Thinkers and political figures
Portrait: Photograph, 1920, via Wikimedia Commons (opens in a new tab) · Public domain
Vladimir Lenin
- Country
- Russia and the Soviet Union
- Era
- 1870–1924
- Tradition
- Marxism-Leninism
Leader of the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 and founder of the Soviet state, whose model of a disciplined vanguard party taking power on behalf of the working class was copied by revolutionary movements worldwide.
01
Documented positions
Documented positions come from the sources listed. Similarity is this project’s inference from those positions, and is a much weaker claim.
- Argued that a disciplined vanguard party of professional revolutionaries was necessary because workers would not develop revolutionary consciousness on their own
- Held that the state should be seized and used as a dictatorship of the proletariat rather than reformed
- Nationalised industry, banks and land, and abolished private trade under War Communism
- Dissolved the elected Constituent Assembly in January 1918 after the Bolsheviks won a minority of seats
- Banned opposition parties and, in 1921, factions within his own party
- Introduced the New Economic Policy in 1921, restoring limited private trade after economic collapse
- Supported national self-determination for subject peoples of the former Russian Empire, within a federal union
02
Where it sits on each dimension
Wealth and inequality
3
RedistributionMarket outcomes
Evidence: Well documented
The state in the economy
4
Active stateLimited state
Evidence: Well documented
Personal liberty
6
Collective orderIndividual freedom
Evidence: Well documented
Tradition and change
78
ContinuityReform
Evidence: Documented
Nation and the world
30
InternationalistNationalist
Evidence: Documented
Religion and the state
2
Secular stateReligion in public life
Evidence: Well documented
Power and its limits
4
Concentrated authorityChecks and pluralism
Evidence: Well documented
Crime and punishment
12
PunishmentRehabilitation
Evidence: Documented
Dimensions left unscored, for want of evidence: Environment and growth
Sources
- Vladimir Lenin, What Is to Be Done? · 1902
- Vladimir Lenin, The State and Revolution · 1917
- Robert Service, Lenin: A Biography · Macmillan · 2000
Last verified: