NEW PORTRAIT OF LENIN
HIS REAL POWER BEHIND THE
BOLSHEVISTS
THE BEST OF A BAD LOT
[A correspondent of the London "Times", supplies the following new portrait of Lenin, the Bolshevist leader, which depicts him as the best of a bad lot.l
Of articles on Bolshevism there is now no end, but in the labyrinth of conflicting rumours and reports with which he is confronted the impartial render frequently finds it hard to pick his way, Difficult ae it is for him to conjure up before his eyes even the vaguest picture of Bolshevism as a, political philosophy, .he is completely nonplussed when he attempts to form an estimate of the character and personality of the man who is its creator and its chief exponent. The truth of tho matter is that Lenin is by no means an easy man to know. For years he has enveloped himself in a veil of mystery—a policy dictated as much by personal inclination as by political motive.?, and outside his own small circle of disciples and admirers there nro not only very few Russians who may be said to know him intimately, but even comparatively few who have ever eeen him. If, therefore, ho appears to tho average Englishman as a red-shirted, high-booted pirate chief, the fault is chiefly of Wa own making. His all-absorbing passion Iβ the gospel of world-revolution. Born at Simbirsk on April 10, 1870, Vladimir Hitch TJlianoff, alias "Lenin,' "Hitch," "Ilini" "Tylin," is a hereditary noble, and the son of a State councillor. His mother had a 6mall estate in tho Kazan Government, and after her lvusband's deatli was in receipt'of a State pension. Lenin's two sisters and his brother' Dmitri, were at one time nil under polico supervision, while bj« brother Alexander was executed in 188? for complicity in a terrorist plot against the life of Alexander 111. Brought up in the Orthodox Faith. Lenin is one of the few genuine Russians to be found anion? tho Bolshevist leaders. After completing 'his course at the Simbirslc Gymnasium, in 1887 he entered tho Kazan University, only to be expelled and banished from Kazan a few months later for participating in an anti-Gov-orriment students' riot. In 1891, however, we find him attending the University of Petrograd, whero ho studied law and economics. In 1895 ho made his first journey abroad to Germany, returning in the 6ame year toPotrograd, where he was again arrested on.account of his Socialist activities. On this occasion he was exiled for threo years to the villago of Sushenskoe, in Eastern Siberia, being forbidden on the expiration of his sentence to reside in any of the big cities, factory centres, or university towns of Russia. After his release in 1900 he again went abroad. From this period begins his real career as a Socialist loador, and tho next 17 years are a long cycle of Socialist congresses, abroad, culminating in conferences of 1915 and his dramatic return to Russia in tho notorious "sealed" lvngou. During this period he visited many countries, including England, 'and niado, the acquaintance of all,tho revolutionary elements in Europe. His favourite residence, however, was at Poroniu, in Galicia, from which point of vantage- he was able to maintain a close contact with tho revolutionary movement in Russia.
Personal Appearance Is Lenin a gen hie? Many Russians have denied it, , and certainly there is nothing' in his personal appearance to suggest eveii faintly a. resemblance to the super-man. Short of stature, rather plump, with short, thick neck, brond nhoukiers, Tound, red fafe, high, intel • factual forehead, bald head, nose slightly turned up, brownish moustache and short," etubbly beard, hu looks at the first glanco more like a provincial grocer than a. .leader of men. And. yet, on second thoughts, there is something in those .steely grey eyes that arrests the attention, something in that quizzing, half-contemptuous, half-smiling look which speaks of, boundless self-confidonco and conscious superiority. His knowledge of languages , is above the average. He is a proficient German scholar, whilo be writes and spenks English with tolerable acouraoy. He is certainly by far tho greatest intellectual force which the Russian Revolution has yet l brought to light.
It is not, however, to his intellectual powers that ho owes his predominating position inside his own party. The almost farniticnl respect with which he is regarded by tne men who are his colleagues, and who are at least as jealous of each other as politicians in other countries, is duo to otner qualities than mere intellectual capacity.' Chief of these are his iron courage, Ins grim, relentless determination, and his complete lack of nil self-interest. In his creed of world revolution he is as unscrupulous and as uncompromising ns a Jesuit, and in his code of political ethics the end to he attained is a justification for the employment of any weapon. To him Capital is the Eiend Incarnate, and with such an enemy he neither, giyos nor asks for mercy.
