THE LETTERS OF LENIN—Translated & edited by Elizabeth Hill & Doris Mudie— Harcourt, Brace ($4). Of the thousands of letters written by Vladimir Ilich Ulianov in his 54-year life, about 1,000 are left.

Vladimir Lenin, the Russian revolutionary and founding leader of the USSR, has long been rumored to have said, "There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen." ...

Not long after the 1924 death of the founder of the Soviet Union, a popular poet soothed and thrilled the grieving country with these words: "Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live." A century ...