LENIN: A BIOGRAPHY. Translated by Violet Dutt. (Lawrence and Wishart,
7s. 6d.) This fantasy-biography is what one has come to expect from the publishers, who have long been doing their best as an advance echelon of Minitrue. I have just noted on my shelves an interesting early example of theirs: two almost identical copies of Lenin's Socialism and War, the earlier's introduction having two signatures, Zinoviev's and Lenin's, and the later having none. Their present translation of the latest edition of an official Soviet biography has all the old falsifications. But there is a certain change of emphasis—Bukharin is as big a villain as Trotsky, and even has his policies summarised for castigation. The reason is plain : Bukharinism is the error alleged against
Malenkov last year. And the book winds up with a spectacular eulogy of the Khrushchev policies as the purest Leninism. (Trotsky, in- deed, gets off rather lightly on some counts. The old line of blaming him for the defeat of the Red Army by the Poles is dropped in favour of the following account of that war: 'The Red Army's successes had forced the Polish Government to agree to the conclusion of peace.') But what about this, as the book's full description of the war in the Far East? : 'The Soviet Army went to the aid of the Chinese people in their struggle against the Japanese imperialists. Imperialist Japan was
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