KEN COCKBURN assesses the art of Ian Hamilton Finlay for the experience of warfare it incited and represents
The formative years of a revolutionary
STEVE ANDREW relishes a history of Lenin’s childhood and adolescence that gives a useful insight his personality

Lenin’s childhood
Isaac Deutscher
Verso, £10.99
POLISH Marxist Isaac Deutscher is best known for having penned monumental biographies of Bolshevik leaders Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky, the latter running into some three huge volumes.
Whether or not the reader may agree with the perspectives contained therein, no-one could ever doubt Deutscher’s majestic writing style and his lifelong ability for research that was both meticulous and groundbreaking.
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