Difference between Lenin & Machiavelli

[resisting arrest with violence]

"And you have to understand this, that a prince, especially a new one, cannot observe all those things for which men are esteemed, being often forced, in order to maintain the state, to act contrary to faith, friendship, humanity, and religion." [emphasis mine]
Machiavelli, The Prince Chapter XVIII

While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State. Lenin, State and Revolution 1919

[Severian]

The difference? Machiavelli was a bourgeois revolutionary; seeking to create a united & independent Italy, preferably a republic or failing that with a king who leaned on the commoners for support rather than the nobles.

Lenin was a proletarian revolutionary.

[jake_crocker]

There are similarities though, they both believed in sacrifice and suffering in order to achieve a goal

[communist mercy]

No!!!! Machiavelli was a fascist!!!!! You can not compare Lenin with him!!!!!

[break them chains!]

machiavelli is accosiated with corrupt totalitarian government.
ya he was a fascist....Machiavellian now means corrupt government for a reason.

[Hiero]

The idea of the state withering awayi would not of been heard of in the time of Machiavelli.

I dont see what you are trying to accomplish here.

[RevolverNo9]

You cannot call Machiavelli a fascist, it just doesn't make sense. Honestly, the left really should consider its vocabulary more often.

The point of Machiavelli - and the reason for the common term Machiavellian - is that a ruler should be most concerned with maintaining power. However it is important to bear in mind that The Prince was written with the intention of being provactive and as a result he purposefully in that book pushed his ideas to the extreme.

One could argue that Lenin was Machiavellian because he held the retention of power above all else and acted in ways that would otherwise (all still were) disagreeable.

However the connection being made by RAWV is wrong-headed. Machiavelli is not saying that the state is wrong and restricts people's freedoms and dignities, he is saying that in the neccessary struggle to maintain power, one must act against conventional morality.

[Monty Cantsin]

"don't flatter yourself that they have no such plan, they must necessity have one; and if change willed them not to have formed one the very force of things would lead them to one; conquest engenders conquest, and victory gives the thirst for victory"

Machiavelli letter to Francesco vettori

can one source that letter for me...like the date of the letter i can't find it on the net(thus far).

But to the question of Machiavelli, he was a man of the left in his historical context trying to attain a unified Italy and capitalist’s revolution. So I’m in agreement with Severian on this issue.

[bolshevik butcher]

yeh, i mean the man was a revolutionary in his time, we may disagree with a lot of what he says, but he was fighting for freedoms in his time.

[resisting arrest with violence]

How can you say that Machiavelli was fighting for freedom? Who was his hero? In The Prince he looks to Cesare Borgia as the prototype of the new kind of leader he was seeking. Cesare Borgia was a thug. All he cared about was his personal power and glory. He did not care about the people.

Example:

CHAPTER VI
CONCERNING NEW PRINCIPALITIES WHICH ARE ACQUIRED BY ONE’S OWN ARMS AND ABILITY

When the duke [Caesare Borgia] occupied the Romagna he found it under the rule of weak masters, who rather plundered their subjects than ruled them, and gave them more cause for disunion than for union, so that the country was full of robbery, quarrels, and every kind of violence; and so, wishing to bring back peace and obedience to authority, he considered it necessary to give it a good governor. Thereupon he promoted Messer Ramiro d’Orco11, a swift and cruel man, to whom he gave the fullest power. This man in a short time restored peace and unity with the greatest success. Afterwards the duke considered that it was not advisable to confer such excessive authority, for he had no doubt but that he would become odious, so he set up a court of judgment in the country, under a most excellent president, wherein all cities had their advocates. And because he knew that the past severity had caused some hatred against himself, so, to clear himself in the minds of the people, and gain them entirely to himself, he desired to show that, if any cruelty had been practised, it had not originated with him, but in the natural sternness of the minister. Under this pretence he took Ramiro, and one morning caused him to be executed and left on the piazza at Cesena with the block and a bloody knife at his side. The barbarity of this spectacle caused the people to be at once satisfied and dismayed.

http://www.the-prince-by-machiavelli.com/t...ince/title.html


edit:sorry i pressed edit instead of quote....again sorry.

[El_Revolucionario]

I don't know about Lenin, but Machiavelli would probably be very pleased with the totalitarian regime of Stalin.

