The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1921-06-08
OF NARROW MIND
Writer Denies Lenin Any Ele-
ment of Greatness.
Tragedy in His Early Life Largely In.
fiuenced the Actions OF Sinister
Russian Revoiutionist.

Lenin, that extra ordinary Russian, Is
well enough known to the world as
politician and leader, but little known
as personality. w. III. #. Basevi, in
the Forum, discloses some interest
ing facts regarding the educational and
moral influences that early shaped the
character Of this sinister revolutionary
and that went toward the making OF
the man who has turned the tremen-
dous tide OF a vast empire.
until 1917 writes Mr.. Basevi, "he
was merely one Of host of dis
gruntled exiles, wanderers In foreign
lands, who lived from hand to mouth
by free-lance Journalism, or picked up
a precarious livelihood as tourists
guides or by featuring and teaching
Russian, assisted at infrequent and un-
certain intervals by remittances from
reluctant relatives, and loans from
friends. Driven by poverty as well as
by conviction to join the underworld
Of revolutionary intriguers, and to Join
in plots against the government wher-
ever they might be, they were always
under surveillance by the police, and
We're compelled. to change their names
as frequently as their homes in order
to evade pursuit and gain little res
pite.'' r.
And continuing, Mr.. Basevi says:
"Vladim' =, Ilyitch Ulianoff, whose
nom de guerre is Lenin, is the son OF
a member of the lower order of the
hereditary nobility. The father appar-
emily had revolutionary theories which
Lenin and his elder brother put into
practice. The two boys were educated
at the Kazan university, and here oc-
Cured tragedy which was probably
the turning point in Lenin's career. His
elder brother was executed for COM
plicity in plot TO assassinate the car,
Alexander III 1t is not difficult to I'M
derstand the effect Of this distressing
event upon an emotional and courage
Gus youth, already convinced that alb
solutism was the cause of all the trou-
bles in his unhappy country. In his
eyes, his brother was a martyr, and he
himself was, ready for the same fate.
But martyrdom was not his fate. Ii
that is yet to- come, if he is to meet
his death by assassination, which is
so frequently the end Of revolutionar-
les, it will come, by strange irony, not
in the cause of liberty, but for exer-
cising a despotic tyranny unknown in
all the history Of the cars. Lenin was
expelled from the Kazan university for
participating rip a political demonstra-
ton. He studied law at the Univer-
sity of Petrograd, and in later years
was exiled to Siberia for his connec-
ton with reyolutionaries in Switzer-
land. Much, of his life was spent
abroad, and he married woman who
had been exiled for voicing extreme
opinions. -.
"Wtat Robespierre was to Gamelin
Evariste, Karl Marx and Engels are to
Lenin. From, his own writings it is
evident that he is man with narrow
hut acute intellect, and possesses the
purely deduetiye type Of mind. His
tendency is, to discard all complex and
confusing facts, and for the sake of
clearness and simplicity to consider life
and men as, distractions. i.
ITO Lenin, Marx and Engels are the
prophets Of a new religion, and Das
Kapital a holy Koran, every word in
spired. To criticize it is blasphemy;
to differ from it the most damnable
of heresies. Il is the first word and
the last, the Alpha and Omega, the be-
ginning and the end Of economic doc
trine.. The entire domination which
these works !, exercise over his in
tellectual faculties is evidenr through
out his writings. To confute an adj
versary he quotes text and feels the
matter is settled"