[Vladimir Lenin looking pensive]
To decide once every few years which members of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament - this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism.
Vladimir Lenin
The State and Revolution
1917
https://thebad.website/comic/bourgeois_parliamentarism
Or you can crush the people through having a communist dictator for life. They love talking about the people, but ultimately the people are reduced to livestock of the people running the state.
As opposed to Lenin’s own version: To never decide which members of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people. This is the real essence of state “socialism”.
Two things can be bad at once.
What the USSR became doesn’t invalidate Lenin’s critiques of capitalism and bourgeois society.
Lenin’s moral authority to proselytise vanished during his time in power. There is no need to quote him like this, and therefore portray him in a positive light, when others have said similar before, during, and after his time.
For example:
A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.
- Lysander Spooner, 1808 - 1887
https://www.anarchistquotes.com/lysander-spooner-quote-anarcho-individualist-4/
I have no issue portraying Lenin’s many contributions to marxist theory in a positive light.
It is possible to condemn one’s actions where appropriate while still acknowledging they were right about other things.
