Lenin: A Political Life: Volume 3: The Iron Ring

THIRD THE IRON RING. This is the third and final volume of a political biography by a well-respected scholar of Russian history. As in the earlier volumes, Vol. 1: The Strengths of Contradiction (LJ 7/85) and Vol. 2: Worlds in Collision (LJ 5/15/91), the study is of Lenin the individual, not his times; however, Lenin’s relationships with Stalin and Trotsky are subject to special treatment. For this latter period from 1918 to Lenin’s death in 1924, the author treats the assassination attempt upon the leader’s life, peace with the Axis powers, the Civil War, the rise of Comintern, and the development of the New Economic Policy, as documented in both primary and secondary sources, including recently opened Soviet archival materials. Service portrays Lenin as a self-confident visionary and state terrorist committed to the centralization of power whose actions prepared the way for Stalinism. This is a significant and well-written study with a place in both general and scholarly collections.