What do you think of Lenin?

[YNCS]

Lenin was an idealist. Unfortunately, many (if not most) idealists try to fit reality into their ideology instead of the other way around. When idealists come into power, they are ruthless in making their ideological ideas into reality.

During WWI, the many faults and failings of the Tsarist regime became evident. It didn't help that Nicholas II, a pure autocrat, was a particularly stupid man. Russia was ready for a change and, after a particularly bloody civil war, Lenin and the Bolsheviks ended up in control. Lenin did not have to institute a secret police, he just remade the Cheka into an instrument of his ideology. Unlike the American and French Revolutions, which were run from below, the Russian Revolution was imposed from above. The peasantry continued to be repressed, the bourgeousie and aristrocracy were eliminated, and one brutal regime was replaced with another.

Just as a note, Stalin wasn't an idealist like Lenin. Stalin was a paranoid, powerhungry dictator. While the results were similar, Stalin didn't have the same ideological motivation that Lenin had. Lenin thought (or hoped) that he was working for the good of the Russian people. Stalin was working to keep himself in power.

 

[SKILORD]

I wouldn't say thet the Tsar was a stupid man, He may not havve handled the situation well, but he wasn't particularly stupid, I don't think at least.

Nice to see that you say the Russian Revolution was imposed from above, how true.

Stalin was no idealist, he was motivated by the need to keep in power, but to stay in power he had to keep the Bolsheviks in power and that is what he did. He suceeded in his goals, making him a sucessful leader. Did poorly for his reputation post mortem.... but i doubt he would have cared.

 

[YNCS]

You might say that Nicholas II wasn't a particularly stupid man, other people, including A.J.P. Taylor, John Keegan, Vladimir Nobichov, Martin van Crefeld, Anthony Kenny, Basil Liddell Hart and David Lloyd George would disagree with you.

 

[luiz]

I dont know if Nicholas II was stupid, but he sure wasnt smart!
He didnt noticed two obvious things: his wife was cheating on him with Rasputin and his situation in power was critical.
He tried to gain some time in 1904, by making an agreement with the bourgeousie. But the agreement didnt really fit the interests of that class and the czar insisted in maintaning his absolute power. If he was samarter, Russia might have became a constituitional monarchy.

 

[SKILORD]

I concede that the tsar was an idiot.

 

[Hamlet]

He was a fairly brutal extremist whenever he was given a wiff of power, just like Trotsky.

 

[Indrius]

hey people, Stalin was a mass murderer but NOT Lenin. Bear that in mind. His ideas are very great but too utopian. You have never worked as a miner so you don't know nothing, believe me

 

[Simon Darkshade]

He was an evil murdering Bolshevik bastard responsibly for a monstrous communist tyranny. The only reason he did not get the bodycount of Joe was that he wasn't around for long enough.

 

[Ukas]

Marx and Engels were idealists behind the communism. Lenin was more a man of practice who recognized the ideas of Marx and Engels. Responsible of "communist tyranny" he was and probably did his part to make it so - bloodless revolution would not have been possible, but the situation demanded a change. Lenin ruled with an iron fist, and that was needed for the revolution to really happen. If he would have been around longer perhaps he would have been more lenient - but there were men like Stalin ready to take his place if he'd been too soft.

 

[luiz]

@Indrius: True, I never worked in a mine. But Ive seen children starving, and Ive seen leftist politicians using their misery to get elected and dont doing *&@#! to solve the problem.

 

[SKILORD]

hey people, Stalin was a mass murderer but NOT Lenin. Bear that in mind. His ideas are very great but too utopian. You have never worked as a miner so you don't know nothing, believe me

Define mass. Lenin killed alot of people and uyou are a fool to beleive otherwise.

He was an evil murdering Bolshevik bastard responsibly for a monstrous communist tyranny. The only reason he did not get the bodycount of Joe was that he wasn't around for long enough.

Preach it brother, preach it.

Marx and Engels were idealists behind the communism. Lenin was more a man of practice who recognized the ideas of Marx and Engels. Responsible of "communist tyranny" he was and probably did his part to make it so - bloodless revolution would not have been possible, but the situation demanded a change. Lenin ruled with an iron fist, and that was needed for the revolution to really happen. If he would have been around longer perhaps he would have been more lenient - but there were men like Stalin ready to take his place if he'd been too soft.

You tend to see a trend that isn't there, you say that Lenin grew softer as he grew older for one, but you also see communism softenin in the USSR. Not true, it was forced to remain hard until Stalin's purges because of peasant revolution. Purging was the only way to keep the system intact. Dictatorships rule through fear, it is foolish top beleive otherwise.

