Lenin - a portrait
This text is a chapter from 'Bolsheviks', written my Mikhail Pervukhin. In this book the author provides personal portraits of leading Bolshevik figures. This chapter concerns Lenin. Artwork by S.I. Smith.
History, it seems to me, had not known a case when a large country, occupying a sixth of the Earth’s surface and counting 170 million humans among its population, was managed by a gang of men who didn’t even use their real names. By men who, under quasi literary pseudonyms, would jealously conceal their origins in the same way that they yet conceal their kinship with Russia’s mortal enemies from the Russian people.
The world press is forced, since the start of 1917, to repeat almost daily the names of Lenin, Trotsky, and, maybe less frequently, the names of their followers: Zinoviev, Kamenev, Lunacharsky, Urizki, Ganetski, Kollontai, Parvus, etc. Around these names were born many legends, some more fantastical than others, and only a chosen few, even among the Russians, know the truth, know the true origins of these quasi mythical characters, of these men, who, until a few months ago, were completely unknown to the vast Russian people, and, if they enjoyed a certain popularity, they could only leverage it amid the most tightly knit socialist circles, and maybe abroad, among the Russian political exiles, especially the ones in Switzerland.
This entire anarchic movement that has already brought our unfortunate Russia to a most terrible destruction, to dishonor, to unprecedented betrayal, is baptised with the name of its leader: Lenin. Let us give this one a closer look.
And even yesterday, when writing about Lenin, a few Italian journals would call him “Zederbaum” or “Zederblum”, once again, abusing the error at this point: The true name of Lenin is Ulianov.
Lenin Ulianov is a man around 50. He’s not German, as some would claim, and he’s not Jewish or Polish, as others would say, but he is an authentic Russian, son of a dvoryanin—a nobleman—wealthy, born and raised in Moscow. Still very young, Vladimir Uliyanov, alongside his older brother, a university student, begins working as a propagandist of socialism among the workers of Moscow. A little while after, they both get found out and arrested. Vladimir, having been admitted into a gymnasium, was quickly freed due to a lack of evidence; his university-going brother would instead be exiled to Siberia where, after attempting to escape he would be killed by guards.
From then on, the young Vladimir Uliyanov, the future “Lenin”, would consecrate his entire life to the most extremist revolutionary propagandizing. Lenin, among his friends, had, besides his well known pseudonym, a second, more fitting nickname: “Pugachev”, in memory of the famous rebellious Yaik Cossack ataman, who was almost able to destroy the Russian monarchy during the times of the Empress Catherine II. We must tell the Western reader of the famous Yemelyan Pugachev, swinging dead from the gallows 145 years ago, who wasn’t so much a political leader as he was a rebel for rebellion’s sake, a bloodthirsty madman, a beast in human form, and whose entire movement and followers, created in order to abolish serfdom and liberate millions of peasants, degenerated almost immediately into an anarchic whirlwind and became a gigantic process of destruction and devastation, a war of the lowest of the low against the State, against society, against order, in their purest forms. Lenin-Uliyanov is the second edition of this rebel from Russia’s legendary past.
Entering the Russian socialist-democratic party at a youngest age, as soon as it was born, Lenin, the “Pugachev”, would immediately set about creating its left wing. The more or less conscientious socialists, among them the famous scientist and sociologist George Plekhanov, a true disciple of Marx, saw the peril of Lenin’s and Leninists’ propaganda and would fight against this new Leninist movement, accusing Lenin of being an anarchist instead of a socialist: and yet, Lenin would swiftly achieve unparalleled success, especially among the workers in Petrograd, and would be the preference of the workers at the two largest metallurgic factories of the city—the factories Putilov and Obukhov. These two fortresses of Leninism had maintained fealty to their leader during a good 20 years; and when the revolution exploded onto the scene, in the spring of 1917, there would be no shortage of those who would give their almost unconditional backing to the anarchic movement.
