SOURCE: "Solzhenitsyn's Portrait of Lenin," in Clio, Vol. 14, No. 1, Fall, 1984, pp. 1-13.

In the following essay, Siegel argues that Solzhenitsyn's vituperative portrait of Vladimir Lenin in his Lenin in Zurich "has many of the traits of [Josef Stalin and is also in part an unconscious mirror image of Solzhenitsyn himself," but "bears little resemblance to the historical Lenin."]

Alexander Solzhenitsyn's portrait of Lenin in Lenin in Zurich, which consists of chapters drawn from three volumes of his work in progress, is of interest in itself, in the light it casts on the historical accuracy of his project, whose avowed purpose is the correction of widespread misconceptions concerning the Russian revolution, and in its unwitting revelations about its author.

While using the methods of the literary artist, which permit him to enter his characters' heads, Solzhenitsyn emphasizes in an author's note that his fictional Lenin's "choice of words" and...