account.

The problems are compounded by the sources themselves. Almost all are English, a few are American. The two French observers' accounts come from published translations. Only one, Ariadna Tyrkova-Williams, is Russian. She is also one of the few women witnesses. Most of the extracts are from well- known journalists, diplomats and military men Philips Price, Albert Rhys Williams, Arthur Ransome, John Reed, Louise Bryant, Maurice Paleologue,

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