Lenin's Birthday - Views on Lenin

[GallowsBird]

I'm not sure if this is the right board so if it isn't please move it to the correct place.

I have just realised that it is Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's birthday (thanks to a post in the music thread) so I thought this would be a good time to hear opinions of the man, focused more on what he did that was good for the revolutionary movement and for the USSR. I know Lenin is controversial in the left but I do think we all owe him somewhat for showing that Socialists can overcome the establishment and bring it down. I don't think you have to be a Leninist to be able to give him some credit for what he did do even if you disagree with him on other issues. He successfully deposed Kerensky's government, held out against foreign capitalist powers and whites took the people of Russia out of the bloodiest and most needless conflict in history and thus hastened the end of the war. For this I salute Lenin's memory as well as all those who fought to make the world a better place for the oppressed classes.

*Please lets not just make this a flame-war thread*

[GallowsBird]

Also I don't want to make this a worship thread either even if it is the late comrade's birthday. But we should all have a good, non-flaming debate.

[Rooster]

I was THIS close to buying his collected works (20 volumes all hard back) for 60 bucks today.

[Red Future]

I was THIS close to buying his collected works (20 volumes all hard back) for 60 bucks today.

Where are you looking for books!!! I want to find this place!!:cool:

[Tommy4ever]

Even as a Libertarian Marxist I have to say I have tremendous respect for Lenin. If it hadn't been for his decisive influence there would have been no October Revolution and I'm not sure how likely another socialist revolution elsewhere would have been without the example of Russia.

Lenin worked himself to death in the name of socialism and for that he deserves all our respect.

Happy Birthday Lenin!

[Rooster]

Where are you looking for books!!! I want to find this place!!:cool:

This great little place called The Red Bookshop. He had like 2 or 3 sets of the books too. I just didn't have the money nor the carrying capacity to get them today :(

[Red Future]

In all seriousness though he was a man who lived and died for Socialism and fairness he fought hard against revisionism and kept the Marxist tradition revolutionary and from the crassness of Bernstein and Kautsky.-To their credit our anarchist comrades have never gone near abandoning a revolutionary strategy,But Lenin was along with Rosa Luxembourg one of the few Marxists who remained committed to the working classes interests post 1914.

A young woman in Moscow at the time said at news of his death
"Lenin was the greatest man in the world and wished everyone to be free , happy and peaceful"
Maxim Gorky
"No one I ever knew hated oppression and suffering as much as Lenin"

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

I have mixed feelings about Lenin. I like him except for the part that he sent Trotsky and Co. to Kronstadt and I'd be another corpse after the onslaught.

[Omsk]

A great man that deserves all respect.His teachings and ideas served the people in their struggles,and his example is a bright star in a sea of unjustice and imperialism.

A true hero,worker,philosopher,and a revolutionary.

Слава Ленину!

[Rooster]

So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state.

[Os Cangaceiros]

An intelligent individual and a pretty good writter; he was able to articulate the M-L position pretty well (which makes sense, considering that he was the "L" in that equation). A shrewd political manipulator; if he was born in a different era or in a different set of political circumstances, he'd probably be a very formidable statesman in some government. And also fairly honest with himself and the movement in Russia, as judged by his disappointed remarks regarding the character of the USSR near the end of his life.

Of course I'm not a Leninist so I disagree with the historical Leninist positions (to varying degrees), but those are what I think are the positive points in regards to Lenin.

[Ostrinski]

While I am not a Leninist, I nonetheless admire him as a revolutionary person. A genuine man who's heart was with the working class and knew nothing of ambition. Very intelligent, indeed a good writer, witty with words, has written some of the most important Marxist texts.

Worthy of respect by all, even those who disagree with Leninism.

[Agent Ducky]

I respect Lenin's efforts and his cause even if what happened afterwards was undesirable. :D

[Robocommie]

Great admiration, undoubtedly an incredibly valuable theoretician who contributed immensely to Marxist thought. Though I can't say I agree in principle with everything he did or said, I recognize that much of it was done in a context I could not possibly imagine being in myself, in very difficult times. What Lenin was doing, he was doing blind, without much historical precedent to go by.

But he was a true Marxist, a true revolutionary, a tireless fighter for the people, and I think no Marxist's education is complete without understanding his theories.

[Dumb]

If you think about it, has anybody ever come as close as Lenin to building a genuine socialist society before or since? Whether you were a worker or a peasant, under Lenin, you control your own means of production, and you were a part of arguably the single most democratic regime in the world at that moment. (Then that whole Stalin thing came about.) Regardless of all the warts that Lenin and Leninism carry, that's still nothing to sneeze at.

[~Spectre]

Lenin was born on the day Mr. Jesus died. Coincidence? I think not.

[DaringMehring]

VI Lenin helped organize and lead the greatest revolution the world has yet seen. For that reason alone he should be studied and admired. However, his contributions to theory are equally as weighty as his success in practice. His books Imperialism: The Highest..., State & Revolution, and Left Wing Communism... are classics, not to mention What Is To be Done, his essays on War & The 2nd International, etc.

But above all Lenin is to be admired for his complete devotion to revolution. To him, material possessions and comfort were nothing. Glory was nothing. Power was only relevant insofar as it helped him fight for socialism.

Here is what Bertrand Russell, a friend of socialism but by no means a communist, said:

"He is... entirely without a trace of hauteur... I have never met a personage so destitute of self-importance... He is dictatorial, calm, incapable of fear, extraordinarily devoid of self-seeking, an embodied theory. The materialist conception of history, one feels, is his life-blood."

Cheers to Lenin, for all he did for communism!

[Rooster]

Lenin was born on the day Mr. Jesus died. Coincidence? I think not.

Give or take two thousand years.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

This great little place called The Red Bookshop. He had like 2 or 3 sets of the books too. I just didn't have the money nor the carrying capacity to get them today :(

i tend to visit that place everytime i'm in glesgae :).

as for lenin, he was certainly a very important and hugely influential historical figure. there is no denying this, though naturally i disagree with his theory.

[Heathen Communist]

Lenin did amazing things for the people of Russia. It is truly unfortunate that he didn't live longer; he could have helped make the USSR a much more stable and enjoyable place to live if he had.