Part 1: Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis

The Russian countryside had a variety of manor houses, where the squires lived, and villages where the peasants lived. Most had a similar social structure with the local nobility, bureaucrats, professional classes, and then the lower working classes. Most of these towns were conservative in nature. Simbirsk was a typical town of the 1890s with no railroad stop and no highway. It was also the home of Alexander Kerensky and Vladimir Lenin. Lenin was the son of a schoolteacher and administrator whose older brother had been hanged for his part in an attempt on the life of the Tsar. Lenin was expelled from the University of Kazan and, after the family farm was sold, he studied law and passed the exams. After this, he began to read the writings of Karl Marx and in 1893 announced to his mother that...