Lenin lived and breathed for the revolution and died having changed the course of history throughout the world. His incredible strength of will and personality, his fantastic organisational ability and complete dedication to the goal of revolution enabled him to surmount domestic dissension and disorder, political rivalries, and economic ruin. It was his supreme ability to adapt, to change, to pursue any means to achieve his ends that enabled the revolution to survive. This work is a history of the Russian revolutionary movement and of Soviet Russia from 1917-1964 wrapped up in a detailed biography of Lenin, and is by a devoted scholar of Soviet affairs and close aquaintance of Lenin.