In the past few years, Lenin, in order to flee the persecution of the Russian political police, lived abroad, most often in Switzerland, where he officially represented the internationalist faction of the “majoritarians” or “extremists” or “bolsheviks” of the social democratic party of Russia. When the world war erupted, Lenin summoned one other extremist from Italy, the socialist revolutionary Victor Chernov, and together, aided by Swiss-German internationalists Platten, Munzenberg, Grimm, Greulich, and others, they got in contact with the Governments of the Central Empires. From these governments they would receive a most enthusiastic support,—implying financial aid too—funding and aiding the revolutionary propaganda aimed at Russian prisoners in the concentration camps and in Russia herself. This intense activity would last until the Russian revolution in March of 1917. Then, with the help of Platten, Grimm, Greulich, and other Swiss friends of theirs, Lenin formed the first rag-tag team of Russian outcasts, all of them extremists,—“The red avantgarde”—who, through Germany, would triumphantly enter Petrograd and, from the first day onward, would push a type of propaganda that should have remained outside the realm of words and brings the wrath of God against a people, spreading it among the Petrograd workers and egging them on to rise against the provisional Government.
Lenin’s one immovable idea was very simple:
“The time of a global social revolution has come. We must but give the signal: soon the world will fall to the power of a conscientious proletariat and humanity… and shall live in paradise.”
Following this idea, Lenin affirms, openly, that all means are good as long as they serve the final goal. When accused by the true socialists and all of the Russian bourgeois press of taking the monetary aid given to him by the German state for the enactment of an uprising of the Russian rabble, Lenin, without dismissing the fact, published the most scathing articles in which he literally says:
“My friends and I are absolutely indifferent to the provenance of our money. The capitalists belong to the bloodthirsty bourgeoisie that steals from the worker. The worker has a sanctified and sacred right to pillage this money wherever he finds it and use it against the bourgeoisie.”.
During a public assembly at Petrograd, in June of 1917, a member of the opposition asked him point blank:
“Are you totally sure, comrade Lenin, that, among all your partisans, there are no provocateur agents from the Tsarist regime, or, even worse, German spies camouflaged as socialist extremists?”
“And then some!—Lenin readily retorted—I am, in fact, absolutely most sure to be surrounded by German spies. But who cares? The Kaiser, by helping the development of the Russian revolution, hopes to achieve the triumph of reaction. All the worse for him! I, on the other hand, am sure that the embers from the Russian brazier will ignite Germany as well and will blow up the Hohenzollern throne! And so, I will use the help of the German spies. It doesn’t matter to me that they help. It’s enough that they help!”
Human-wise, Lenin-Uliyanov represents a veritable sample of an oriental Slav. Average height, thickset wide, blond, bald, he has an irregularity in his contours and a large front, beady little clear eyes, immeasurably weak jaws. The entirety of his appearance makes him out to be a top model for a caricaturist. In the expression of his physiognomy there is a little humor, but that humor is totally unique. The Germans call this type of humor with a characteristic name: galgenhumor, “Gallows humor”.
Russian illustrators, when drawing Lenin, enjoy putting his long nose on the spot, depicting it as malleable, deformed and red; to sum it up, an enormous nose, that of a seasoned alcoholic: But Lenin is not an alcoholic; to the contrary, he’s a teetotaler, a spartan, a quasi-ascetic. Among the Russian political emigrés, Lenin was famous, almost legendary, for the modesty of his behaviour and personal habits; he would always live in the cheapest flatlets amid the poorest students. He’d dress himself in a way more than modest, would look like a man out-of-sight and in need. He ate poorly and would refuse to even visit, as the students did, the most modest restaurants. He found that there was too much eating, “like the bourgeois do” and spending. The only luxury that Lenin would permit himself was buying books. He would spend the greater half of his earnings on purchasing books in order to form a rich scholarly personal library.
Lenin is learned. Lenin is erudite. Lenin is a writer and a speaker. Learned, erudite, socialist writer. For him there is but socialism and nothing else. And in the sphere of socialist ideas, his gaze is fixed upon but a single idea: the immediate application of the socialist regime onto life. If that goal requires the entire Earth to explode, and if that were possible, he would do it.
