1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder

Hernan's 1917, is loaded with facts and incidents, but fails for the simple reason it seems to have started with the thesis that Lenin and Wilson were two "lefty soulmates", both on identical missions that failed, both with ideas that led to "a new world disorder". The author then assembles the facts so as to support the thesis, while ignoring others that he even mentions that contradict the thesis, to prove that hypothesis. The fact that Wilson's mission, the League of Nations never even got off the ground, and Lenin's mission still has a pulse, does not deter the author pairing the two. The disorder in Europe leading up to and after the First World War has many complex components, persons and movements as a cause. The book The Vanquished, by Robert Gerwarth, gives a far better analysis of how the seeds of World War Two were planted from 1919 into the early 20's. Gerwarth notes that Wilson's drive for democratic ethnic homogeneity, so unlike the racial, religious and ethnic plurality of the land empires that preceded WW1, very soon led to ethnic cleansing on a huge scale. Gerwarth notes the 1922-23 Conference of Lausanne provided legal basis for international expulsion of entire populations for ethnic and religious reasons. Neither Wilson nor Lenin were involved in the agreement that arose.
Some 1917 book excerpts and discussion.
p. 236, "Emerging from the forge of war in 1917 was the active role of government in every aspect of daily life, and the rising expectation that government can fix every problem and deal with every crisis....Certainly, no world leader was more eager for the chance to fulfill the promise of government at war than Woodrow Wilson....and war fitted perfectly with Wilson's Progressive agenda.."
The war started in 1914, not 1917, if Wilson was so eager to "fulfill the promise of government at war" why did he wait until 1917, and why, as Hernan amply describes, was America so ill prepared logistically for entering the war in 1917?

On pages 256-57 Hernan uses a "hail Mary" like move to purport if a letter from a Wilson advisor, Colonel House, had been acted on in 1917, Wilson might have crushed Bolshevism and "saved" Russia and advanced democracy. In 1917, Russia had never had a democracy. Hernan explains how Wilson missed this imaginary miracle move on p. 257 with "Suppose Wilson had....used America's financial leverage...suppose he had sent a note...suppose Kerensky had been able....could that have saved the Russian Republic? It's hard to say. The forces of chaos and disorder were already far advanced..." Hold on, so the disorder was already present.....not "New"?

The Conclusion:
p 418, "In the end, Wilson blamed capitalism for the (Russian) revolution." Hernan gives no quotes on that point, and it seems conjecture on his part at best, or dissimulation. Wilson was a religiously devout man, was for democracy, and against the usurping of government by "special interests". Those positions are not tantamount to blaming capitalism for the Russian revolution.

p 419, "Wilson's Progressivism had promised - racial harmony.." Full stop. There is no reference in the book to Wilson promising "racial harmony", he was an avowed racist. He had re-segregated the federal work force, complete with separate toilets, on assuming the Presidency in 1912. He had the solid, white racist, South behind him right through the 1918 election.

p 419 continues: "..Wilson promised better pay, a higher standard of living..., staying out of war.. it turned out to be lies. It would take two Republican administrations under Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, to turn America around."
Does any political candidate promise anything but peace and prosperity? And the Republicans mentioned "turned America around", yes, into the Great Depression. Talk about ignoring facts.

Near the end of the book, Hernan lists every conceivable similarity between Lenin and Wilson. Both were "admirers of Hegel", "visionaries", "utopians", "each set his eyes on a bright new future", "single minded determination", "inner discipline", "secular millennialists", "believed" in a "destined golden age of redemption"....etc etc.

Wilson and Lenin could be no more different people. That World War One did not bring lasting peace is still examined to this day. The sources date back decades before WW1, and are far more complex than two "utopians". Wilson was ineffective in achieving his international goals. He was a weak, ill informed and naive diplomat at Versailles. He couldn't even get the Treaty for the League of Nations through the Senate. Lenin's ruthless quest for authoritarianism in Russia met with success that continues to some extent today.

Arthur Herman presents a very incisive book from a very personal insight. The book takes this year of tumult and presents it in a series of events that with just a change of opinion or humility on the part of its primary players could have lead to a very different (and probably peaceful) world order. Herman's observations paint a very unflattering picture of both Lenin and Wilson, how their egos and insecurities lead to a conflict neither could possibly have seen. The view that both of these men were visionaries is contradicted by the facts presented by Herman. Both men surrounded themselves with people who enabled their egos and to not see beyond themselves and their ideas; but when those close to them opposed their ideas, they were discarded (in Lenin's case assassinated or exiled). The irony that both men have a common mentor in Heigel is a reflection of their own ego-centered personalities. They both believed that they, and only they, saw the future of the world. Had either been able to bend or compromise the world could have possibly avoided WWII, Korea, Vietnam, The Cold War, and all related tragedies and deaths associated with those events.

Aside from being written well and being generally interesting, I found the book astonishing. The book is sold a the story of the precursors that gave us our world today, and that's true as far as that goes. However, what I found fascinating was the similarities of the motives and methods of the two men ( Wilson and Lenin) to what has been going on in the 21st century. The author has no political axe to grind, yet parallels are there, and I don't think they were intentional since he doesn't tie them together.

