Lenin: A New Biography

The author destroys the myth of benevolent "Grandfather Lenin", showing how political violence and diplomatic double-dealing were part and parcel of the Soviet system from its outset in 1917. The old idea that Lenin created the communist system and Stalin took it to its extreme is shown to be flawed. The "Stalinist" methods of the Big Lie and violence against the population at home were present from the beginning. The author shows how the Bolsheviks colluded with the German High Command when the Russian Provisional Government was fighting for its life in World War I, and later reveals how Lenin sold off vast numbers of tsarist treasures in the West for the express purpose of financing the launch of Communist Parties in the West. No more definitive analysis of Leninism as a state system, ideological doctrine and way of thinking will be written.