Vladimir Lenin

[say1988]

To some people it is not?
That is worse than Ashley being a boys name.(I didn't realise it was a valid boys name until I was like 12, and that from watching Corrie).
It is amazing how different a name can be in different countries.

 

[Agent327]

I'm still puzzled by the implication of the OP and some other posters that Lenin is, by default, assumed to be a wicked dictator like Stalin, and it's somehow revisionist or otherwise contrary to accepted wisdom to think that he might have been not so bad. I don't know whether Lenin was good, bad, or indifferent, but I've never thought that he has a commonplace reputation akin to that of Stalin's or heard his name used as an example of evil dictators. He's just regarded as a historical figure like most others - isn't he? Is it different in America or something?

You should try some reading up on Mr Lenin... on his wiki, for starters.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up here. I'd be the last person to say that Lenin et al. didn't do their best to organize and lead the Petrograd masses but you're putting way too much emphasis on that. The bridge battles broke out without any pushing from the Bolsheviks at all. Hell, that evening, Lenin'd tried to get other members of Party leadership to mobilize what support they had to counterattack the Provisional Government after Kerensky shut down the presses, but he got shot down.

Honestly, with Kerensky threatening to call off the second All-Russia Soviet plenary session and breaking up Bolshevik printing presses, and considering the outbreaks of support the Bolsheviks and the rest of the far left got without even asking for it - July days ring a bell? "Take power, you SOB!" - saying that the October Revolution was totally top-down is absurd, a relic of partisan Western Cold War scholarship.

Really? Obviously you don't know what I've been reading... and I'm no Cold War fan at all... Revolts without leadership stay just that; if Lenin et al hadn't jumped on the bandwaggon all this glorious history of communism would have come to naught - nipped in the bud as it were.

Godwyn, just read Wiki's entry on Lenin. I know it is wiki, but at least you can see stuff about the (literally) thousands that Lenin personally ordered to be executed, the many crimes he commited during the Red Terror, etc etc. It is pointless to ask anything on CFC, as you can see people here are willing to defend even Stalin. Do the research yourself, start on Wiki and then buy a book from a credible historian (ie, not widely discredit apologists).

Hear, hear.

Honestly, after 70 years of 'real existing socialism' some people still seem to have a blind spot when it comes to communism...

 

[Dachs]

Really? Obviously you don't know what I've been reading... and I'm no Cold War fan at all...

Drop the supercilious attitude. If you're going to respond to me, address the actual points I made instead of making airy references to your reading material.

 

[red_elk]

To some people it is not?
That is worse than Ashley being a boys name.(I didn't realise it was a valid boys name until I was like 12, and that from watching Corrie).
It is amazing how different a name can be in different countries.

ValEry and NikIta (stress on second syllable) are male names in Russian, quite popular.
Valeria is a female name.

 

[plarq]

In the last few years (ten or so), I've noticed there has been a concerted effort by historians, journalists etc to try and portray the USSR as the equivalent or worse than Nazi Germany. I don't know if its to do with more input from Eastern Europe, Russia's resurgence, the Bush years or what but it wouldn't surprise me if we soon see books documenting how Nikita Khrushchev was actually Satan's son.

I honestly don't know why it is Plotonius, but I know its hasn't really affected the mindset of the general public, most people know little about Lenin but don't consider him to the as evil as some people here do; and most people still consider Hitler the personification of evil, despite the efforts of many revisionists.

Mudslinging against USSR was prominent in the Cold War, especially right-wing apologist in the academia field (minority), it is always there.

 

[Lord Baal]

Mudslinging against USSR was prominent in the Cold War, especially right-wing apologist in the academia field (minority), it is always there.

And mudslinging against the West was common in Russia. What's your point?