6 ms·

Lenin was genuine. He did things out of perceived neccesity that many are critical of in hindsight, but few historians would argue Lenin wasn't actively trying

Lenin was genuine. He did things out of perceived neccesity that many are critical of in hindsight, but few historians would argue Lenin wasn't actively trying to improve the lives of men. Many around the world have much respect for the man. This is a way that people honor him. The only reason to seriously object would be if it somehow went against his wishes.

gnoway 11y ago
It's hard to imagine, given your characterization of him, that Lenin would support this at all. I think people who wish to honor the dead will do so regardless of whether there is a mummy or memory to honor. I think the preservation and display of Lenin, at the time, was a political stunt for political goals. I think they continue to do it today because for everyone involved, it's just something they've always done. There's no real purpose for it at this point.
- joshuapants 11y ago
  I'd imagine it helps with tourism, money is a good motivator
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - geoka9 11y ago
    It is kept around because of older folks who pine for the good old days of which it is a symbol. It'll take another 20-30 years until those folks are no more and the body will probably be buried.
- Aloha 11y ago
  Lenin specifically requested no memorials to him. However the needs of the state superseded the wants of the individual, in the end (with a dose of broad over simplification), its what sunk soviet style communism in eastern europe.
smitherfield 11y ago
In 1921, Lenin had his soldiers steal nearly all the grain produced on peasant farms, then distributed it amongst his soldiers and cronies while five million people died of starvation: https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+famine+of+1921&source=lnms&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+famine+of+1921&source... When America donated enough grain to relieve the famine, Lenin deliberately prevented it from reaching the starving rural peasants. Lenin, by the way, purchased no fewer than nine Rolls-Royce cars during his brief reign. I'll give you that he was genuine. So was Hitler.
- themartorana 11y ago
  all wealth including land, industry and business was confiscated Right. No one rich, well off, or even well fed except him. Sounds genuinely like all absolute dictators ever. Leaders around the world respect a glorified, scrubbed version of an idealistic man, not the real Lenin. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin
  - themartorana 11y ago
    Downvoted. Gonna take that as a compliment.
- ommunist 11y ago
  So was Sir Winston Churchill, by whose policy 10 mln Bengali people died from starvation. I see no difference between one greedy self-important politician and another. Its a pity we are defenseless in front of them.
  - Aloha 11y ago
    There is good information that the true scope of the famine didn't really reach London until after the 1943 harvest came in, and by then the famine was easing.
  - mc32 11y ago
    There is a difference when one is intentional and the other is due to unreliable information. Yes, the results are the same (starvation), but it matters how it happened. It's also interesting that in soviet Russia it was the urban disaffected population who supported the revolution, while the farmers and peasants did not. Lenin at first tried to get them to cooperate (volunteer) in the collectivization programme, but farmers wanted none of that, they preferred selling their grain and produce on the market to urbanites. Finally, desperate, Lenin gave orders, contradicting his advisors who told him it would result in poor production and starvation, went ahead and forced collectivization. This resulted in famine, as farmers forced to hand over their production, didn't have an incentive to produce.
Aloha 11y ago
Indeed, Lenin however was an absolutist, and absolutists rarely come to a long term solution.
WalterBright 11y ago
> He did things out of perceived neccesity that many are critical of in hindsight, but few historians would argue Lenin wasn't actively trying to improve the lives of men. I bet most (all?) tyrants genuinely believe they are doing the right thing. Murderers in prison mostly believe their crimes were justified.
classicsnoot 11y ago
I know this buzzfeed generation prefers 'top fives' and '20 mosts', but if you look at the history of Russia from ~1224 to now, it is hard to not think that Stalin has the top score solely because of technology, not brutality. if killing loads of people for vague reasons were in the olympics, russia would always win.
- saiya-jin 11y ago
  I read somewhere Mao screwed his nation pretty badly, topping some chart way above hitler and stalin (something around 60 million?)
  - mercurial 11y ago
    Maybe a better way of looking at it would be in terms of percentage of potential victims (in this case, Genghis Khan should be pretty high).
  - classicsnoot 11y ago
    I was talking about the intra-national/regional competition.
lotsofmangos 11y ago
The only reason to seriously object would be if it somehow went against his wishes. It did go against his wishes.
Htsthbjig 11y ago
"but few historians would argue Lenin wasn't actively trying to improve the lives of men." So was Hitler. He wanted to improve the lives of Aryan Germans (at the expense of everyone that was not, like Polish, or Jews). Lenin remains the biggest killer of nuns and religious people of the wold ever. He had a real problem with people deciding on their own not to follow him, so he killed a big part or Russian society. While he did not dirty his hands directly, he gave the dirty orders that other people would follow. The dirty jobs pal of Lenin was called Stalin. Lenin wanted money, let's make Stalin rob a bank, Lenin wanted to remove someone, let's call Stalin again. Of course, If you lie down with dogs, you'll wake up with fleas. Lenin was probably poisoned by Stalin, and the rest is History.
felipeerias 11y ago
This sums my own thoughts in the matter: "If you are truly convinced that there is some solution to all human problems, that one can conceive an ideal society which men can reach if only they do what is necessary to attain it, then you and your followers must believe that no price can be too high to pay in order to open the gates of such a paradise. Only the stupid and malevolent will resist once certain simple truths are put to them. Those who resist must be persuaded; if they cannot be persuaded, laws must be passed to restrain them; if that does not work, then coercion, if need be violence, will inevitably have to be used—if necessary, terror, slaughter. Lenin believed this after reading Das Kapital, and consistently taught that if a just, peaceful, happy, free, virtuous society could be created by the means he advocated, then the end justified any methods that needed to be used, literally any." http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/oct/23/message-21st-century/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/oct/23/message...

