In 1917, Russia was on the brink of an abyss: human losses in the First World War reached three million people killed, the economy was in a state of deep crisis, the national debt amounted to billions of rubles, and Russia was rapidly plunging into chaos and anarchy. At this moment, Vladimir Lenin came to power, who had to solve a task of incredible complexity: to save the country from a seemingly inevitable death...Who was this man? What was his path to power? What goals did he set for himself? There are many opinions on this matter, but the author of this book, V.T. Loginov, Russia's leading scholar of Lenin's biography, avoids hasty conclusions. Portrait of V.I. The portrait he paints of Lenin, a tough pragmatist and strong-willed leader, is stern but realistic; facts and only facts formed the basis of this work. The ends of the pages are marked in the body of the book like this: , to view page numbers you should open the file in a browser. (DS)