Who was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov-Lenin really? Before the revolution of 1917, in order to avoid arrest, he often had to transform himself, change clothes, and put on makeup so that his loved ones did not recognize him. The last time, on the eve of the seizure of power in Petrograd, he came out of hiding and appeared in Smolny in the guise of a worker. When he got rid of the need to resort to makeup, his comrades, publicists, writers got down to business and presented Ilyich to the world in the image of a great proletarian leader, defender of the working people of all countries, founder of Leninism. Our time removes the masterful makeup from Lenin’s face. But he puts thick black on him, turning him into a fiend of hell. So who really was the founder of the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet state, V.I. Lenin? A book by journalist and writer Lev Kolodny tries to answer this question.