Happy 150th to Lenin! He is perhaps the most fascinating and remarkable historical figure I can think of, yet one whom I would never want to meet in real life because he was an insufferable twerp with few redeeming personal qualities.

Exhibit 1: shortly after the Bolshevik-Menshevik fight at the 1903 party congress, Lenin's wife and friend took him hiking in the Alps to try to distract him and improve his mood. One day the threesome took an especially exquisite hike outside Montreux.

When they arrived at the top of a ridge, the friend felt so moved at the beautiful view that she began to “recite Shakespeare, Byron. Then I looked at Vladimir Il’ich: he was sitting, lost deep in thought. Suddenly he blurted out: ‘The Mensheviks are shitting on everything!’”

Exhibit 2: In November 1905, Lenin, who had just returned to revolutionary Russia from Geneva, spoke at the St. Petersburg Soviet. He had prepared a rousing speech urging workers to begin an armed revolt against the government and to revive the spirit of the Paris Commune.

Yet no one remembered these inspiring lines from his speech. Instead, observers remembered that he spent most of his time attacking Martov and Trotsky, whom he accused of peddling a “spirit of capitulation” and revealing their “impotence through their loud and empty words.”

Yet the man was a total genius with remarkable political instincts. He always understood which way the wind was blowing. His cynical impulses were almost always correct.

Final charming anecdote, why resist? During a debate at a Paris cafe, the SR leader Chernov remarked that if Lenin ever won power, he would hang the SRs. Without missing a beat, Lenin said, "yes, but I will hang the Mensheviks too."