The scientific value of Lenin’s works escapes my self-taught judgement. I only know that one of the most authoritative modern sociologists, Lenin’s compatriot, George Plekhanov, assigns very little value to his works. Plekhanov finds that Lenin has been altering true marxism for some time and that he mutilates Carl Marx’s doctrine. According to Plekhanov, Martov and other marxists, Lenin is a stranger to marxism. A utopian, a dreamer, nothing more. But this particular utopian is a “Pugachev”, a delinquent by nature, a demagogue by temper and ruthless conviction. He remains as such even when he writes. All of his articles are nothing but a war cry, an appeal to violence. And when Lenin encounters an opponent, even if the latter is also a socialist, he loses his mind and begins to scream, to blaspheme, to hex. Examine the journals where Lenin published his articles, where he tossed polemic with his opponents, and every step of the way you will discover that Lenin, while attempting to defeat his adversaries, knows no limits. All means are good for the pre-established goal: the most shameful lie, the fiercest calumny, the absurd accusations, the cynical barging into the most private and intimate parts of life. Russians say that Lenin experiences great pleasure rummaging through dirty laundry. But Lenin replies:
“To annihilate the enemy, all means are good. The saintly goal sanctifies the means”.
Maxim Gorky, who for years and years was on friendly terms and worked alongside Lenin, in November 1917 would give the following description of Lenin’s character as applying to him becoming a political man. “Vladimir Lenin,” writes Gorky —
“wants to introduce a socialist regime into Russia according to the method of Nechaev (a famous socialist conspirator from the 1860-1870 period), meaning: full steam ahead through the swamps. Believing themselves to be actual Napoleons, the Lenins, big and small, spread madness, and finalize the process of destroying Russia. Certainly, Lenin is a man of extraordinary power. For 25 years straight he has maintained his presence in the front lines of the fighters for the triumph of the socialist idea. Sure, his is one of the brightest figures of the international social-democracy. He is a “human genius”, he possesses all the qualities of a leader and doesn’t know what morality is. Sure, Lenin, being the grand barin that he is, despises the, to him, unknown and overly complicated life of people masses. Lenin does not know what a people is. He has never lived amongst a people or been in close contact with it. And through books he has not managed to acquaint himself with the mass and understand it. But it is precisely all of this that grants him the capacity to stoke the fury of the working class’s basest instincts. What is the people’s mass worth to the grand barin Lenin? Not much more than that of a mass of metal to a blacksmith.
“Is it possible, or is it not, seeing the present conditions of our “metal”, to create a socialist state?
I believe it is absolutely impossible.
“But why not try? What does the grand barin Lenin, Vladimir Lenin, risk by forcing the people to perform this experiment? The risk is only applied to the masses, despised by Lenin, all the while Lenin risks nothing if the train going full steam ahead through the swamps, derails and is annihilated…”
Lenin’s conduct during the outbreak of the march 1917 revolution perfectly corresponds to his political faith. As soon as he had arrived to Petrograd, Lenin, wildly spending the German millions, immediately organized a genuine armed corps, recruiting from the lowlifes of the capital, most of whom were deserters, vulgar criminals, Siberia escapees, lifers and bands of the so-called “anarchists”. With this roil and without much hesitation he occupied the gem-palace of ballerina Kshesinskaya, an ex-favorite of a great lord, establishing the Headquarters of the extremist forces. After an attempt, a failed one, to destroy the coalition government in July, when Lenin had to flee and hide, the owner of the palace filed a complaint with the public prosecutor’s office, asking the authorities for compensation for damages suffered to the sum of 500,000 lira: turns out, from the palace had disappeared the jewels, the paintings, everything made out of bronze, almost all of the furniture, the laundry and even a few of the “icons”.
Upon his reappearance in Russia, Lenin’s first success in the Petrograd soviet was rather limited. Almost all of the soldier deputies, and at least three fourths of the worker ones, would not hear of the internationalist propaganda and did not want to betray the Allies by signing a separate peace agreement with the Germans. The soldier deputies from the regiments “Preobrazhensky” and “Volinsky”, and the Cossacks, were especially hostile. If the provisional government had truly revolutionary energy, then that government of idealists, in my opinion, should have, seeing and duly recognizing the danger represented by Lenin and his anarchist propaganda, knowing that his continued progress would have been able to ruin all of Russia and make it a slave of the Germans, destroyed the plotters’ nest where the betrayal towards the allies hid by adopting the most decisive measures. Almost all of the revolutionary socialist party demanded that it act against Lenin. All of the fighting corps were invoking a castigation of Lenin. But, Kerensky, a slave of words, slave of the socialist formulas, did not have the courage, did not find the necessary energy.
