How did Vladimir Lenin’s views of communism to differ from Karl Marx’s?

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1. George S says

   I think Jim is close and Spellbound has the details. Marx believed the drift to anarchic communism was inevitable and Lenin didn’t. I’m no longer sure it isn’t. I do now see a drift in that direction, although I hold the opposite philosophy: true liberal (libertarian). See below.

   It is a very slow process and we won’t see it happen if it does. If it happens at all it will most likely be many generations yet. It cannot be forced because self-serving governments destroy it and it can only work if everyone is dedicated to it. It requires sacrificing and most people want it just to get more for themselves instead of settling for less.

   People from my culture, Calvinist Protestant, have often been socialistic and some were even communists long before Marx was born. No government forced them and they resisted government intervention. They left Europe and came to North American wilderness to escape governments and they didn’t want their interference here either.

   Societies who tried forcing it proved self-serving people and self-serving government drain it. Lenin’s and Mao’s methods confirmed that. Only ultra-self-disciplined cultures like mine had any sustained success with it to date.

   True liberalism advocates: individual freedom, weak government, and free markets. Conservatism advocates: moral responsibility, strong government, and protected markets. Progressives advocate: social concern, omniscient government, and controlled markets. Socialism advocates: social responsibility, omnipresent government, and collective markets.

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2. Spellbound says

   Lenin made two important revisions of Marxist doctrine:
   1) Marx claimed that history was marked by changed in the economic relationships of the classes, i.e. history marched on an “inevitable” path from hunter-gatherer to slavery, to feudalism to capitalism to imperialism to socialism and finally to communism. He stated that each of these stages morphed into the next stage when they were fully mature and through a process he called class struggle. Lenin believed that, although Russia had only just shaken off feudalism, and was barely capitalist (although it was imperialist) this stage could be “telescoped” – shortened – allowing for a socialist revolution.
   2) His other major revision was that Marx claimed that the peasantry was always conservative and would support the existing regime; the workers would be the motor of the socialist revolution. Lenin realised that because in Russia the working class was so small then the peasants also had to be part of the socialist revolution.
   See:
   Lenin, A Biography – Robert Service
   Karl Marx – Francis Wheen
   The Communist Party of the Soviet Union – Leonard Shapiro

   Lenin instituted many reforms, from the structure of the army to the ownership of land. The main reforms were:
   Reformed the political system of the country – creating a socialist state.
   Reformed land ownership, previously the peasants held land from aristocratic landlords – Lenin gave the peasants the land.
   Industry. Factories were either owned by the state – like the huge armaments and textiles factories in Petrograd or owned by very rich (often aristocratic) men – Lenin nationalised industry, i.e. the state took ownership of the factories.

   The Civil War caused great hardship, especially in the cities – the Bolsheviks brought in the policy of War Communism. This was requisitioning grain from the peasants – often at gunpoint.
   When the Civil War was more or less over Lenin brought in a new policy to kick-start the economy – the New Economic Policy. This allowed small enterprises to open up and for people to sell goods on the open market.

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