In October, they'll all remember my name
Nov. 1st, 2017 03:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodygranuaileI had a hard time reading more than a few pages at a time of Tariq Ali's The Dilemmas of Lenin: Terrorism, War, Empire, Love, Revolution, but that's not because it was bad. It is, rather, because it was quite good, containing a lot of important and valuable information, but I started reading it while I was sick, which is not generally the optimal time to try to be learning important things about history and politics and whatever. I should have just read some nice lighthearted fiction instead, but I wanted to finish this book before October was over, because I'm pretentious like that.
Anyway. I'm not really smart enough to write much of a review here; my background on the Russian Revolution is still very thin, even after reading October earlier in the year (although thank God I did or I might have been really lost). Dilemmas of Lenin deals with a wide range of subjects, frequently wandering away from Lenin's personal history and writings to explain or contextualize other stuff that was going on in Russia or in the socialist movement. This book is one of several coming out this year with the explicit intent of pushing back against the highly stereotyped images of the Russian Revolution and the Bolsheviks and particularly of Lenin, who I know had a personality cult in the USSR and obviously has been reviled as a ranting zealot in the US, although I don't actually know anything more detailed than that other than the same people who think Marx was personally a genocidal murderer instead of a dorky journalist who liked to read about economics don't like Lenin either. The picture of Lenin we get from Ali is one of a smart, complex, somewhat emotionally traumatized man with distinct tendencies toward snobbish seriosity, but not altogether lacking in other personality traits, including the occasional sense of humor.
Other, smarter people than myself have written extensive reviews of this book in all the big center-lefty publications, and I read like four different reviews before I figured I should just probably read the book itself, so if you want to know more about the book I'd point you toward the reviews at The Guardian and The New Republic.
Anyway. I'm not really smart enough to write much of a review here; my background on the Russian Revolution is still very thin, even after reading October earlier in the year (although thank God I did or I might have been really lost). Dilemmas of Lenin deals with a wide range of subjects, frequently wandering away from Lenin's personal history and writings to explain or contextualize other stuff that was going on in Russia or in the socialist movement. This book is one of several coming out this year with the explicit intent of pushing back against the highly stereotyped images of the Russian Revolution and the Bolsheviks and particularly of Lenin, who I know had a personality cult in the USSR and obviously has been reviled as a ranting zealot in the US, although I don't actually know anything more detailed than that other than the same people who think Marx was personally a genocidal murderer instead of a dorky journalist who liked to read about economics don't like Lenin either. The picture of Lenin we get from Ali is one of a smart, complex, somewhat emotionally traumatized man with distinct tendencies toward snobbish seriosity, but not altogether lacking in other personality traits, including the occasional sense of humor.
Other, smarter people than myself have written extensive reviews of this book in all the big center-lefty publications, and I read like four different reviews before I figured I should just probably read the book itself, so if you want to know more about the book I'd point you toward the reviews at The Guardian and The New Republic.