Vladimir Lenin
Bolshevik revolutionary, first leader of Soviet Russia
Also known as: Lenin, V. I. Lenin, Ulyanov
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, known as Lenin (1870–1924), led the October Revolution of 1917 and directed Soviet Russia until his death. Quigley treats him as the theorist and organizer whose "Leninist revision of Marxism" (T&H 118) became the ideology of the Soviet Union, and whose pre-war intellectual position was at first marginal even within international socialism.
From obscurity to power
Quigley emphasizes the unlikelihood of Lenin's pre-1917 standing. "Although he expressed his point of view frequently and loudly during the war," Quigley writes, "it must be confessed that his support, even among extremely violent Socialists, was microscopic. Nevertheless, the fortunes of war served to bring this man to power in Russia in November" 1917 (T&H 398). The Leninist line, fusing Marxist revisionism with the conspiratorial-vanguard organization of the Bolshevik faction, defeated the Mensheviks in the immediate post-revolutionary contest and "merged with the Leninist revision of Marxism to provide the ideology of Soviet Russia after 1917" (T&H 118).
Successor narrative
Quigley's broader civilizational scheme places Lenin between the original Marxist framework (see Karl Marx) and the later substitution by Joseph Stalin. The Russian outlook, he writes, was "changed by the age-long Russian outlook, at first by the Leninist Bolshevik triumph over the Mensheviks and later by Stalin's Russian nationalist victory over Lenin's more Western rationalism" (T&H 105). Outside the Soviet context Quigley engages Lenin as a foil in the Wilson-versus-Lenin framing that several mid-century historians adopted, treating the 1917 moment as the "choice between Wilson and Lenin" that organized the rest of the twentieth century (Book Reviews 36).
Cited in
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 105 Quigley
Leninist Bolshevik triumph over the Mensheviks and later by Stalin's Russian nationalist victory over Lenin's more Western rationalism.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 118 Quigley
Merging with the Leninist revision of Marxism to provide the ideology of Soviet Russia after 1917.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 398 Quigley
Although he expressed his point of view frequently and loudly during the war, it must be confessed that his support, even among extremely violent Socialists, was microscopic. Nevertheless, the fortunes of war served to bring this man to power in Russia in November.
- book-reviews · p. 36 Quigley
1917, when the world was offered a choice between Wilson and Lenin, with all history since that crucial date being portrayed as a struggle between the outlooks of these two basically aberrant figures.