A Frank Statement. Yet as an individual he is not without certain virtues. In the many attaoks, both Justified and unjustified, which have been mado against him, no breath of scandal has ever touched his private life. He is married—according to all accounts singularly happily married—and, in a country where corruption lias now ronched its apogee, he stands uut head and shoulders above all his colleagues as tho one man who is above suspicion. To Lenm the stories of Bolshevist orgies and carousals have no relation. Ilis own worldly needs a,re more than frugal, and his personal budget is probably the most modest of all the Bolshevist Commissaries. Dishonest,. treacherous, guilty of tho worst form of secret diplomacy as the Bolshevists have been in all their public dealings, Lonin himself, on the rare occasions on which he has consented to 6eo a foreign journalist or a foreign official, has always been extraordinarily frank. "Personally, I have nothing against you. Politically, however, you are my eneruy, and I must use every weapon I think fit for your destruction. Your Government does the same against me." The individual is only a pawn in the Kame, and no individual, nowever dear, however close ho may be to Lenin's heart, will ever Lβ allowed to stand in liis way. His cruelty, however, is not a question of personal vengeance. Where Trotekv and other Bolshevists have pursued their enemies with a bitter, personal hatred. Lenin in certain ca6os, where the individual has been of little account, has oven been guilty of acts of clemency. But where Trotsky might shrink through fear, of the consequences from shooting 10,000 men in cold blood, Lenin, although he is not one of tho chief advocates of the terror, would assuredly not hesilato if he thought such an action were essential to the advnnceniont of his cifiue. Question and Answer, No one who has over been present at a Bolshevist Congress can have any doubts ns to tho real driving power behind the Bolshevist movement. In tho numerous political crises through which the Bolshevists have passed during their eighteen months' tenure of the Russian political stage, Lenin's has been the master mind which time and again has averted tho almost inevitable disaster and refitored the fallen fortuuefl of a party that had temporarily lost both its head and its heart. In debate he is an unrivalled dialeoticinn, facing his opponents with an unruffled temper which is provokingly irritating in its serenity. Politicians, of ninny years' experience might well bo puzzled by tin , madly incongruous, peculiarly It'iisshm questions which are put by uriiorant delegates at every Bolshevist Congress. Lenin, however, is uover at sv loss. He is us sure of himself as a schoolmaster with a class of email boys. A delegate asks an impossible question nbout tho Brest Peace and tho doctrine of self-determination. Liko a flash comes the reply: "Ono foolish man enn ask more questions in a minute than 10 wise men can answer in day." And, like schoolboys at a conjuring entertainment, the assembly claps its hands and grins with childish delight. 01 course ho i? a demagogue j has made
use of all the demagogue's arts. But behind all tho inconsistencies of his policy, tho tactics, the manoeuvring, there lies a deep-rooted plan which he has been turning over in his mind for years and which ho now thinks is ripe for execution. Demagogues have no constructive programme. Lenin, at least, knows exactly what he wishes to achieve and how he means to achieve it. Where other politicians try to adapt their proeramme to the needs and desires of society, Lenin is attempting to fit society to the narrow frames of his rigid, Prussianlike programme. A fanatic if you like, but a fanatic who has already made history and who has more genius than most tanatics. Cold, pitiless, devoid of all sentiment, utterly ruthless in his effort to forco the narrow tenets of Ms Marxian dogma upon tho whole world, Lenin is not a lovable character. He is, however, tho one Bolshevist of whom non-Bolshe-vist IJussians can ever be brought, albeit grudgingly, to speak with respect. Quite recently the Bolshevists have set up in the streets, of Petrograd a statute to Blanqui on which is inscribed Blnn(lui's famous motto, "Ni Dieu, m Mai<re." To present-day Russia the words are pitifully inappropriate. ' Bolshevist Russia has a master, and in hie secret heart every Bolshevist knows it.
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Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 206, 26 May 1919, Page 5
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1,565NEW PORTRAIT OF LENIN Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 206, 26 May 1919, Page 5
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