SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
Lenin, up close and intimate
ANDREW MURRAY recommends two titles that popularise Lenin as a person and revolutionary theoretician and practitioner
PAUL FOLEY recommends an extraordinary double bill that packs a punch and leaves you reeling
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a play about AI that results in a deadening disconnect for its audience
SIMON PARSONS applauds an insightful state-of-the-nation play that explores the growing class divide in South Africa
MATTHEW HAWKINS pays tribute to the performance artist and costumier, Leigh Bowery
SIMON DUFF reviews a new composition by German composer and pianist Florian Weber that blurs the line between where improvisation ends and composition begins
New releases from The Jim Mullen Quartet, Caroline Kraabel/John Edwards, and Matthew Muneses/Riza Printup
The Lenin Scenario
by Tariq Ali
Verso £12.99
Imperialism and the National Question
by VI Lenin
Verso £14.99
LENIN: THE MOVIE is a film that has never been made, although the raw material is promising enough. Now that the 100th anniversary of the revolution he led and the centenary of his death have both come and gone, it may be that it never will.
Of course, there are doubtless Soviet-era hagiographies out there, and works of higher quality in which Lenin appears. But nothing that tells the story of the man in all its richness.
More from this author
MICHAL BONCZA recommends a compact volume that charts the art of propagating ideas across the 20th century
MICHAL BONCZA reviews Cairokee gig at the London Barbican
MICHAL BONCZA rounds up a series of images designed to inspire women
Similar stories
STEVE ANDREW relishes a history of Lenin’s childhood and adolescence that gives a useful insight his personality
GAVIN O’TOOLE applauds a uniquely nuanced people’s history of the revolutionary period, told from below
PAUL BUHLE adds historical context to an eclectic and colourful celebration of Lenin
NICK MATTHEWS looks at the great Bolshevik leader’s intense three-week period of furious study in the British Library in 1908 and the timeless classic on Marxism and philosophy it produced: Materialism and Empirio-Criticism