Lenin on the Train - Hardcover

Merridale, Catherine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0241011329 ISBN 13: 9780241011324

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2016

Synopsis

THE TIMES, THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND ECONOMIST BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2016

'Twice I missed my stop on the Tube reading this book... this is a jewel among histories' David Aaronovitch, The Times

'The suberb, funny, fascinating story of Lenin's trans-European rail journey to power and how it shook the world' - Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard Books of the Year

A gripping account of how, in the depths of the First World War, Russia's greatest revolutionary was taken in a 'sealed train' across Europe and changed the history of the world

By 1917 the European war seemed to be endless. Both sides in the fighting looked to new weapons, tactics and ideas to break a stalemate that was itself destroying Europe. In the German government a small group of men had a brilliant idea: why not sow further confusion in an increasingly chaotic Russia by arranging for Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the most notorious of revolutionary extremists, currently safely bottled up in neutral Switzerland, to go home?

Catherine Merridale's Lenin on the Train recreates Lenin's extraordinary journey from harmless exile in Zurich, across a Germany falling to pieces from the war's deprivations, and northwards to the edge of Lapland to his eventual ecstatic reception by the revolutionary crowds at Petrograd's Finland Station.

With great skill and insight Merridale weaves the story of the train and its uniquely strange group of passengers with a gripping account of the now half-forgotten liberal Russian revolution and shows how these events intersected. She brilliantly uses a huge range of contemporary eyewitnesses, observing Lenin as he travelled back to a country he had not seen for many years. Many thought he was a mere 'useful idiot', others thought he would rapidly be imprisoned or killed, others that Lenin had in practice few followers and even less influence. They would all prove to be quite wrong.

About this title

About the Author

Catherine Merridale's books include Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Russia, which won the Heinemann Prize for Literature and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, Ivan's War: The Red Army, 1939-45 and Red Fortress: The Secret Heart of Russia's History, which won the Wolfson Prize for History and the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize. She is a Fellow of the British Academy.

From the Back Cover

PRAISE FOR CATHERINE MERRIDALE'S RED FORTRESS: THE SECRET HEART OF RUSSIA'S HISTORY

Winner of the Wolfson Prize for History

'Brilliant and unputdownable... simply superb' Simon Sebag Montefiore

'Addictively clever... whisks us through a series of terrific melodramas' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times, Books of the Year

'Magnificent... Merridale uses the Kremlin like a backdrop to an opera - a screen on which to project scenes from Russia's violent and dramatic history... it works wonderfully' George Walden, Sunday Telegraph

'One of the best popular histories of Russia in any language' Marshall Poe, Times Literary Supplement

From the Inside Flap

By 1917 the European war seemed to be endless. Both sides in the fighting looked to new weapons, tactics and ideas to break the stalemate. In the German government a small group of men had a brilliant idea: why not sow further confusion in an increasingly chaotic Russia by arranging for Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the most notorious of revolutionary extremists, currently safely bottled up in neutral Switzerland, to go home?

Catherine Merridale's Lenin on the Train recreates Lenin's extraordinary journey from harmless exile in Zurich, across a Germany falling to pieces from the war's deprivations, and northwards to the edge of Lapland to his eventual ecstatic reception by revolutionary crowds at Petrograd's Finland Station.

With great insight and imagination Merridale weaves the story of the train and its uniquely strange group of passengers with a gripping account of the now half-forgotten February liberal Russian revolution and shows how these events intersected. She brilliantly uses a huge range of contemporary eyewitnesses, observing Lenin as he travelled back to a country he had not seen for many years. Many thought he was a mere 'useful idiot', others thought he would rapidly be imprisoned or killed, others that Lenin had in practice few followers and even less influence. They would all prove to be quite wrong.

Edition details

• Publisher: Allen Lane
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0241011329
• ISBN 13: 9780241011324
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368