Robert Payne achieved remarkable research concerning the life of Lenin. One would think a man who had "set the world on fire" who contributed to the ills and misery of mankind, not to mention the evil assassinations and enslavement of his people including those who had supported him and helped him gain power, would have been reared by parents who fostered revolution and rebellion. Not so, Lenin (not his given birth name) parents were educated, community/educational contributors. And were members of the Christian faith. Yet, all their children became revolutionists. The eldest, a university student, was tried and hung for making a bomb intended to assassinate the Tsar. Perhaps most telling about Lenin was his violent hatred of Jesus Christ and christian beliefs and values. His driving ambition was for power and control….and the violent overthrow of Tsar rule of Russia. His was the order for the brutal killing of the Tsar and his family. Lenin was a law in to himself - anything or anyone who stood in his way was systematically purged- a legacy he bequeathed to Stalin and to the Communist way of governing. A persons 'free agency' and 'rights' was supplanted by rigid control of the creature. His so called 'reforms' for the Russian people resulted in poverty, loss of property. and eventually enslavement. It is not an easy read - Robert Payne did not intend it to be. Reading the painstaking historical research and details that Robert Payne has compiled, the reader comes fully to realize the evil of Lenin's life….and the evil he unleashed on his own people - and the world. Recommended one to obtain a first edition of Robert Payne's 'Lenin."