 

[Martacus]

He was a very good singer, but I still like Ringo better.


Seriously, he was a fairly ideological nut, brutal, but the Germans did make good use of him to eliminate Russia from WWI.

 

[marshal zhukov]

Lenin wasn't a evil dictator, actually we din't have time to see if he was going to be one, because he died just after the civil war ended. All the brutally that occured during the civil war can't be blamed one him as he had little control over the deeds of his troops

 

[luiz]

@zhukov
We can blame him for killing MILLIONS of peasants who refused to give away ALL of their production to the state. There is a document in wich Lenin orders the execution of aprox. 30,000 peasants. If that doesnt qualify him as en evil dictator then I dont know what does.

 

[marshal zhukov]

Stalin killed millions of peasants during the "Coletivization" (mp).

Lenin just declared the start of the revolution and couldn't rule the Soviet Union because by the time the civil war had ended he was suffering the consequences of the stroke.
Million STARVED during the civil war, not killed.
One could argue that he was never dictator of the Soviet Union, because both his stroke and the creation of USSR occured in the same year. ( 1922)
Russia in the early 20's was a country broken by war, starved by the civil war and on a huge caos due to the violent change of regime. To say that was a time up until his stroke to stablish a true goverment, with him as a dictator of all Russia is to overestimate russian capacity and capabilities.
My personal view is that it was a free for all in caotic Russia up until 23 and 24.
Lenin wasn't in charge of anything in Russia let alone the behavior of his troops

 

[SKILORD]

Forgive me, but Collectivization was Lenin's idea. He and people like Stalin favored it, which would tailor Communism to Russia, to Trotsky and other's plans for making Russia an industrial society in which Marx's plan would be carried out. Ironically therefore the revolution was not hiijaked, and Lenin's plans carried on, rather than Marx hiijaking the USSR in the form of Trotsky.

Lenin commanded several of the early, and brutal, actions of the Cheka (KGB) the key term here is commanded, he takes the blame.

 

[marshal zhukov]

I am not defending Lenin, I don't even like him.
All I think is that comparing him with Stalin is way too much. I also think it is an exaggeration to call him a evil dictator, because he didn't have enough control over Russia to be a dictator.
A dictator needs resources to stablish his Terror Police all over the country and all the other goverment institutions , he also needs to have full control over the nation to be a dictator.
Excesses and mass murders were commited during the civil war by the Red Army troops but to say that in that caotic time Lenin ordered the killings is something that I have a hard time believing just because Lenin wasn't powerful enough, he never was.

 

[Furry Spatula]

Being of Polish descent and hearing the stories from my parents from before they escaped from the Iron Curtain, I may be a bit Biased. But Lenin was Evil, just as Stalin, Khruschev, and the rest of that club.

I can no way support in any sane frame of mind a style of government which completely reduces any kind of motivation (look at Cuba, my neigbours came back from a 2 week vacation a week ago, engineers are working in hotels as they make more money because they get tips). As well as a style of government which requires a bloody uprising. Communism is a style of government which relies on power. It is Idealistic, not realistic. Communism cannot hold free elections as the ideas of communism rely on working people keeping the power. What would happen if a non-working person won the election? We'd need another bloody revolution. COmmunism leads to government controll of everything in every part of life. And as Marx miscalculated, human nature is good. People want what is best for them.

Thus you have people like Stalin, Khruschev, Mao, Lenin, Castro etc in charge of communist states. There have been numerous attempts at communism and all have failed. Its time to listen to the fat lady its over. If i burn my hand on a hot stove 5 times, it won't be any different that 6th time I try.

 

[luiz]

I totally agree with you Furry Spatula.

The problem with communism is that it goes against human nature. Marx thinked that its possible to determine what the people want. He believed that he speaked for the people, what was completly wrong. Lenin tried to imppose his views to all the russians, and this makes him a tyrant.

 

[marshal zhukov]

For the last time Communism is a Socialism without state.
The Soviet Union was a socialist state never communistic one.
The UN has acknowledged that for really poor country Socialism, works better, because it brings everybody above poverty line.
In the long run Socialism doesn't work because lack of competion turns the economy into a dormant, inefficient thing.

Socialism has proven to be a great system to mobilize factors of production, but on the other hand has proven to be a horrible system when it comes to allocate those same factors, take the Soviets for example.
It is all about economy not about Capitalism or Socialism or even Feudalism.