This modest volume makes no pretence of being a ‘definitive’ biography of V. I. Lenin. Readers seeking such are referred with confi dence to Robert Service's trilogy. It is not even a standard biography of the first Soviet leader in that I have not sought to discuss any aspects of his childhood or to replicate James White's treatment of his intellectual evolution. Neil Harding's study of Lenin's ideological contributions to Marxism is unchallenged herein, and the study of the early history of Russian Social Democracy has been left to the admirable works of Allan Wildman, Leopold Haimson and John Keep. Lenin's role in 1917 and in leading the early Soviet state is also beyond the scope of my study.

The objective of this volume is more limited. I wish to examine the period from Lenin's defeat at a plenum of his Central Committee in January 1910 until the outbreak of the First World War, and at the same time to present a more nuanced picture of his personality. The four and a half years before the war are the murkiest and least studied in party history. During this time Lenin sought to build an all-Bolshevik Party. The degree to which he was successful is important to an understanding of its contribution to the rising unrest in Russia on the eve of the war and perhaps also to its subsequent success during the revolutions of 1917.