The 1366th meeting of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences was held on Wednesday, February 8, 2006 at 5.30 p.m. at the Exley Science Center, at Wesleyan University. Several University faculty joined the 20 members and their guests for the lecture. Ernest Kohorn, the President of the Academy, welcomed the audience and thanked Professor Peter Frenzel, Vice President of the Academy for Wesleyan University, for hosting the meeting.

Professor Frenzel introduced the speaker for the evening, Philip Pomper, the William Armstrong Professor of History at Wesleyan University. Professor Pomper's talk was entitled "Lenin's Brother: 'Scientific' Ethics, Terrorism and Suicide". Professor Pomper wove an intriguing and colorful story, replete with photographs that described Lenin's family and how it was that he led the Russian revolution. Vladimir Ulyanov, who changed his name to Vladimir Lenin, rejected terrorism, unlike his brother Sasha, "we will not go down that path," and considered demonstrations the only way to achieve change. Sasha was hanged at the age of 21 for his revolutionary and incendiary tactics, leaving the path open for Lenin to lead the revolution. Although Sasha was cast as well built, tall and handsome, neither verbal accounts nor photographs bear this out. He was the chosen son to follow his father's scientific footsteps and those of his physician grandfather. His father was the Director of Simbersk Province and the product of Russian Enlightenment. He promoted the establishment of schools and of the equal opportunity to attend them in his Province. Education was the central value in the family. Their Jewishness was suppressed and none of the children was aware of their heritage It was not until 1897 when Lenin's sister Anna was in Switzerland that she learned that she was Jewish. Professor Pomper argued that this secrecy marginalized the family and made them closed up even though they were upwardly mobile. Masculinity was an issue for the father and he was afraid that the boys were being feminized by their mother. The boys were sent to a gymnasium. Sasha was only 8 at the time and he was unhappy being away from home When he went to University he joined the most macho group who hatched terrorist plots and whose philosophy was at the juncture of nihilism, populism and Marxism. Professor Pomper considered that the rigor and severity of their father and their expulsion from their mother's tutelage made the children unhappy. Sasha was an angry and repressed boy but Lenin seemed different and normally boisterous. When his father died at the height of Sasha's academic career, he was only told about it indirectly and his friends feared that he might commit suicide. When he won a gold medal for his achievements he pawned it to buy dynamite. He was full of the sense of injustice about the system, maybe projecting his depression outward. He had spent all of his time studying and now he was ready for something different. The student body was closely watched and the plot to assassinate Alexander III was uncovered. The students put the bombs in books and cylinders but they did not explode. Sasha and his friends, dedicated to scientific ethic, were put on trial and he sounded like a true nihilist. Professor Pomper noted.that at age 12 Sasha had identified with the scoundrel in "War and Peace" giving as his reason that "he loved his mother". At the trial the students argued that the government had to be changed before enlightenment in the people could occur. Revolution was the only way to act-"long live the people's will!" So this was the example Lenin had before him. He had wanted to become an academic and had no revolutionary aspirations. However, he felt that his path had been paved by his brother and that he had no choice. Professor Pomper left the audience with the question: Were all these events the result of family secrecy and a restrictive father who denied his children the nurturance of their mother? Whether or not one subscribes to this particular view of psychiatric history, the story was fascinating.