Lenin's Last Struggle

Moshe Lewin was certainly one of Lenin’s admirers. Though this short book is anti-totalitarian and sympathetic to Trotsky, it is surprisingly uncritical of Lenin on key issues. But it is clear from reading it that Lenin’s last struggle — his political activities in the final two years of his life — were focussed on what would now be seen as minor issues. Instead of doing his utmost to get rid of the toxic Stalin, Lenin suggested in one letter that perhaps the Communist Party should consider someone else for the job Stalin held. The one bit of genuine moral outrage that we see is Lenin’s fury at how Stalin addressed Krupskaya, Lenin’s wife, in a phone call. That got Lenin’s attention and a demand for an apology (which show more Stalin then offered). For years I heard that this book was essential reading to understand Russian Communism and the Soviet Union. Having now finally read it, I don’t think that’s the case. Lewin is too much in Lenin’s thrall to take an objective and critical look at the dictator. Others have done better work on the subject. show less

Organization of the book could have been handled better. I understand that this is revisionist in that it undermines some capitalist propaganda (and some ML at that as well) but Lenin's actions can't be absolved just because of historical circumstance or necessity, his whole regime building was a betrayal to socialism and we're supposed to absolve him of these sins because he woke up in the last month's of his life? Lenin's sins against socialism can not be that easily forgiven but the book does place those sins I'm context and it calls them for what they are. It is honest and revealing and for that I gave it four.

"Lenin's Last Struggle" is basically an overview of Lenin's opinions and views on a great variety of policy matters in the period from the Revolution to his death, as portrayed by the Soviet historian Moshe Lewin. Lewin has a tendency to be too positive about Lenin (at least in a moral kind of estimation) than is perhaps warranted, and that goes for this book as well, but it is fortunately not uncritical. The overview of Lenin's views itself is excellent and his contrasting of Lenin to Stalin well-done. The book's main flaw is that it is too short, with a mere 141 pages of actual content, and that Lewin generally assumes a pretty strong knowledge of history of the Soviet Union. In that sense, this book is mostly useful as a good summary show more of the Lenin of 1918-1924 for people already interested and somewhat knowledgable about the USSR.

The book includes a series of appendices with primary documents by Lenin. Very useful is the inclusion of Lenin's famous essay "Better Fewer, But Better", which is crucial for understanding Marxism-Leninism in practice. show less