Talk:Vladimir Lenin

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The history is completely forged

I here give the objective information.

Revolution of 1917 in Russia: Vladimir Ulyanov and Nikolaj Lenin are different persons.

The scientific article:

Anton Kolmykov. Legal Responsibility for History Falsification. Revolution of 1917 in Russia./ Monthly scientific magazine "Discussion", № 3, Yekaterinburg, March 2010, page 8-11. ISSN 2077-7639; ISBN 978-5-91256; UDC code: 94; 34.096.

Popular article: http://www.cneat.ru/lenin.html [1]

--Antn-Samara (talk) 15:22, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Kriminalistichesky examination of photos of Lenin --Antn-Samara (talk) 15:40, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

-Yep, and I can give a link to a study that proofs Putin is a clone of Hitler... what's your point? Neither of those are creditable. 95.27.133.154 (talk) 15:46, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

re Pull Quote: 'If Socialism can only be realized...'

“ If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years. ” —  Vladimir Lenin, November 1917

Concerning the pull quote in the 'Head of government' section:

I think that, pulled out of context as it is here, it conveys a certain interpretation of Lenin to the reader (i.e. that he was an anti-democratic totalitarian) and is thus in violation of NPOV. There are plenty of scholars who argue that Lenin did not support the general principle of overruling 'the intellectual development of all the people': try Paul Le Blanc, for example.

You can see the source on Google Books [2]. Lenin (if we believe John Reed, which we might as well) did say this. But he did not say it as a pithy one-liner to sum up his view of Socialism. He said it as part of a longer speech on a specific historical question.

Lenin, as a Marxist, wanted working-class revolution in the advanced Western countries. But he was trying to spark that world revolution in backwards peasant Russia. It is clearly arguable that this refusal to wait for 'the intellectual development of all the people' was not a general theoretical statement that Socialism should be elitist, but a concern that the actual historical attempt at world revolution in 1917 might be hindered by the conditions in undeveloped peasant-dominated Russia.

And, lo, Lenin's speech is precisely on the land question: i.e. about the Russian peasantry. As Lenin says in the very first sentence of his speech: 'At this moment we are not only trying to solve the Land question, but the question of the Social Revolution-not only here in Russia, but all over the world.' You can see from the quote on 'electrification' right here in the Wikipedia article that Lenin was worried about stopping the backwardness of the Russian peasantry from dragging down the revolution.

The quotation in question therefore gives a very distorted picture: not placing the quote in the context of Lenin's entire speech, of his own materialist class-oriented philosophy, or of his historical situation in peasant-dominated early-twentieth-century Russia.

This article definitely needs to objectively cover the massive controversy over the different interpretations of Lenin - totalitarian or democrat, etc. - but this quote is just misleading.

Trying to expand this quotation to fully explain its context and different interpretations will just get silly. It's probably best just to delete it. Let's say I'll do it myself in three days if there is no convincing case made for keeping it.

Jamaber (talk) 10:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. And have redone the explanation above so hopefully it makes more sense. Jamaber (talk) 12:59, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Minor edit (blockquote)

In the Later life and death section, I think the second paragraph, which is a quote, should be marked up as such. It would be consistent, as well as easier to read, me thinks.

The text to be marked up is:

Lenin was involved in the challenges of delivering fuel into Ivanovo-Vosnesensk... the provision of clothing for miners, he was solving the question of dynamo construction, drafted dozens of routine documents, orders, trade agreements, was engaged in the allocation of rations, edited books and pamphlets at the request of his comrades, held hearings on the applications of peat, assisted in improving the workings at the ‘Novii Lessner’ factory, clarified in correspondence with the engineer P. A. Kozmin the feasibility of using wind turbines for the electrification of villages... all the while serving as an adviser to party functionaries almost continuously.[91]

