WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 July 1935, Page 11

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

HAD LENIN BEEN LESS PROMPT. But for the alertness of Lenin in avoiding a collision in the streets of Geneva, in which he would almost certainly have met his death comparatively early in life, say's E. H. C. Oliphant in an interesting article on the Russian leader, there might have been no one to overthrow Kerensky, and so set the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics on its feet. There are in history two classes of event, two species of period; some events, some periods produce the men who make them famous; other events, other periods are brought into being by the men with whose names they are always associated. The French Revolution is an example of the former; its great men did not make it; they were made by it. Danton, Marat, Robespierre, even Mirabeau would have Deen nothing without it; they grew to greatness under its stimulus. They were creatures of their age, rather than creators of it. The era that followed is of another order; it is the age of Napoleon, not merely an age, which he illuminated.

This is the age of the third great social revolution in modern history. The first was the Puritan Revolution in England. That revolution cannot be said to have been made by Cromwell; but he was so dominant a personality that the era which followed may weil.be considered his. The second was the French revolution. The third was the mighty Russian movement, which is now in its eighteenth year, and seems to be very far from having spent itself. Did that revolution make Lenin? Or did he make it? That is a question on which there must be a great variety of opinion. If

it made Lenin, anything that might have cut him off before it happened would be of small consequence to us; but if he made it, his early demise would have altered the history of our time most markedly. Whether he made the movement or not, he did undoubtedly stamp his individuality upon it; so I think I am justified in suggesting that,, •jf the incident of which I am going to speak had ended fatally, our woild would, for better, for worse, have been very different.

THE MAKING OF A REBEL. “Lenin,” was but an assumed name, the man’s real name being XBadimir Ilyich Uiianov. He was born in April, IS7O, at Simbursk —now called, aictx him, Uiianov—on the Volga, that great river which may be described as the heart »of Russia. His father was an tfficial in the Education Department, who was eventually ennobled for the good work he, did. There were in the features of Lenin Mongoloid characterists; and there can be little doubt that he had in his veins much of that Mongol and Tatar blood which was’ introduced into Russia in .the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. That blood is, in fact, predominant in no small 'portion of Russia, especially in that section from which Lenin came, which now forms the Tatar Republic of which Kazan is- the capital. In the Uiianov family there were three boys and three girls. They were a studious and talented lot, both Alexander, the eldest son, and he who was afterward Lenin distinguishing themselves at school for ability and assiduity. As Lenin was about to leave school to enter the University of Kazan, Alexander was discovered to have been the ringleader in a plot to assassinate the Tsar. He and his accomplices were arrested, and they paid the penalty of their misdeeds on the gallows.

From that time Lenin—as the brother of an arch-conspirator, was a marked man. It is frequentlj’ stated that it was his resentment at the fate of Alexander that made Lenin a revolutionist. If so, the execution of the elder Ulianov proved the greatest of blunders for the Russian dynasty; but it may be doubted whether the execution of Alexander had any effect whatever upon Lenin. Every member of the family took to revolutionary thought and action, so that it is probable that there was a strong radical tendency in the home, from cither the father, who had died in 1886, or the mother, who had sprung from the small land-owning class, and to whom Lenin was devoted all his life.

THE REVOLUTIONARY EXILE. In 18S7 he entered the law school of the University of Kazan, at once connecting himself with a secret revolutionary circle established there. Almost immediately he was expelled for taking part in student riots, was forbidden to live in Kazan, and was put under the surveillance of the police. The next year he was refused admittance. He was also refused permission to go abroad to pursue his studies. The refusals are scarcely to be wondered at, considering that he was known to be circulating revolutionary literature. He, however, pursued his studies privately, and, having passed the examinations of the law school of the St. Petersburg University, was admitted to piactise law, and thre years later he obtained for the first time a passport to go abroad for the benefit of his health. He was soon back, and, getting into trouble, was sentenced, after a year's preliminary detention, to three years in Siberia. On his return, in 1900. lie went abroad once more. Having taken part in the abortive revolution of 1905, lie had to flee for his life. In 1914, at the outbreak of war, he was living in Austrian Galicia. After having been imprisoned for two weeks as an enemy subject, he was released and made his way to Switzerland, where he was still living when Tsardom Was overthrown. I have made a. passing allusion to an event which might easily have cut short the career of this epochmaker. It occuried in Geneva in 1908. Lenin, who did a good deal of cycling, was

riding down a crowded and narrow street when he found himself head-on to a motor-car coming toward him at a terrific speed, in the hands of a drunken driver. Lenin saved himself only by throwing himself off and jumping among the crowd on the footpath, his bicycle being ridden down and smashed to atoms. Ii may be said that this was not a case of luck; that Lenin was tuved by his own presence of mind: but however great the presence of mind the luck was necessary also, fci, throwing himself from his machine. it was just a chance whether or not he might trip and fall before the oncoming ear. Had he dune so, who can say wiiat. would be the stale of Russia to-day? Who else could have brought about the overthrow of the Kenensky regime, have, carried through, successfully the awful humiliation of BrostLitovsk. and have set the Soviet Republics upon their feet? It may. indeed. bo doubted whether without

Lenin to control its affairs, the Russian revolution could have become fit inly established. So that drunken motoiist in Geneva might very easily have altered the fate of a great country. and materially affected the history of our time. l= I