Lenin - Osobnost, ideologie, teror – Sebestyen Victor (2021)

Sebestyen's book on Lenin is a model political biography for a wide audience: historical accuracy is balanced with narrative liveliness and suspense, without the author resorting to psychological speculation or pompous generalizations. The supreme homo politicus is presented in Sebestyen's portrait in its entirety, including its primitive or monstrous traits, but without grandiose ideological judgments: Sebestyen is certainly not an apologist for Lenin, yet he has enough respect for the portrayed personality to ensure that the result is not a two-dimensional accusatory poster. This vivid and very readable portrait captures not only Lenin's life journey and personality, his better and darker human sides, but also, in context, the Russian history of the last quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century, primarily the gradual yet profound disintegration of the tsarist regime, the Bolshevik revolution, the civil war, and the red terror.