Refuting Pipes

[JKSCHW at aol.com]

There were a number of rather harsh reviews of it when it came out. I can try
to search the web for them, but so can you. The bottom line is that Pipes has
got some stuff that tends to show that Lenin (a) had an affair (gasp, horror,
shock; _bourgeois_ politicians would never do such a thing), and (b) ordered
the shooting of hostages in the civil war in rather harsh terms, to be
condemned; but it doesn't show that he was particularly brutish as leaders,
indeed, war leaders go. In fact Pipes' "revelations" don't amount to much that
wasn't already known. It's rather like the glasnost relevations about Stalin,
which shwoed that he was a tyrant and a butcher, something that I am sure came
as a real surprise to everyone. Pipes was hoping that the relkevations about
Lenin would show the same, but he was already convinced that the existing
facts showed that, and if you didn't think so before, you wouldn't think so
afterwards. Personally, I didn't think so before. Ans in what environment are
you where people care to debate about Lenin? --jks