Question by Werebear 5000: Why does Lenin have such a bad reputation?
I’ve heard lots of references to Lenin as a crazy dictator who killed lots of people, but everything I know about him (granted I don’t know much after the revolution) seems to contradict this. Is it just bias and misconception, or is there something I don’t know?
Answers and Views:
Answer by nick c
lenin isnt the one with that rep.
you are thinking of stalin.
lenin was only a dictator because he knew the only way communism could ever work was in an authoritarian regime.
Read all the answers in the comments.
What do you think?
Douglas L says
Lenin established the first communist government in the world. Tens of millions of deaths resulted from this awful mistake. Of course Lenin was dead before the millions died. He had no way of knowing what communism would lead to. Still he deserves the credit for starting the entire evil experiment.
A. T. says
Most likely you have heard those references from those who refer to all of their enemies as crazy dictators, yet seldom have anything negative to say (or too many criticisms) about the dictators who are their friends. It is both bias and misinformation. There may be something you do not know, in any case, you can read up on him yourself.
"If the writer of these lines has succeeded in in providing some material for clarifying these problems, he may regard his labours as not having been fruitless."
Lenin
louis says
You're thinking of Stalin. He literally rewrote history and removed any reference to his rival Trotsky. Stalin is estimated to have caused 30 million deaths of his own people.
retepIII says
Feelings are actually mixed. For many people he was a hero.
Lenin was without a doubt a genius and he was no psychopath like stalin (he became worried about stalin at the end of his life). He transformed Russia's political system and ended Russia's war with Germany. He was an internationalist unlike some of this more nationalistic successors.
Lenin was certainly ruthless, even among the marxists he had this reputation (Before the revolution, he pushed many people out of the russian communist movement because he felt they did not focus on the correct things).
Part of the problem is not so much Lenin but the beliefs he was associated with – Dictatorship of the Proletariat (no elections), elimination of the ruling class (the Tsar and his family were brutally murdered), the suppression of all religion (priests were sent to concentration camps, many fine Orthodox Churches became public buildings such as army stables/ swimming pools), the expropriation of all private land (most rich peasants – kulaks were liquidated with disastrous consequences especially in the Ukraine), the export of revolution (the Comintern).
It is unfortunate that he died when he did as he might have moderated some of the excesses that followed.
Alex says
Lenin wasn't quite as bad as Stalin, but he was still pretty bad. He used starvation as a weapon during the Russian Civil War, which led to the deaths of millions.