Lenin, etc.

Conspirator: Lenin In Exile by Helen Rappaport is the story of the "making of a revolutionary." Although the basic material has been well covered by Robert Service's definitive (and fascinating) Lenin: A Biography (2002), this account of the early years is an accessible survey of the rise of the man who might be said to have turned the world upside down. He didn't do it alone, but without him the Russian Revolution would not have happened, at least not as it did. Reading Rappaport, I still found it hard to accept that the raggle-taggle group of refugees she describes, poverty-stricken, given to infighting, and pursued by secret police, accomplished what they did.
Nobody has every pretended that Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was a lovable man; in fact, it's hard to feel any sympathy for him. Yet one can't help admiring his intellect, drive and capacity to persuade his followers of the inevitability of the socialist revolution. His relentless drive is on full display in Rappaport's description of his years of exile along with the long-suffering Nadezhda Krupskaya and her faithful mother. Always short of money, the three went from one spartan lodging to another across Europe. The tales of doctrinal arguments between the numerous factions in convention after convention, always in smoke-filled rooms, make--believe it or not--for lively reading. I was especially taken with the tale of Lenin's visit to Maxim Gorky on Capri, where Gorky's villa was a "magnet for every Russian exile on Capri." Lenin enjoyed playing chess on the terrace and walking around the island. It's hard to imagine.
But there are a few such human moments, the most telling when he returned to Russia in the infamous sealed train. Rappaport writes that on "that cold night in April 1917, on the huge square outside the Finland Station, Lenin finally saw the Russian masses as they really were and witnessed what Nadya called 'the grand and solemn beauty of the Revolution' in all is visceral power and immediacy--an experience he had missed in 1905."
Ah, but if he could only see St. Petersburg today, with its luxury hotels and affluent shops. When we were in Russia a few years ago we dined one sunny evening on the edge of Red Square, right across from Lenin's tomb. What a contrast--the Italian-style cafe where we ate, and the somber red block that we all remember from old newsreels. From where he lies the old man has an excellent view of the glitzy shopping mall that has taken the place of dreary Gumm. How he would hate it.
I put down Rappaport's book and picked up Elena Gorokhova's memoir, A Mountain of Crumbs. Gorokhova, who lives in the States now, was born in Leningrad in the mid-1950s. Her father having died early, she and her half-sister were raised by their mother, a doctor and a faithful child of the Soviet Union--Lenin would have applauded her dedication to his revolutionary values. But the world he made, with the help of Stalin, is depicted here as a place with barely enough to eat and of sensual and material deprivation.
It is also a place of regimentation and adherence to the government line. Elena, for example, describes the ritual of becoming a Young Pioneer. The children are encouraged to admire Pavlik Morozov, the apochryphal son of a rich peasant who turns his own father in for hoarding wheat. In her own mind, Elena begins to question authority. In time she learns English and guides foreign students around her city, seeing it through their eyes. Still, it's her home and her country, but feelings of loyalty are not enough to prevent her from marrying one of the foreigners, an American, who suggests marriage as a way of escape for her. Marry him she does, and begins a new life in the US.
The pleasures in this book, and there are many, lie in Elena's descriptions of how and and her mother and sister lived. She writes of her beloved grandparents and their dacha, where they hunted for mushrooms. Less happily, she describes trips to the communal dentist, the search for proper food for a party, and the struggle to find color in their daily life. One can argue that her life was better not because of but despite the revolution, but then there is her mother's deep and unspoken disillusionment with the ideals to which she gave her life.
In the end, I longed to know more about Elena's later life here--all we know is that she divorced her savior, married again, had a child, and brought her mother and sister here--the photos show happy women enjoying life--I hope so.