Malice was absolutely unknown to him. There was no way for him to deliberately target someone to make him/her miserable. When a very authoritive Marxist Georgiy Plekhanov called Leninism a "dementia' and after the Revolution- refused to support it. Lenin instructed to let Plekhanov go abroad. The same was granted to other prominent Marxists who decided not to support a cause.
One of the most tragic accusations against Lenin is the murder of Tzar Nicholas and his family in 1918. It was a really barbaric act and as the Communist government was a centralized one it was hardly done without his knowledge. That's fortified by the simple fact that practically ALL other tough decisions like for instance self-drowning of the Russian Black Sea Navy were performed according to Lenin's direct orders. So I say, yes, he knew. I say yes, he authorized that murder. I say, there is no reasonable explanation for that act except for maybe one- he just let it go. No, that does not take the guilt away. It just tells us that the Revolution is a beast of many heads, the wave of hate is so high that sometimes even if you seem to have the power, you do not. Shadows of the Girondians from 1793 hovered over the heads of the Russian Communists in Kremlin and they remembered that those who were against the execution of the King perished next. Lenin did not consider Tzar Nicholas a special person and neither he considered that the children of the workers of Moscow who were dying in droves in 1918 deserved less attention than the Royal Family. He just let it go. I think at that moment he understood the magnificence of the forces he awakened and that not all of those forces were good ones. But it was too late. The burden was on him but he took it the way he always did. As soon as he woke up after the operation following the assassination attempt he ordered to "stop the terror'. Yes, his cronies were not him and they did not possess those outstanding qualities. But even they recognized his power of authority and personality without question. Lenin's word was the law of the organization down to the end and even Trotsky who considered himself a genius always exercised the highest respect towards Lenin. In fact even enemies respected him and it is well --known that German government considered him "the most outstanding politician alive'.
Lenin was a very courageous person. One of the most hated people in the world, he staunchly refused a security detail and frequently went out alone or with the driver only. On the fateful day of the assassination attempt the young woman-terrorist easily got close to him; he was giving a speech at the factory and was surrounded by workers. During the matinee of the left social-revolutionaries in July 1918 in Moscow when their artillery targeted the Kremlin, Lenin refused to evacuate and remained at his post until the reinforcements came in.
Lenin was a man of honor and integrity. When Stalin insulted his wife, Lenin, already very ill immediately wrote him a scathing letter demanding immediate apology and threatening total severing of all communications. Stalin immediately apologized. Lenin wrote in his "Letter to the Convention' the historical and accurate characteristics of all the prominent people who surrounded him, warning the Convention of the Soviets about many a negative qualities of those and proposing a careful strategy to avoid the crawling to possible dictatorship. Among other things he warned about "Stalin's compulsive rudeness' which he considered a vice that should be accounted for. When after Lenin's death that characteristic of Stalin was openly read on one of the closed discussions, Stalin, then already a powerful Secretary-General, offered his resignation. If only it had been accepted..
A fierce internationalist, Lenin did not tolerate even a slightest bias or bigotry. His government invoked total women's equal rights and promoted the defense of the rights of mother and child. Anti-Semitism was considered a felony. Lenin watched like a hawk that no nationalistic tendencies should creep into a lawmaking and it was due to him the charter of the Soviet Union in 1922 considered all its republics as equals and having a right to go independent. They surely used that legacy in 1991.
In his private life Lenin was very humble and even pious. That dedicated atheist resembled a real Russian Orthodox in his habits; he rarely drank, preferred tea, ate very simply, loved classical music, Pushkin poems and was a voracious reader. He hunted ducks when he was young, not much when he became active as a politician, played chess, knew and respected great painters and especially loved technical people- engineers an scientist with whom he planned the New Russia- filled with electricity and beaming with educated people. Lenin was very interested in public education and it is due to him that Russian population became 95% literate in about 10 years after the Revolution.
His family life is rather unremarkable. His wife Nadejda had thyroid problems. They did not have children. He was a loving sibling- all other members of the family loved him dearly. The dirty rumors about him having relationships with other women including some Swedish prostitute from whom he allegedly contracted syphilis, are what they are - dirty rumors. There is no mentioning of syphilis in the autopsy reports. Our so-called biographers are smearing Lenin just by considering themselves; they never would be able to accomplish even a token of what he did; so they pour dirt on him whenever possible.
A son of his time and of his nation Lenin was a typical Russian- stubborn, tough, suspicious down to paranoia sometimes, confrontational and a fanatic of his idea. He despised deals and compromises, considered capitalism an evil force only and was also a dreamer- he really believed that people could change as soon as the environment around them encourages that. He really could not understand that the felonious behavior, for instance, would not go away with the exploitative world but will adapt, change and emerge back in the form of much more dangerous state terror of the felons in power like Stalin and his cronies. Like a bacteria it mutates and develops new more resistive types that not only survive but prosper. He never understood that. He was a Russian idealist.
I guess in his last years he started to see that darkness creeping around and it is reflected in his late writings as well as on his photos of that time -- the photos of the deeply concerned man. But in the traditions of all Russian idealists before him he preferred denial; who can throw the stone at him, really? He burned in his life like a bright torch and he wanted to die in fire, not to rot in discontent. The fire of the Great Revolution engulfed him and if there is a Valhalla- he is there, the last Russian Viking, the small, baldish man with a goatee. No matter how we judge him- who of us in all honesty would not want to have such an exciting life? That's the most powerful judgment of history- the fairest of all- the evaluation of the honest effort. Lenin was an honest man and he died trying. End of the story.
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