** Lenin's reputation outside the USSR has always been a polarizing issue. ''Marxism'' and ''socialism'' were once viable political ideas, while elements of Marxist theory and terminology (base, superstructure, ideology, etc.) have remained within even American academia. However, Marx explicitly stated that Russia was not a viable candidate for communism (the Russian state was neither an industrial power nor a democracy, thus disqualifying Russia as the site of the first Marxist revolution), which made Lenin a polarizing figure during the brief period in which Marxist movements were active. Communists, socialists, anti-monarchists, and all other factions had varying degrees of loyalty to Marxism, with some groups idolizing Lenin himself and others accusing him of NiceJobBreakingItHero. The "Marxist-Leninist" model began with Lenin, but the term was attached to any idea or policy Stalin developed that clearly ran contrary to [[AllThereInTheManual prior published works]], to the point of turning into a MemeticMutation.

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* ReignOfTerror: The Red Terror, which began towards the end of 1918. It officially lasted less than two months, but large-scale repressions continued up to 1922. Many, many people were shot without proper trial, sent to labor camps, imprisoned or forcibly deported. The Whites, being a collection of loosely allied, and even rival, monarchist generals conducting their own insurrections, also organized a number of terror campaigns individually smaller than the Red one, with varying motives and degrees of ruthlessness. These campaigns usually targeted ethnic and religious minorities, particularly Jews. Smaller-scale mass killings were also conducted by foreign intervention troops, and the Finnish government carried out mass reprisals against the Bolsheviks' allies in Finland. It's important to stress that most of these terror campaigns (white or red) were premeditated and systematic.
* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: Interestingly, the revolution itself was almost bloodless, to the point that some historians call it a coup. The civil war and terrors that came after it, however, was anything but civilized.
** Lenin would have argued that said terrors and civil war were part and parcel of the revolution, since the point was to transform the country and not simply a change of leadership.

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* ReignOfTerror: The Red Terror, which began towards the end of 1918. It officially lasted less than two months, but large-scale repressions continued up to 1922. Many, many people were shot without proper trial, sent to labor camps, imprisoned or forcibly deported. The Whites, a collection of loosely allied (and even rival) monarchist generals conducting their own insurrections, organized a number of terror campaigns individually smaller than the Red one, with varying motives and degrees of ruthlessness. These campaigns usually targeted ethnic and religious minorities, particularly Jews. Smaller-scale mass killings were also conducted by foreign intervention troops, and the Finnish government carried out mass reprisals against the Bolsheviks' allies in Finland. It's important to stress that most of these terror campaigns (White or Red) were premeditated and systematic.
* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: Interestingly, the revolution itself was almost bloodless, to the point that some historians call it a coup. The ensuing civil war and actions that came after the Bolsheviks took power, however, were anything but civilized.
** Lenin would have argued that said terrors and civil war were part and parcel of the revolution, since the point was to transform the country and not simply change the leadership.

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** Context is key: by the time Lenin became a force to be reckoned with, Russia had been through multiple revolutionary movements, some more peaceful than others, but all ineffective. (Ask [[FyodorDostoevsky Dostoevsky]].) To be successful, any revolutionary movement would have to be prepared for war with the Okhranka -- the czar's protection force, who were not exactly nice guys -- which meant accepting that violence was inevitable. Then there was the class divide in Russia, as serfdom continued in Russia long after it was abolished in Europe, and Lenin's "working people" would be roughly 90 percent of the population (i.e., anyone but the elite). It's not a call to random slaughter. Within the historical moment, what Lenin's saying is roughly this:
-->''Socialism is revolution and revolutions are never pretty. We aim to dispatch an autocrat and his compatriots, who are guarded by the state police, and we know their methods of repression are brutal. Those who suffer most under the current system must be made '''angry''' at their exploitation by the higher classes, angry enough to demand their rights and rewrite the class system. We have seen the rise and fall of dissent, of communes, of a half-dozen movements that have never captured the masses because they failed to explain to the people the problems of structural inequity.''

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11th Mar '13 5:48:56 PM AllenbysEyes

Send AllenbysEyes a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

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4th Mar '13 4:38:09 PM iilija64