In an era where it is fashionable to attempt to erase history, the story in this book demonstrates that consistency of human nature will keep re-writing it again and again. Extremely fascinating read, if a bit chilling when you connect the dots.

Although Herman's prose is delightful, his overall message, and its political and ideological underpinning, makes the book an amusingly ironic representation of that which it purports to indict: the tunnel vision of the political ideologue. Given that Woodrow Wilson and Vladimir Lenin were exceedingly bold and undeniably brilliant figures in a period of unprecedented geopolitical upheaval, I was eager to open the book and embark upon the author's take on these men's plights and positions. However, within the first fifty pages - much of which is spent espousing the quasi-objectivist virtues of negative liberty in an international polity - it became clear that this book and author were, in no small measure, tone deaf to subject matter. After establishing a painfully reductive and altogether spurious summary of Wilson and Lenin's respective beliefs, and hedging against them an illusory alternative of objectivist pragmatism, the author only temporarily feigns respect for the depth of the men's knowledge, conviction, and, yes, pragmatism. To hold that Lenin intended democide, construed classical Marxism to dictate violent elimination of pluralism through bureaucratic tyranny, or aimed to create socialism in one state on the fringes of the world economy is every bit as reductive and ignorant as to hold that Wilson was immune to the legacy of manifest destiny and was an idealistic advocate of Hegelian, objectivist negative liberty. Neither is true: Lenin was not stupid as to embrace a patently murderous and dystopian misreading of socialism, nor was Wilson so self-unaware as to filter his leadership through the lens of rigid liberalism that, despite being passed onto schoolchildren, the Founding Father of the United States never intended, and certainly never adhered to in action (one could wonder why the author would pay so much lip service to men's whose naivety would seem to otherwise earn his paradigmatic scorn). In reality, both Wilson and Lenin were every bit the pragmatists as leaders of previous generations, and, even if they retained powerful beliefs about the future of humankind and about what political ideals might facilitate that evolution, they no doubt sacrificed much of their ideology to the alter of pragmatism.

In short, the internal contradictions of this book are striking, as is the author's ignorance regarding Leninism, Marxism, Hegelianism, and the muddy intersection of those philosophies in a time of international discord. To make things worse, he makes very little effort to properly characterize any of those ideologies accurately, or even conspicuously. So, if you're a history buff who likes two-dimensional character dramas, complete with all the usual garbs of post-Cold War ethnocentrism that you might see in a Paul Newman film, you will likely enjoy this book: it contains larger-than-life characters in intimate juxtaposition and is very well-written. However, if your interest extend beyond bland moralism and reductive American dogma, you are out of luck.

1917 was a seminal year in the history of modern mankind, mainly due to Lenin and Wilson- two leaders who shaped many events whose influence and results are still to be seen today. This fascinating dual biography is based on the theory of the role big men have in history. In their case, it was their personalities and willpower that managed and succeeded to change the fate of perhaps hundreds of millions of people in the world. Wilson was naive, while Lenin was ruthless and a dictator, but both men used the state in order to impose a new order in the world. The real winner on WW1 were two ideologies which clashed and shaped the twentieth century.
Wilson pushed the United States into the war in order to make the world safe for democracy. His vision was not realized, on the contrary, the results were bloodshed and betrayal. Lenin's vision was to topple the old order of a corrupt czar in favour of a proletarian revolution, only to cause the most brutal totalitarian regime and ideology to rise and thus causing tens of millions of people in Europe and elsewhere to suffer a lot.
If before 1914 countries went to war because they wanted to promote their national interests, after 1917 and beyond those coutries clashed over ideoligies. The results were nationalism, communism and terrorism-the last one still being extremely active these days.
The book has fifteen chapters, each containing various aspects of the role these two giants played in them. Both men were visionaries, utopians, who wanted to change the world by sweeping away everything that seemed to root the present in a corrupt and irredeemable past. But the different background of both led them to different actions.Lenin was brutal .Wilson was not .Lenin's legacy is easier to summarize and understand whle Wilson's is more vague.
This is a fast- paced lucidly written history and reads like a first-class thriller. It is superbly researched and very much recommended.

I am over half way through the book and am quite fascinated by it. I read somewhere that they were transitioning from Monarchy to Democracy and somehow ended up Communist. I wanted to see some details on that and am getting what I wanted. I ordered one of Lenin's books that the author mentioned and also a book on the revolution by Trotsky. So, I should have a pretty decent picture of what happened. This is a very important book because of what we are going through in the USA. The Global Communists use the same tricks over and over so looking at the details is important.

For years I was looking for a book that would encapsulate the East/West dynamics of World War I, and Arthur Herman nailed it. This is the third book I've read by him, and each one has been a master class in world history.

Loved it! What EXACTLY happened in 1917? Here you go.....read this.

