Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Lenin the Dictator

By: Victor Sebestyen
Narrated by: Jonathan Aris
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Victor Sebestyen's intimate biography is the first major work in English for nearly two decades on one of the most significant figures of the 20th century. In Russia, to this day, Lenin inspires adulation. Everywhere he continues to fascinate as a man who made history and who created a new kind of state that would later be imitated by nearly half the countries in the world.

Lenin believed that 'the political is the personal', and while in no way ignoring his political life, Sebestyen's focus will be on Lenin the man - a man who loved nature almost as much as he loved making revolution and whose closest ties and friendships were with women. The long-suppressed story of his ménage a trois with his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and his mistress and comrade, Inessa Armand, reveals a different character to the coldly one-dimensional figure of legend. Told through the prism of Lenin's key relationships, Sebestyen's lively biography casts a new light the Russian Revolution, one of the great turning points of modern history.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio on our desktop site.

©2017 Victor Sebestyen (P)2017 Orion Publishing Group Ltd
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Ancient City cover art
Collapse cover art
A People’s Tragedy cover art
A Certain Idea of France cover art
History of the Russian Revolution cover art
The Empire Must Die cover art
Gulag cover art
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich cover art
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World cover art
The Thirty Years War cover art
The Soviet Century cover art
The Vladimir Lenin Collection: State and Revolution, What Is to Be Done?, & Imperialism: The Final Stage of Capitalism cover art
Trotsky in New York, 1917 cover art
Hitler cover art
The Brothers Karamazov [Naxos AudioBooks Edition] cover art
Prague Winter cover art

What listeners say about Lenin the Dictator

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    74
  • 4 Stars
    18
  • 3 Stars
    7
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    65
  • 4 Stars
    15
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    60
  • 4 Stars
    19
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing!

Brilliant from start to finish. I could not put this book down and raced through it!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Bolshevik bluster

An absolutely brilliant audiobook superbly narrated . A harrowing account of one of history’s most brutal regimes led by a certifiable despot

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Excellent book, well read

Well written and researched, Lenin was an appalling dictator who set the stage for what was to come for the next 100 years in Russia

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Impressive Package

Great story with perfect level of detail - not too much to make it boring and not too little to make it too casual

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A most excellent listen!

Very well researched, and exceedingly well narrated.
Kept me enthralled throughout and most importantly, I learnt a great deal 👌

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Deep Dive Into Lenin

I have always been fascinated by the Russian Revolution, which would not have ended the way it did without Lenin. This was a very detailed account of the man who started the Communist Cancer that has spread throughout the world in one form or another.

I was quite surprised to learn of the sheer brutality of the Tsarist regime, and how implicated Nicholas was. If you want a deep dive into the man revered and loved by so many and equally hated - this is the book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent

Knew only the basics about Lenin (and much of what I thought I knew turned out to be contradicted by this book) and so it was exactly what I was looking for.

Thoroughly enjoyed the book and the performance
Hard for a male to do female voices , which I found a little jarring is only minor criticism

Highly recommended

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

brilliant

amazing detail on the life of Lenin. read clearly and with great enthusiasm. a great audiobook for any history fan

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent detail and insight

Lots of detail on Lenin in the pre-revolutionary years and provides into how his uncompromising mindset developed.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Fun Telling - With One Red(!) Flag

I was enjoying the book - fun, pacy and pop, until one little aside about the clown duo ‘Bim Bom’. Sebestyen writes that the Cheka opened fire on the act, resulting in the death of one of the performers. This immediately rang bells and after some digging in Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin, I found what I had been looking for - Bim & Bom, both alive and well in 1920!

I appreciate this is a ridiculously minor point, but it really jumped out and after finding the total inaccuracy, I’m left doubting the veracity of other aspects of the book too. Basic primary sources can be found to disprove this story, so what was Sebestyen doing? Assumedly, repeating a story from The Peoples Tragedy or the KGB.

I’d recommend a read / listen as it’s a pacy and dynamic telling of Lenin. Weak on theory, but to the benefit of pacing. However, I would warn the reader / listener that Mr. Sebestyen isn’t too vigorous in inspecting his sources.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!