BOOKS
Conspirator is the compelling story of how Lenin endured seventeen long and often difficult years in exile, living a hand-to-mouth existence, working towards the upheaval that in 1917 transformed the political landscape of Europe: the Russian Revolution.
Always on the move, he lived at various times in Paris, London, Geneva, Zurich, Munich, as well as the backwaters of rural Poland and Finland.
On a wider level, this book charts the life in exile of various European enclaves of Lenin’s colleagues in the Russian revolutionary movement – their hopes, their dreams, their quarrels, their extraordinary, rootless existence and the many risks they took in trying to smuggle illegal literature into Russia and spread their message.
UK: Hutchinson, 3 September 2009
US: Basic Books, 3 April 2010
I am grateful to the Lenin Museum in Tampere, Finland-
the only surviving museum dedicated to Lenin in the world -
for their support in this project
Writer • Historian • Russianist
HELEN
For a Scott Pack Q&A with Helen on Conspirator go to: meandmybigmouth.typepad.com
For Scott’s review of Conspirator
go to:
© Copyright Helen Rappaport 2009 Contact Helen Rappaport here Website design Peter Ware
For Russian-language reviews and interviews about Conspirator, see:
Radio Free Russia www.svobodanews.ru
BBC Russian Service www.bbc.co.uk
For an interview with Mark Thwaite at The Book Depository about Conspirator see: www.bookdepository.co.uk
‘Lenin died from Syphilis’ -for the Mail Online article discussing Helen Rappaport’s new theory, see: www.dailymail.co.uk
For an extended review article see the Culture Wars website:
WEB LINKS
See my Top Ten Books on Lenin at Guardian Unlimited:
For my opinion on the etching of ‘Hitler playing Chess with Lenin’ that has come up at auction, see: www.telegraph.co.uk
On Lenin in London see: www.news.bbc.co.uk
II have just read what is probably the best biography of Lenin and indeed one of the best biographies of anyone that I have read. This is Helen Rappaport’s Conspirator: Lenin in Exile. The many other Lenin biographies are either hagiographies or cold war anti-communist rants. Helen Rappaport treats Lenin like a human being…’
The Indian Express