Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (1875–1933) was a multifaceted and therefore extraordinary personality, and as the author emphasizes in his work, hence the extreme difficulty in interpreting his position. He was called a romantic and a utopian; he stood out noticeably among other party functionaries for his ideological predilections, which were very different from the Russian version of Marxism. It is his worldview, the author believes, that makes Lunacharsky one of the most controversial figures in the Bolshevik leadership, the most susceptible to criticism from all sides.