The most common image in Western histories and biographies of Lenin is of a vindictive and unlikeable man, hell-bent on attaining power through unscrupulous means, and giving little — if any — thought to the human cost of his self-serving ambitions.
The crimes of Lenin’s successor Stalin are often thrown at his feet, as well. “He built a system based on the idea that political terror against opponents was justified for a greater end,” wrote Victor Sebestyen in 2017, concluding “It was perfected by Stalin, but the ideas were Lenin’s.”[1] “Stalin intensified the insanity inherent in Leninism,” concurs Stalin’s recent biographer Stephen Kotkin.[2] For many scholars, so-called “Leninism” as a political ideology is synonymous with totalitarianism, autocracy, and terror
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