Document Exercise: Views of Lenin

SOURCE A

I come back continually to this feature of the Russian Revolution, that it uplifted the poor and the downtrodden and improved their lot in the everyday things of life. This is what impresses in contemporary records of revolution, and this is what is likely to be its most widespread and lasting effect. For the everyday things of life still mean the most to the poor and the downtrodden, and they are still the majority of the population of the world.

Hill, Lenin and the Russian Revolution, 1947

SOURCE B

Lenin was realist enough to know that the regime was not popular … he held both Russian workers and peasants in contempt … The main base of Bolshevik support came not from the people at large, the ‘masses’, but from the Communist Party apparatus, which grew by leaps and bounds during the Civil War: at its conclusion, the party numbered between 600,000 and 700,000 members … They joined because membership offered privileges and security in a society in which extreme poverty and insecurity were the rule …

Towards outsiders, people not belonging to his order of the elect, Lenin showed no human feelings whatever, sending them to their deaths by the tens of thousands, often to serve as an example to others.

Pipes, Russia under the Bolshevik Regime 1919-24, 1994
SOURCE C

I am amazed and alarmed at the slowing down in the operation against Kazan; what is particularly bad is the report of your having the fullest possible opportunity of destroying the enemy with your artillery. One should not take pity on the city and put off matters any longer, as merciless annihilation is what is vital once it is established that Kazan is enclosed in an iron fist.

Lenin to Trotsky, 21 August 1918

SOURCE D

Lenin is no more. We have lost Lenin … Medicine has proved itself powerless to accomplish what was passionately hoped for, what millions of human hearts demanded … And now Lenin is no more. These words descend upon our consciousness like gigantic rocks falling to the sea. Is it credible, can it be thought of?

How shall we advance, shall we find the way, shall we not go astray? For Lenin, comrades, is no longer with us!

Trotsky speaking at Tiflis Station, 22 January, 1924
SOURCE E

In the face of large well-equipped ‘White’ armies supported by several Western countries, a strict centralism and absolutism became imperative … No democratic procedure would have made solutions possible, but only autocratic ones: orders, appointments and dismissals …

If in the end Lenin’s regime came to be based on a force, the bureaucracy, which he abhorred, it was only the result of a situation in which a program of development is imposed by a new regime on a backward country whose vital social forces are either weak, indifferent or hostile …

At the end of his life, Lenin saw all these problems more and more clearly … He would have to live on to prove that he could have changed anything substantially.

Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle, 1968

TASKS

  1. Comprehension of a source

Study Source A. What does Hill in this source think was Lenin’s most important

achievement?

  1. Comparison of Sources

Study Sources A and B. How does Pipes differ from Hill in his view of Lenin and his achievement?

  1. Understanding of the factors affecting historical explanations

Study Sources A and B. Why may the date they were written be an important factor in determining the authors’ views of Lenin?

  1. Utility of sources in supporting a historical interpretation

Study Sources A, B and C. Which author, Hill or Pipes, would be able to make the best use of Source C?

  1. Evaluation of sources

Study Source D. What is the value and limitation of Source D to a historian of Russia in the 1920’s?

  1. Comparison of historical interpretations

Study Source E. Is Lewis more likely to agree with the views of Hill or those of Pipes? Refer to the sources in your answer.

  1. Understanding a source in context

Whywas Lenin still important to the Communist Party after his death?

  1. Understanding the nature of historical debate

Why have historians found it difficult to agree about Lenin’s impact on Russian history? Use all the sources and your own knowledge to answer the question.