Meanwhile, Lenin, in possession of enormous funds provided to him by Germany via Ganetski, at Stockholm, and via madam Suemenson, at Petrograd, was recruiting propagandists by the thousands, embedding extremist journalists everywhere, spreading poison, especially among the soldiers.
And little by little, so too did the regiments “Preobrazhensky”, “Litovsky” and “Volinsky” begin to suffer from the dysregulatory influenza of Lenin’s activity.
To sum it up, the Leninists were openly preparing to execute a coup d’etat. After many a conflict with the extremists, Kerensky alongside Kornilow attempted to destroy the bolshevik’s influence. What happened next, why Kerensky changed his mind at the very last moment and declared him a traitor to the people, despite being the one to call on Kornilow for help, has, to this day, remained an enigma.
And thus, Kornilow’s coup failed miserably.
The easy victory against this naive patriot would speed up the ultra-revolutionary explosion. Almost everywhere the local Soviets were going over to the side of the extremists and in this manner, Kerensky’s government would lose its last supporters, meanwhile Kerensky himself was losing the remains of his popularity and his influence.
At this point, an extremely mysterious “Central committee” of the “Bolsheviks” would once again call for Lenin, hiding who knows where; Lenin comes to Petrograd, and on the eve of the convening of the Great Constituent Assembly, a new coup d’état, enacted by the bolsheviks, would drown the streets of Petrograd in blood and would transfer power into the bloody hands of Lenin and his cadre. Here it is, the State as a Société Anonyme.
Six or seven years ago, at a gathering of Russian political exiles at Bern, in the presence of two or three hundred individuals, Lenin was conducting a political discourse. Following, as usual, were the discussions. And so the question of the death penalty was discussed. The entire assembly was unanimously against the death penalty, declaring that the socialist doctrine, a humanitarian doctrine par excellence, cannot recognize the right of men to dispose of the life of other men. The only one to rebel against that statement—the only one—was Lenin. He, among all-encompassing stupor, literally said:
“No! I am for the death penalty! Why? Because, when we will have to lay our path towards power, towards domination, towards the dictatorship of the proletariat, we will have to have the means necessary for the complete destruction of all the obstacles. Without the annihilation of not only the institutions, but also of the ‘material human’ who upholds these institutions, our triumph will never be stable nor durable!”
“But you contradict Marx’s doctrine!”—one of the individuals present dared to protest, stunned—“Turns out you aren’t a socialist, Lenin!”.
“I care not for how the future generations classify me!”—came the response.
“I will use all the necessary means to bring the proletariat to power, even if I have to pass through mountains of corpses and oceans of blood. I cast off sentimentalism, the deceiver!
LONG LIVE POWER!”
… Except that, as soon as he had arrived in Russia in April 1917, Lenin, through superhuman efforts, unfurled propaganda… against the death penalty!
An enigma? A contradiction? Repentance?
Come on, of course not. According to the laws of the Russian Empire, the death penalty awaited military deserters, spies, traitors of the fatherland and serial mob instigators. The first act of the provisional government was—in homage to the socialist idealist doctrine—to abolish this institution. The consequences arrived on time: entire battalions were openly deserting, entire regiments were haggling with enemies with whom entire armies were fraternizing; German spies were implanting themselves into Russia under the cover of ex-political exiles, by the thousands, assassins, professional brigands were forming actual armies and were killing defenseless inhabitants. The people, brought to such despair, cried for the castigation of the guilty. The sane part of the Russian Empire’s fighting army did as well.
But the return of the ancient order, that being the application of the death penalty, first of all, threatened to destroy the foundations of “bolshevism”. And so Lenin gives the signal, one well understood and well executed:
“No death penalty for any reason!”
This move by Lenin did not take long to bear the desired fruit: he now has the support of a million disbanded soldiers, of deserters, of hundreds of thousands of vulgar criminals, of all those who fear answering for the crimes against property, against human life, against the State, against society…
And nowadays that very same Lenin threatens to introduce the death penalty for the “enemies of the people”. And he doesn’t simply threaten: effectively, the death penalty is already applied on a mass scale. Only it is the soldiers of the Red Guard and the Leninist sailors that are the hangmen.