A Very Strange Soviet People’s Commissar
He was a very chaotic man, with deep knowledge in many spheres of culture, a talented polyglot and a deeply vulnerable and frivolous person. Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky could have become the People’s Commissar of Education under Lenin, but under Stalin he no longer corresponded to the quality of the People’s Commissar.
The illegitimate son of a judge, he was different from his peers from childhood. He wrote poetry, was interested in philosophy, honed his oratory, and romanticized terrorists.
His grades were lowered when he graduated from the gymnasium, and in response to this, Lunacharsky turned to Marxism. The capital’s universities were closed to him – Lunacharsky entered the European University of the canton of Zurich. There were many Russian revolutionaries hiding in Switzerland, and how could you not get close to them?
In Moscow, Lunacharsky was arrested several times, but he did not renounce his beliefs. He fled to Paris, Lenin is waiting for him in Geneva, he has to start publishing Bolshevik newspapers, it is an urgent matter, but Lunacharsky is not in a hurry, he is carried away by Paris like a girl. After that, Ilyich would call him frivolous, and his comrades would think that Anatoly could not be entrusted with a serious matter.
After the split of the R.S.D.L.P., Lunacharsky tossed about, did not know which side to take, and it took Lenin great effort to persuade him to become a Bolshevik. Still, he did not consider Lunacharsky hopeless, despite his comrade’s eccentric behavior.
