I'm not into Great Men history, but...

[JimmyJazz]

What if Lenin had not died young? What if his leadership career had been like that of Fidel Castro, where he had lived to be an old man and finally retired from power at age 82 (in 1952)?

How would the world have been, or be, different? Be specific!



Just a note: I don't think such speculation is great men history at all. The great man fallacy is thinking that a single person can achieve huge empires without an army, or huge harvests without a great mass of farmers. But the idea that decisive leadership can turn the course of history one direction or the other, when the masses are mobilized and open to radical change, is not silly at all imo. When the prison population is angry and restless, a single guard turning their head away for a second can be the difference between a riot and the status quo.

[Tower of Bebel]

What if Lenin had not died young? What if his leadership career had been like that of Fidel Castro, where he had lived to be an old man and finally retired from power at age 82 (in 1952)?

How would the world have been, or be, different? Be specific!.

That's a difficult question. The contradiction between marxist theory and the material circumstance already manifested themselves early on. The Bolsheviks made some temporary retreats (many of which were already criticized by the communist left and Rosa Luxemburg as early as 1918); and they succeeded in defeating the insurgency, but at huge costs. Lenin died when contradictions were enormous. For example, while internationalist, radical-democratic revolutionaries were in power the international revolution was defeat and the population of the Soviet Union had to live under harsh and "undemocratic" conditions. The Bolsheviks had a small base of support: the revolutionary vanguard; but many workers and farmers were revolting (Kronstadt, Petrograd, Kiev, etc.) to both ameliorate their living standards and for soviet-democracy.

I really don't know what would have happened if Lenin didn't die in 1924. I don't think he would have lead the party for much longer. Maybe imprisonment, as pointed out by Krupskaya, isn't farfetched at all.

[Labor Shall Rule]

If Lenin lived longer, he'd likely work on overcoming how rural agricultural development required greater urban industrial output for reproduction and expansion — hence, a continuation of state-monopoly capitalist enterprises. Once he did (which is what Soviet Russia did do by 1929) the kulaks and the urban capitalist firms engaged in small-scale production would be widely appropriated, and collectivization would occur.

Russia was arrested to social relations that dictated the way that things were done organizationally—soviet democracy, shop-floor voting, and even factions within the Party itself would not continue during Lenin's continued 'rule', and if Vlad chose (hypothetically) to be a anti-bureaucratic partisan, the existing meritocracy would have him shot.

[timbaly]

What if Lenin had not died young? What if his leadership career had been like that of Fidel Castro, where he had lived to be an old man and finally retired from power at age 82 (in 1952)?

How would the world have been, or be, different? Be specific!



Stalinists wouldn't exist. Other than that who can really say? If you insert Lenin into history up until 1952 his very presence could really have changed the world dramatically. When I say this I don't mean it in the superman/heroic figure sense. If he was leader it would have changed the lives of so many other people. Then those people would have needed up interacting with other people differently. Would Molotov have the cocktail named after him? Would Frida Kahlo have created the same paintings she did? Would there be as many stautes of Lenin as there are today? Would the Poland have been jointly invaded in 1939? Who really can answer any of those questions?

[Led Zeppelin]

I'm not going to say "probably" or "most likely" regarding this because that would be stupid and pointless, but I think he would've been a victim of the Thermidorian reaction. :)

[JimmyJazz]

I'm not going to say "probably" or "most likely" regarding this because that would be stupid and pointless, but I think he would've been a victim of the Thermidorian reaction. :)

Isn't this sort of like admitting that Stalin only did what was necessary?

[jake williams]

Well I think as has been said, it would've prevented the growth of Stalinism, but that would have had extremely unpredictable and undecideable consequences. For example, it's very hard to try to guess how Lenin, or even just non-Stalinist Russia, would have dealt with the rise of fascism.

[Herman]

If Lenin had been alive longer, we'd all be speaking Russian!

Jokes aside, it's hard to know. The NEP would have probably lasted longer, that's for sure.