gnoway 11y ago

It's hard to imagine, given your characterization of him, that Lenin would support this at all. I think people who wish to honor the dead will do so regardless of whether there is a mummy or memory to honor. I think the preservation and display of Lenin, at the time, was a political stunt for political goals. I think they continue to do it today because for everyone involved, it's just something they've always done. There's no real purpose for it at this point.

joshuapants 11y ago
I'd imagine it helps with tourism, money is a good motivator
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- geoka9 11y ago
  It is kept around because of older folks who pine for the good old days of which it is a symbol. It'll take another 20-30 years until those folks are no more and the body will probably be buried.
Aloha 11y ago
Lenin specifically requested no memorials to him. However the needs of the state superseded the wants of the individual, in the end (with a dose of broad over simplification), its what sunk soviet style communism in eastern europe.

smitherfield 11y ago

In 1921, Lenin had his soldiers steal nearly all the grain produced on peasant farms, then distributed it amongst his soldiers and cronies while five million people died of starvation: https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+famine+of+1921&source=lnms&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+famine+of+1921&source... When America donated enough grain to relieve the famine, Lenin deliberately prevented it from reaching the starving rural peasants. Lenin, by the way, purchased no fewer than nine Rolls-Royce cars during his brief reign. I'll give you that he was genuine. So was Hitler.

themartorana 11y ago
all wealth including land, industry and business was confiscated Right. No one rich, well off, or even well fed except him. Sounds genuinely like all absolute dictators ever. Leaders around the world respect a glorified, scrubbed version of an idealistic man, not the real Lenin. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin
- themartorana 11y ago
  Downvoted. Gonna take that as a compliment.
ommunist 11y ago
So was Sir Winston Churchill, by whose policy 10 mln Bengali people died from starvation. I see no difference between one greedy self-important politician and another. Its a pity we are defenseless in front of them.
- Aloha 11y ago
  There is good information that the true scope of the famine didn't really reach London until after the 1943 harvest came in, and by then the famine was easing.
- mc32 11y ago
  There is a difference when one is intentional and the other is due to unreliable information. Yes, the results are the same (starvation), but it matters how it happened. It's also interesting that in soviet Russia it was the urban disaffected population who supported the revolution, while the farmers and peasants did not. Lenin at first tried to get them to cooperate (volunteer) in the collectivization programme, but farmers wanted none of that, they preferred selling their grain and produce on the market to urbanites. Finally, desperate, Lenin gave orders, contradicting his advisors who told him it would result in poor production and starvation, went ahead and forced collectivization. This resulted in famine, as farmers forced to hand over their production, didn't have an incentive to produce.

Aloha 11y ago

Indeed, Lenin however was an absolutist, and absolutists rarely come to a long term solution.

WalterBright 11y ago

> He did things out of perceived neccesity that many are critical of in hindsight, but few historians would argue Lenin wasn't actively trying to improve the lives of men. I bet most (all?) tyrants genuinely believe they are doing the right thing. Murderers in prison mostly believe their crimes were justified.

classicsnoot 11y ago

I know this buzzfeed generation prefers 'top fives' and '20 mosts', but if you look at the history of Russia from ~1224 to now, it is hard to not think that Stalin has the top score solely because of technology, not brutality. if killing loads of people for vague reasons were in the olympics, russia would always win.

saiya-jin 11y ago
I read somewhere Mao screwed his nation pretty badly, topping some chart way above hitler and stalin (something around 60 million?)
- mercurial 11y ago
  Maybe a better way of looking at it would be in terms of percentage of potential victims (in this case, Genghis Khan should be pretty high).
- classicsnoot 11y ago
  I was talking about the intra-national/regional competition.

lotsofmangos 11y ago

The only reason to seriously object would be if it somehow went against his wishes. It did go against his wishes.

Htsthbjig 11y ago

"but few historians would argue Lenin wasn't actively trying to improve the lives of men." So was Hitler. He wanted to improve the lives of Aryan Germans (at the expense of everyone that was not, like Polish, or Jews). Lenin remains the biggest killer of nuns and religious people of the wold ever. He had a real problem with people deciding on their own not to follow him, so he killed a big part or Russian society. While he did not dirty his hands directly, he gave the dirty orders that other people would follow. The dirty jobs pal of Lenin was called Stalin. Lenin wanted money, let's make Stalin rob a bank, Lenin wanted to remove someone, let's call Stalin again. Of course, If you lie down with dogs, you'll wake up with fleas. Lenin was probably poisoned by Stalin, and the rest is History.

felipeerias 11y ago

This sums my own thoughts in the matter: "If you are truly convinced that there is some solution to all human problems, that one can conceive an ideal society which men can reach if only they do what is necessary to attain it, then you and your followers must believe that no price can be too high to pay in order to open the gates of such a paradise. Only the stupid and malevolent will resist once certain simple truths are put to them. Those who resist must be persuaded; if they cannot be persuaded, laws must be passed to restrain them; if that does not work, then coercion, if need be violence, will inevitably have to be used—if necessary, terror, slaughter. Lenin believed this after reading Das Kapital, and consistently taught that if a just, peaceful, happy, free, virtuous society could be created by the means he advocated, then the end justified any methods that needed to be used, literally any." http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/oct/23/message-21st-century/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/oct/23/message...