http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/08/31/106.html
Alfred A. Knopf
Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler:
The Age of Social Catastrophe
By Robert Gellately
Alfred A. Knopf
720 pages. $35
Original Sinner
A new book by Robert Gellately places Lenin alongside
Hitler and Stalin in the 20th century's pantheon of evil.
By Lars T. Lih
Published: August 31, 2007
'Without a hint of moral scruple or sense of national loyalty, Lenin
desperately hoped for Russia's defeat in the First World War." It's the
"without a hint" that is the giveaway in this introductory statement: This is
going to be one of those books about Lenin. The kind where analysis is
restricted to ensuring that nearly every sentence about Lenin contains a
derogatory word or turn of phrase. The kind where Lenin never just walks from
one room to another -- rather, his mad lust for power drives him to walk from
one room to another. Accordingly, Robert Gellately, the author of "Lenin,
Stalin, and Hitler" and a professor of history at Florida State University,
does not write that Lenin was a dedicated revolutionary, but rather talks about
"Lenin's self-image as a fighter for the cause." If Lenin holds an opinion that
you or I might agree with, then it gets tainted in one way or another: "Lenin
and Stalin, schooled in Russian terrorism, saw revolution as justified
insurgence against tyranny." In something of a masterpiece of this style of
writing, Gellately manages to make Lenin sound more morally culpable in the
matter of White Army pogroms against the Jews than General Denikin, the head of
the White Army.
Gellately's thesis regarding Lenin is that the first Soviet leader was a
central cause of "the age of social catastrophe" of the first half of the 20th
century because he was a "truly vile" man intent on inflicting violence, and
Stalin was his "keenest disciple." And for those who might doubt that Stalin's
actions were the perfect embodiment of Lenin's most cherished ideals, Gellately
points out, truly enough, that Stalin justified all his actions by references
to Lenin.
But is it fair to judge Gellately's new book on the basis of his portrait
of Lenin? After all, the Lenin period takes up only about a fifth of a
narrative that extends to the end of World War II. Furthermore, when Gellately
arrives at a period he really knows something about (he is a specialist on
Hitler's Germany), he gets off his soapbox and becomes more of a historian
(although even here we run across such oddities as the assertion that during
the interwar years Stalin and Hitler "invariably dressed in full military
regalia"). Nevertheless, the worth of this book stands or falls on its
treatment of Lenin. Gellately himself tells us that his real contribution in
this book is the integration of Lenin into a broad-scale political history of
Germany and Russia in the 20th century. And Gellately is right about one thing:
Academic historians seem unwilling or unable to do this.
Itar-Tass
Lenin had a clear vision of the road to power, Gellately writes,
and Stalin was Lenin's "keenest disciple."
Unfortunately, after informing us of Lenin's centrality, Gellately does
not follow up with an adequate account of Lenin's views, including those on
topics that Gellately tells us are the most crucial: democracy and terror. Take
Lenin's case for a "Bolshevik coup" in the fall of 1917. Gellately writes that
Lenin knew that "the majority in the country might not be behind the
Bolsheviks, but for Lenin that was no reason to wait." Yet one of Lenin's main
arguments was that the masses did support the Bolshevik program. He showered
more than usually vituperative abuse on anyone who was skeptical about this
support. He repeated his claim over and over again, in public pamphlets and in
private debates with his Bolshevik cronies. Among other places, he repeats it
on the very page from which Gellately took some of his own quotes about Lenin's
attitude at this time.
Lenin's own writings, at the very least, raise some difficulties, not
only for Gellately's description of this one crucial episode, but also for his
central contrast between Hitler's Germany and the Soviet Union. According to
Gellately, Germany had a "dictatorship by consent," while the Soviets cared not
a whit for mass support, never modified their policies in response to popular
pressure, and did not even try to win the "hearts and minds" of the Soviet
population. Yet there is extensive evidence that Lenin held other views,
evidence that Gellately himself would seem to argue must be factored into the
picture: "It would be foolish to ignore any of [Lenin's and Stalin's] works if
we want to understand and explain how their brutal regimes operated."
The real reason for Gellately's superficial approach becomes clear in the
epilogue: "I submit that we have to avoid slipping into the role of apologist
for Soviet leaders, including, and in some respects above all, Lenin." This
indeed is Gellately's overriding aim -- that his book not be an apology for
Lenin -- regardless of whether this aim interferes with the historian's
traditional purpose: explaining the outlook of a historical figure, and putting
him or her into the context of the times. Even a hostile account of Lenin's
actual views would move in the direction of an apology, since Lenin's choices
would become more understandable. The ultimate effect of this anti-apologist
stance is to put Lenin in a historical vacuum and keep him there.
Paradoxically, Gellately is not so worried about not apologizing for
Hitler and Stalin, so the later part of the book reverses the relative
proportion of rant vs. analysis. Gellately gives a straightforward account of
what Hitler and Stalin said in this or that speech, and carefully states the
evidence for his own stand on controversial issues such as Hitler's personal
responsibility for the Holocaust. This is clearly Gellately's area of strength.
Alas, the reverse is true in the case of Lenin.
Gellately pictures himself as an iconoclast, bravely taking on the
prevailing myth of the Good Lenin: "A good friend at my American publishers
said the very thought of putting Lenin next to Stalin and Hitler in the book's
title would be enough to make her Russian grandmother turn in her grave." In
reality, his portrait of Lenin is easily recognizable from the works of Dmitri
Volkogonov, Robert Service and Richard Pipes. What they see, Gellately also
sees (along with their errors, such as Service's over-inflation of the role of
"Russian terrorism"), and concerning matters that they don't cover -- and this
includes much of what is worth knowing about Lenin -- Gellately knows little
and does not wish to find out more. These three authors define the prevailing
view of Lenin, and their slap-dash portrait of Lenin seems to be good enough
for post-Soviet historians, at least in the West.
If all you ask of a book is that it be "not an apology" for Lenin, then
"Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler" will do. If you want a genuine attempt to integrate
Lenin into the larger political narrative of the 20th century, you will have to
wait.
Lars T. Lih is the author of "Lenin Rediscovered: 'What Is to Be Done?'
in Historical Context."
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