Have You Ever Heard Lenin's Voice? Listen to Lenin

Listen to Lenin:

Born in Simbirsk, Russia, Vladimir Ilich Lenin recorded at least a dozen gramophone records in the period 1919-1921, including this tribute to his faithful colleague Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov.

Obviously, this recording is in Russian. The British Library has provided a transcript with the recording available from the site linked below.

Listen to Lenin (outside THF network).

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Russian Archives Online > Soviet Propaganda

Soviet Propaganda:

This collection of examples of Soviet-era propaganda is arranged chronologically from the Bolshevik Revolution to the Cold War arms race.

The exhibition is hosted by The Russian Archives Online

Link to exhibition (outside THF network).

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The Russian Provisional Government, 1917

Ian Thatcher, Brunel University.

Soviet and Western historiography has for long identified Lenin as the most influential figure in explaining how the October Revolution of 1917 took place. This follows a comment in Trotsky’s diary of 1935 that the October Revolution would have occurred without him but only on condition that Lenin was present. This talk outlines how recent scholarship has re-evaluated Lenin’s role: he failed to prevent the February Revolution, the April Theses joined an already existing debate rather than marked a completely new point of view, State and Revolution is no guide to how the Bolshevik government developed, and it is Trotsky not Lenin who organised the October Revolution. It is only be demolishing the Lenin myth that we move closer to understanding the Russian Revolution of 1917.

There is no single book on the Provisional Government. There are good chapters on it in James D. White, The Russian Revolution: A Short History and in Ronald Kowalski’s The Russian Revolution. There is also a good essay by Howard White in A Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, edited by E. Acton et. al.

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Trotsky & The Bolsheviks 1917-1924

Ian Thatcher, Brunel University.

Leon Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks in August 1917 after many years of separation. He was nevertheless a key figure in the establishment and maintenance of Soviet power. It was Trotsky’s strategy by which the Bolsheviks came to power. As Commissar for Foreign Affairs, it was Trotsky’s ‘no peace, no war’ policy that in the debates about whether to sign a separate peace with Germany saved the Bolsheviks from splitting down the middle. In his next post, Commissar for War, there has been no historical agreement about the impact of Trotsky’ military strategy, but the Red Army was formed on Trotsky’s principles and it was Trotsky who protected the specialists that led the Red Army to victory. Undoubtedly Trotsky was a major propagandist for the Bolsheviks; his civil war train was a legend in its own time. Trotsky did not however establish a firm support base at the peak of the Bolshevik elite. Many leading Bolsheviks, especially Stalin, resented Trotsky as an anti-party figure. Trotsky’s economic policies and prognoses found little support. Devoid of Lenin’s backing nothing was more certain than Trotsky’s defeat in the power struggle to be the next leader of the Soviet state. There is no better illustration of Trotsky’s isolation than his decision not to return to Moscow for Lenin’s funeral, despite Stalin’s quick action to inform Trotsky in the expectation that Trotsky would wish to be at Lenin’s burial.

For further reading see Ian D. Thatcher, Trotsky and Ian D. Thatcher, ‘Trotskii and Lenin’s Funeral’ in History, April 2009.
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The Bolshevik State: Survival & Consolidation, 1917-1924

Ian Thatcher, Brunel University.

When the Bolsheviks declared a new government in October 1917 many a commentator, including many Bolsheviks, thought that it could not survive as a one-party regime. It would have either to give way to the Constituent Assembly or to transform itself into a broad coalition of socialists of all types. This talk examines why of all the attempted communist revolutions in Europe of this time (Germany, Hungary, Slovakia etc.) only the Bolshevik regime in Russia survived. It also asks whether the price paid for survival – the consolidation of a one-party dictatorship meant that the ideal of socialism was lost.

For further reading see:
Christopher Read's detailed and readable From Tsar to Soviets (1996).
Ronald Kowalski's The Russian Revolution (1997) contains many primary documents.
James D. White's The Russian Revolution: A Short History (1994) is clear, concise and informative.


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