[Monty Cantsin]

Originally posted by resisting arrest with [email protected] 28 2005, 04:55 PM

Example:

CHAPTER VI
CONCERNING NEW PRINCIPALITIES WHICH ARE ACQUIRED BY ONE’S OWN ARMS AND ABILITY

When the duke [Caesare Borgia] occupied the Romagna he found it under the rule of weak masters, who rather plundered their subjects than ruled them, and gave them more cause for disunion than for union, so that the country was full of robbery, quarrels, and every kind of violence; and so,

When the duke [Caesare Borgia] occupied the Romagna he found it under the rule of weak masters, who rather plundered their subjects than ruled them, and gave them more cause for disunion than for union, so that the country was full of robbery, quarrels, and every kind of violence; and so, wishing to bring back peace and obedience to authority, he considered it necessary to give it a good governor. Thereupon he promoted Messer Ramiro d’Orco11, a swift and cruel man, to whom he gave the fullest power. This man in a short time restored peace and unity with the greatest success. Afterwards the duke considered that it was not advisable to confer such excessive authority, for he had no doubt but that he would become odious, so he set up a court of judgment in the country, under a most excellent president, wherein all cities had their advocates. And because he knew that the past severity had caused some hatred against himself, so, to clear himself in the minds of the people, and gain them entirely to himself, he desired to show that, if any cruelty had been practised, it had not originated with him, but in the natural sternness of the minister. Under this pretence he took Ramiro, and one morning caused him to be executed and left on the piazza at Cesena with the block and a bloody knife at his side. The barbarity of this spectacle caused the people to be at once satisfied and dismayed.

http://www.the-prince-by-machiavelli.com/t...ince/title.html


edit:sorry i pressed edit instead of quote....again sorry. [/b]
now that's impressive....it's a different historical context different ethical standards and different public reaction to different actions.

[Anti-establishment]

Originally posted by communist [email protected] 20 2005, 02:18 PM
No!!!! Machiavelli was a fascist!!!!! You can not compare Lenin with him!!!!!
You are a fascist, get back to the sestpool you came from, back to comradeche!

[Severian]

Originally posted by resisting arrest with [email protected] 28 2005, 10:55 AM
How can you say that Machiavelli was fighting for freedom? Who was his hero? In The Prince he looks to Cesare Borgia as the prototype of the new kind of leader he was seeking. Cesare Borgia was a thug. All he cared about was his personal power and glory. He did not care about the people.

Example:

CHAPTER VI
CONCERNING NEW PRINCIPALITIES WHICH ARE ACQUIRED BY ONE’S OWN ARMS AND ABILITY

When the duke [Caesare Borgia] occupied the Romagna he found it under the rule of weak masters, who rather plundered their subjects than ruled them, and gave them more cause for disunion than for union, so that the country was full of robbery, quarrels, and every kind of violence; and so, [/b]
One, the examples given in the Prince are not necessarily Macchiavelli's "heroes". They were successful rulers, from whose techniques something can be learned. Only in the Discourses does he have a "hero" - the Roman people.

Two, who are these "weak masters, who rather plundered their subjects than ruled them, and gave them more cause for disunion than for union, so that the country was full of robbery, quarrels, and every kind of violence"? Probably the aristocracy, the nobles of the Romagna. It sure sounds like a description of petty lords, the kind who led Voltaire to say that one great tyrant is preferable to a thousand little ones.

Every country in Europe was plagued by these petty feudal lords, who were tyrannical towards their subjects while demanding great independence from the king. They also constantly fought with each other, and it was their subjects who did the bleeding and whose livelihoods were plundered and burned. In order to create a modern, bourgeois nation, one necessary and progressive stage in most countries was the suppression of the nobility by an absolute monarch.

By forging a united nation, taking away the rights of the nobles, and relying on the support of the burghers, the absolute monarchs prepared the way for democratic revolutions and yes, freedom. In France and England for example.

Machiavelli was right that Italy would have been fortunate to have such a monarch unify it, and ruthlessly crush the petty lords.

[LuZhiming]

Originally posted by communist [email protected] 20 2005, 02:18 PM
No!!!! Machiavelli was a fascist!!!!! You can not compare Lenin with him!!!!!
Wow, I wouldn't go so far to say that Lenin was worse than a fascist!

[encephalon]

machiavelli wrote his book to impress the medici family. He was an opportunist. No more, no less.

[Hiero]

Maybe i didn't make it clear, its stupid to find differences between Lenin and Machiavelli.

There is not point or reasoning for choosing two random political figuers from centuries apart and then comparing

Its like trying to find the diferences between Plato and Mikhail Bakunin and thinking it matters.

[Monty Cantsin]

lol, good point.



Edit: i've been reading Machiavelli and us by Louis Althusser...it's quite good and i reconmend it to anyone interested in Machiavelli.