{{editsemiprotected}}

 Done That was already set up as a block quote, but the picture of he and his wife was causing the left edge of the block quote to match the left edge of the normal formatting. I moved the picture up to near where his wife is mentioned and it looks better to me. Celestra (talk) 04:03, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Lenin and terrorism

Hi everyone, there are many reliable sources linking Lenin with terrorism. For example, Ronald D. Law (a respected historian and Professor of History) writes:

“Frustrated by the conservatism of Russian peasants and impressed by the emergence of a new urban working class, some Populists turned to Karl Marx’s doctrines (typically known to its practitioners as social democracy) in the 1870s and 1880s. Out of the Russian Marxists, came Lenin and the Bolsheviks. They embraced terrorism in a circumscribed fashion while in the underground, but became terrorists “from above” after seizing the Russian state in 1917 … In the wake of the 1905 Revolution, Lenin recognized that terrorism was appropriate in two circumstances: as a means of generating popular support among workers and peasants for the Bolshevik cause, and as a means of raising money necessary for the party’s operations” (Terrorism: A History, 2009, pp. 77, 91).

The above is supported by many other sources like Robert Service (A History of Twentieth-Century Russia, p. 108), Richard Pipes (Communism, p. 39), and Peter Calvert, “Theories of Terror in Urban Insurrections” (International Encyclopedia of Terrorism, p. 141). My attempts to include any of these sources in relevant Wikipedia articles like Communist terrorism have been met with strong (and in my view unjustified) opposition from involved editors. I was wondering whether these sources could be considered for inclusion in the Lenin article. Justus Maximus (talk) 12:27, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Should there be any doubt, here's another source:

“Lenin had stated that the party should not flinch from the use of terror in order to safeguard the Revolution and implement socialism. Thus he was able to justify his use of terror. The Cheka’s powers were expanded during the Civil War so that counter-revolutionaries could be eliminated. Lenin and Trotsky agreed with the view of Dzerzhinsky, the head of the Cheka, that it was better to overkill than run the risk of being overthrown. Terror was to be used against class enemies although it was also directed against elements within the party, such as ‘adventurers, drunkards and hooligans’. At the end of his life, Lenin seems to have developed an obsession over the use of terror. Letters he wrote in 1922 called for intensified repression against the Mensheviks, including the harmless historian Rozhkov. This seems to indicate that Lenin was developing his own, personal agenda for the use of terror” – Steve Phillips, Lenin and the Russian Revolution, 2000, pp. 135-6. The book is published by educational publisher Heinemann and is therefore mainstream. Justus Maximus (talk) 11:29, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Seeing that there is no response I assume there is no objection or no interest. I will edit the article accordingly then Justus Maximus (talk) 12:46, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Spellings

I have a minor issue with all the various spellings/transliterations given in the "Early life" section. How often would he have used the Swedish, Kalmyk, or Hebrew spellings of his names? I have heard that he used Yiddish at times in secret correspondence, but I cannot remember if the source that I encountered it in was reliable or if it was a neo-Nazi rant. The German spelling I perhaps can see being used during his exile, and it does bear some significance, what with his being installed by the Kaiser. But I really do think that we should trim a few of those out. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 18:09, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

'The Sealed Train'

Article references the standard story that Lenin traveled from Switzerland to Petrograd via a sealed train. ("travel through Germany to Russia in a sealed one-carriage train.') Book on the First World War by Oxford Historian Hew Strachan maintains this is a myth perpetuated by Lenin in order to prevent Lenin's collusion with the German govt appearing traitorous. Lenin actually took a four-day trip through Germany on an open train, one car out of several. Less interesting but possibly more accurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.241.228.37 (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Simbirsk was renamed 54 years after his birth, but not 53. Corrected Тиффози (talk) 10:42, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

The intro

The intro was pretty terrible so I elaborated upon it, when it was promptly reverted on the grounds that it was POV. If anyone has any complaints about the new intro, please elaborate here. 71.65.71.145 (talk) 18:35, 17 January 2011 (UTC)