This book is on both Woodrow Wilson and Vladimir Lenin. At first one might think these men are diametrically different from one another but the author Arthur Herman successfully show reader how much the two of them are alike and how both men shaped what the twentieth century would be like. A fascinating historical book even for those who know about both men since this work is still profitable for readers to see the comparison and contrast of the two men and also the timeline of both their lives. I agree with the author’s thesis that these two men shaped much of the Twentieth Century. I learned a lot from this book.
I thought the book was fascinating for exploring ways Lenin and Wilson were similar while also acknowledging their differences. I thought it was ironic to read about how much Hegelian philosophy has shaped Woodrow Wilson’s worldview yet in building up propaganda for the “War to End All Wars” Wilson’s own administration painted the Germans as backwards and uncivilized. Wilson’s statism is really the vision of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s view of the state. In an interesting parallel Lenin was a fanatical follower of Karl Marx and Marx himself was a “Young Hegelian” who were Left-wing Hegelians. It is interesting to see how much Hegel has influenced these two men that shaped so much of the Twentieth Century. The book did a good job capturing the personality of Wilson and Lenin as ideologue who were obsessed with their vision and agenda for a new world order. Both men were fanatical in desiring their vision to be fulfilled even when their allies around them thought it was impractical. While some of their own supporters suggested taking small tangible step towards their objective or were willing to compromise and work with others nevertheless both Wilson and Lenin were “purists” to their ideology in that they were not willing to see a few accomplishment but rather their whole vision being implemented. There is an “all or nothing” approach for these two men. Sometimes that resulted in surprising victory such as Lenin with the Bolsheviks’ takeover of Russia while other times that resulted in humiliating loss such as Wilson’s inability to compromise led to the defeat of the Senate ratification of the League of Nations (by the way the author gave a conclusive argument that the blame for the League’s failure rest more on Wilson’s inability to compromise than even the Republicans who opposed him since they were willing to amend and compromise). Both men were at times pretty arrogant towards others. This came out politically and also militarily. Both Lenin and Wilson were never military men and didn’t necessarily pursue better relationship with the military during times of war but they were orators who were more comfortable continuing their talks about ideology.
An interesting parallel that Herman pointed out in the book is how both men’s destiny were shaped by German State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Arthur Zimmermann. Many Americans might remember their high school history class on the Zimmermann telegram which was a coded message to the Mexican government about the possibility of alliance with Mexico against the United States. The Zimmermann telegram of course pushed the US to war. The same Zimmermann also helped Lenin. Zimmermann promoted a policy towards the Russians called Peace in the East which among many things included allowing revolutionaries such as Lenin to pass through Germany to Russia by train. After Lenin’s return to Russia later he did have to flee to Finland to avoid being arrested since he was paid by the German. These events allowed Lenin to be in Russia to bring about his goal of a Marxist government.
Lenin’s and Wilson’s relationship with each other is also an interesting exploration in this work. In some sense the way they relate to one another also defined some of the ways the two country interacted with each other for decades to come. The book was interesting and informative right up to the very end for the author explored the parallel of how both men suffered a stroke in their last years of their life and how they thought of themselves during the eve of their death. I thought it was very disturbing reading about Wilson here since Americans often have a sanitized view of him. For example Wilson in his later years thought the US should have pursued World War One differently not by not being involved but by entering into the war earlier. That is crazy! He also blamed the Russian revolution on capitalism but I think he’s confused capitalism for other kinds of economic policies (cronyism, serfdom, etc). While Wilson was not a Marxist he was similar to Lenin for believing in government controlled economy. I learned from the book that day light saving began in our modern time originally as a way for the government control coal.
There was way too many things that I learned from this work for me to go over in a review. I think the author’s thesis is right that the two men shaped much of the twentieth century. The author is right in his conclusion for arguing against the popular opinion that it was World War Two that allowed America to practice a world hegemony. For Herman the hegemony began in World War One where the United States started out financially with their unprecedented global reach and influence. I recommend this book.

I enjoyed this book much more than I expected to. Generally, I dont like the idea of dual biographies. And I see Arthur Herman has done several. But for the most part I feel these books fail by struggling too hard to connect the two rivals, or friends, even. Herman has written book about Gandhi and Churchill, which I may have to read now that I have been so impressed with this. There are dual biographies of Grant and Sherman; Grant and Lee; Patton and Rommel. And Herman once wrote a book about Plato and Aristotle.

I think this book works because there were similarities between the two men. Herman makes a compelling case that each put their countries on the path to waging wars on the basis of ideals, and that has proved far more deadly than the wars of the past, which were purely about territory.

It also succeeds because it focuses almost entirely on WWI, when the lives of the American and Russian leader actually did intersect. They did not actually meet at any time in the book, but Herman traces how one's decisions and actions changed the other's plans, and vice versa. I do think he plays the Hitler card too often. With hindsight, he often observes that these two made decisions that led to World War II and the Soviet Union.

Herman transitions easily from Russia to the US and back. Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in WWI, Lenin or Wilson.