Shortly before Lenin died, when he was too sick to master the revolution he had begun but still sufficiently aware to judge its progress, the founder, hero and godhead of the former Soviet Union asked Stalin for poison so that he could kill himself.
Stalin took the matter to the Politburo, where Lenin's request was discussed. It was refused.
"At the end Lenin understood his mistakes. He understood everything that was going on, but he could do nothing to change it", explained General Dmitry Volkogonov, a professor of history who is writing a new biography of the founder of the Soviet state based on 3, 724 documents concerning Lenin that have never before been published.
Volkogonov is a military historian. He is also President Boris Yeltsin's adviser on defense, the chairman of the commission investigating the hitherto unknown fates of allied prisoners of war in Soviet camps, chairman of the parliamentary committee for KGB and Communist Party archives, a three-star army general and, at 63, a political survivor.
The book on Lenin will be one of 30 Volkogonov has written and the last of three biographies of Soviet leaders. The first was on Stalin and the second on Trotsky. But when "Lenin" is finished, it will also mark the end of a long journey for Volkogonov himself.
"Lenin was my last ideal", he said. "As a young man I was a Stalinist. Then I was a Marxist. and when I wrote about Stalin I thought that Stalin had distorted Lenin's great ideas".
Today, he added, "I know my guilt. I did many things to support Leninism in this country".
Volkogonov said his documents prove that it was Lenin who began the great terror in Russia, and Lenin who had the idea for concentration camps.
"Stalin was born of Lenin", he said, echoing the beliefs of many Western specialists on Russia's revolution.
"Lenin was a great revolutionary figure of the 20th century, but he used his mind in a criminal way", said Volkogonov. Even today, in the post-Communist era, Russia's other generals would consider those words heretical. "I understand that many of them will not shake my hand after the book", he said. "In their eyes I am a traitor".
Of the army itself he said, "The younger officers are loyal to the new regime. But of course the generals, the oldest people, react negatively".
As chairman of the parliamentary committee on the KGB and party archives, Volkogonov enjoys special advantages.
"No archive is closed to me. I can say that all the secrets of the Soviet Union are in my head now", he said. "It is paradise for me as an historian".
Work on the. book, however, has been relegated to Sundays and nights, elbowed out by Volkogonov's other duties.
For if his idols have fallen, he has never forsaken politics. He meets the president regularly to discuss military policy and, more recently, he has been combing the archives for evidence of missing Western prisoners of war captured during the Korean and Second World Wars.
"We understand that we have no chance of finding any POWs alive now", he said. "But we have found numerous graves and interesting fates. It would be good to publish all the documents we have found as a memorial book".
Volkogonov who said he had been invited to address the U. S. Senate in November, gave warm praise to President George Bush. "I don't think Americans appreciate that Bush was the first to get involved in this", he said. "I really appreciate the role he has played in our work".
In parliament Volkogonov is a leader of the Left Center faction, which is critical of the pace and course of Yeltsin's reform program. Yet like many other opponents of rapid reform, this does not make him an unreconstructed Communist.
"The tragedy of our days is that so many people in our country still believe in Lenin", said Volkogonov. He himself would like to change the book on Stalin to reflect his new, critical, views of Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution.
"Lenin wanted to achieve happiness for the people, but by using means of terror", Volkogonov said as he sat in an office with nothing but nails to mark where portraits of Soviet leaders once hung. "This was his guilt and his mistake".
Stalin took the matter to the Politburo, where Lenin's request was discussed. It was refused.
"At the end Lenin understood his mistakes. He understood everything that was going on, but he could do nothing to change it", explained General Dmitry Volkogonov, a professor of history who is writing a new biography of the founder of the Soviet state based on 3, 724 documents concerning Lenin that have never before been published.
Volkogonov is a military historian. He is also President Boris Yeltsin's adviser on defense, the chairman of the commission investigating the hitherto unknown fates of allied prisoners of war in Soviet camps, chairman of the parliamentary committee for KGB and Communist Party archives, a three-star army general and, at 63, a political survivor.
The book on Lenin will be one of 30 Volkogonov has written and the last of three biographies of Soviet leaders. The first was on Stalin and the second on Trotsky. But when "Lenin" is finished, it will also mark the end of a long journey for Volkogonov himself.
"Lenin was my last ideal", he said. "As a young man I was a Stalinist. Then I was a Marxist. and when I wrote about Stalin I thought that Stalin had distorted Lenin's great ideas".
Today, he added, "I know my guilt. I did many things to support Leninism in this country".
Volkogonov said his documents prove that it was Lenin who began the great terror in Russia, and Lenin who had the idea for concentration camps.
"Stalin was born of Lenin", he said, echoing the beliefs of many Western specialists on Russia's revolution.
"Lenin was a great revolutionary figure of the 20th century, but he used his mind in a criminal way", said Volkogonov. Even today, in the post-Communist era, Russia's other generals would consider those words heretical. "I understand that many of them will not shake my hand after the book", he said. "In their eyes I am a traitor".
Of the army itself he said, "The younger officers are loyal to the new regime. But of course the generals, the oldest people, react negatively".
As chairman of the parliamentary committee on the KGB and party archives, Volkogonov enjoys special advantages.
"No archive is closed to me. I can say that all the secrets of the Soviet Union are in my head now", he said. "It is paradise for me as an historian".
Work on the. book, however, has been relegated to Sundays and nights, elbowed out by Volkogonov's other duties.
For if his idols have fallen, he has never forsaken politics. He meets the president regularly to discuss military policy and, more recently, he has been combing the archives for evidence of missing Western prisoners of war captured during the Korean and Second World Wars.
"We understand that we have no chance of finding any POWs alive now", he said. "But we have found numerous graves and interesting fates. It would be good to publish all the documents we have found as a memorial book".
Volkogonov who said he had been invited to address the U. S. Senate in November, gave warm praise to President George Bush. "I don't think Americans appreciate that Bush was the first to get involved in this", he said. "I really appreciate the role he has played in our work".
In parliament Volkogonov is a leader of the Left Center faction, which is critical of the pace and course of Yeltsin's reform program. Yet like many other opponents of rapid reform, this does not make him an unreconstructed Communist.
"The tragedy of our days is that so many people in our country still believe in Lenin", said Volkogonov. He himself would like to change the book on Stalin to reflect his new, critical, views of Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution.
"Lenin wanted to achieve happiness for the people, but by using means of terror", Volkogonov said as he sat in an office with nothing but nails to mark where portraits of Soviet leaders once hung. "This was his guilt and his mistake".