LENIN,

Hokitika Guardian, 25 March 1920, Page 3

LENIN,

THE MASTER OF ORGANISED BRUTALI TY. ' The real character of Lenin is still an enigma to the Western world, and the great value of M. Lancia u-A Ulanov's account of the Bolshevik Robespierre is that it gives material from bis writings and speeches for a verdict on him. In features and appearance he is a ‘Kalmuck of that type which centuries ago swept over Russia with less destruction,” But he uses machine guns and the methods' of modern times. His office might be that of an American business man with card-in-dexes and the neatest otf furniture. Vladimir Oulianoff—for Lenin is not his true name—-was born on April 10th, 1870 at Simbirsk, the son of a Councillor of State who was director of schools there. He is one of the hereditary nobility, though not of a rich or ancient family. In his ancestry he combines the violence of a German Junker with the primitive cunning of the peasant. His brother was executed for nyi attempt on the life of Alexander 111. He, himself lived nearly 30 years in exile, mainly, in Paris and Geneva. His private life has been decent. Ho lias always lived poorly. But lie lias consorted with the worst criminals men such as Radek, who picked pockets, and Malinoffsky, a famous informer and agent of the old Russian Imperial police.

His mentality is that of Ihe Middle Ages and of the men who burnt Galileo. Philosophy he regards as- “an arm forged against the working class.’’ Of books he has said that “they mean the ruin of social revolution,” He lias denounced mathematics as anti-demo-cratic. For liberty of the Press, universal suffrage ,and Parliaments he has nothing hut contempt. “The Constituent Assembly,” he lias said, “is the dictatorship of the middle class.” “Liberty of the Press is liberty for the rich to buy the Press.” Religion is “fidesm”— something anticommunistic and ridiculous.

Fifteen years ago, he declared that terrorism was necessary. “The Bolsheviks want the people—that is to say the proletariat and the peasants—to settle the hash of the monarchy and aristocracy by pitilessly annihilating ail enemies of liberty.”

He planned the Rod Terror before there was any counter-revolutionary movement; it is one of the fixed ideas in that homicidal brain. And with it there must be universal war. “Down with the sentimental dream of peace at any price; let us raise the standard of civil war.” We Marxists have always been and continue partisans of revolutionary war against- all counter-revolu-tionary peoples,” he has written. He is, says M. Landau-Adnnov, a compound of Tartuffe, Torquemada, and Savonarola. The young Socialist, who afterwards in horror shot the demoniac Uritskv for his murders and torturings said, after hearing one of Lenin’s speeches, “it was not a political discourse; it was the cry of the soul of a. man who has waited 30 years for this instant I thought I heard the voice of Savonarola.” A less enthusiastic Socialist says, how ever, that he was stupefied in listening to Lenin’s oratory to find in it nothing but furious appeals and cries of hate—not a constructive idea. It is. in fact, the eloquence that may he heard in Broadmoor; Lenin’s writings might come from the same establishment. They are full of vituperation, empty of thought, breathing monomania and hate. There is in them neither knowledge nor common sense, hut the fixed idea of violence and de-

struction. Even in the Soviets he has no great faith. ZinoviefF has disclosed the fact that b» was quite prepared to * put them down If thoy did not obey. The arch-qualltv of Lenin is the domineering temper of despotism. Trotsky lias said of him. “To him the rule of social democracy means martini law, the rule of Lenin over social democracy. He has taken upon himself the role of the Incorruptible Robespierre.” M. Landau-Ahlanov holds that Lenin and the Bolsheviks are inevitably doom ed, sooner or later, to founder in a sen of blood. Their regime cannot last; it would have fallen before hut for its fero ’ cisus terrorism.