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Title: Lenin in Zürich by Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn ISBN: 0-370-10607-5 Publisher: Bodley Head Pub. Date: 1976 Format: Unknown Binding

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Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: Deciding when to lead a revolution
Comment: I found this book to be an intriguing intermission in Solzhenitsyn's account of the events leading up to the Russian Revolution. History acknowledges Lenin as the main figure in that Revolution (inevitably so, as he eventually emerged as the leader of the USSR). Solzhentisyn however, portrays his Zurich exile. As the war thunders around Europe and Russia begins to disintegrate, Lenin is left advocating revolution in Switzerland (calling it the most potentially revolutionary of all European countries, much to the bewilderment of the Swiss Socialists). This is written both as a comedy, and a satire encapsulating how frequently Socialist/Communist analysis of the potential for revolution in Western Europe was grossly over-estimated.

Lenin is also portrayed as the ultimate revolutionary carpet-bagger. He is not prepared to get involved in the nasty business of instigating revolution at all, preferring to ponder on Marxist theory and read the European newspapers in the hope that the war will lead to the destruction of both the Tsarist system and a more widespread European revolution. In that way, he is utterly callous, seeing World War One not in terms of a human tragedy, but as a means to achieve (his own) ends.

Lenin recognises his own inertia, and hopes that someone or something will come along to force him out of it, but does nothing himself to break the impasse. Yet, in his favour, instinct (or luck if you will) causes him to turn down Parvus's offer to help him return to Russia (which would have turned out to have been premature), and to recognise the importance of the removal of the Tsar and the establishment of the Provisional Government when these events occurred.

In it's way, a fascinating take on the background to major events in twentieth century Russian and world history.

Rating: 3
Summary: Lenin did nothing in Zurich
Comment: I am a big Solzhenitsyn fan. I'd read any novel of his. I'd read it if he wrote a book about paper clips. Well, he did, sort of. He wrote a book about Lenin's activities and thoughts in Zurich, Switzerland, before the Russian Revolution. Lenin did nothing in Zurich. The communist revolution hasn't happened yet in Switzerland, in case you haven't noticed.

So, Lenin's activities in Zurich are confined to his fruitless attempts to motivate the Swiss to a communist revolution. I get the feeling that he came to think of the Swiss as a bunch of cows going moooooooo. "Down with the bourgeouis (spelling?) state. Down with the rich pigs." "Mooooo."

We see how the author interprets Lenin's personality. As a thinker, a planner, a very suspicious person, with the mind of a chess player, always thinking several moves ahead, always bluffing, never simply honest and open.

In one conversation, the wealthy revolutionary Parvus is trying to convince Lenin to release his underground Russian forces for Parvus's planned revolution, financed by Germany. Parvus can't understand why Lenin refuses to join. He is counting on the powerful Leninist underground in Russia. What Lenin doesn't tell Parvus, as he stonewalls and counterattacks and raises innumerable objections about who will lead the revolution, is that Lenin doesn't have any damn underground. Nothing. All Lenin has at this time is a small group of bovine Swiss leftists.

I came away from the book believing that the Lenin in this book was a sincere humanitarian interested in protecting the masses (us) from abuse by those in power, and frustrated at our lack of spirit to stand up for ourselves. He was coming from a country where the peasants received an extremely raw deal from their tsar and ruling class, the patient and ever-suffering Russian peasants. From this background it is easy to understand Lenin's frustration. Any government as oppressive as that one needs to be overturned. Lenin's older brother was executed by the tsar. Now we seem to understand him better.

A recent book claims that Lenin was thoroughly evil, the author of the concentration camp and the cult of personality dictatorship. But this book is of questionable merit because it was written by someone who may just be an anti-communist party hack of the new Russian regime. Do we believe him or Solzhenitsyn?