Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is among the most enigmatic and influential figures of the twentieth century. While his life and work are crucial to any understanding of modern history and the socialist movement generations of writers on the left and the right have seen fit to embalm him endlessly with superficial analysis or dreary dogma. Now after the fall of the Soviet Union and ampamp8220actuallyexistingampamp8221 socialism it is possible to consider Lenin afresh with sober senses trained on his historical context and how it shaped his theoretical and political contributions.ampampnbspReconstructing Lenin four decades in the making and now available in English for the first time is an attempt to do just that.