“I can’t listen too music too often. It affects your nerves, makes you want to say stupid, nice things and stroke the heads of people who could create such beauty while living in this vile hell. And now you mustn’t stroke anyone’s head – you might get your hand bitten off.”
He sounds like a fun guy. Yet, suprisingly Lenin was a pretty serious and determined fellow. He was a well-off intellectual who was devoted to the teachings of Marx, revolution and writing a lot of pamphlets. Seriously, the man loved to write a good pamphlet. The only thing he loved more than a good pamphlet was a good meeting. Back in the days before the mass media, these things had some sway.
Picture bogs that people actually read and act upon.
Vladimir was a controversial figure. Russia was involved in the first world war and, instead of getting all patriotic and rallying to his country’s defense, he wrote pamphlets in Switzerland, stating that he hoped the war would cause the fall of the Tsarist regime. His fellow socialists were aghast. They had a lot of meetings. Vladimir had some meetings too. The other socialists decided that they believed you should support your nation during a war.
Vladimir most assuredly did not. And he was right. When your nation is at war; it is weak. Attack the mother fucker and bring it down. That is one of the secrets of revolution that I wil summarize by weeks end.
When the Tsar fell in 1917, Vladimir returned to Russia and was promptly thrown out. Like a determined drunk returning to a pub, he came back in October and overthrew the Provisional Government. He promptly had a lot of meetings and wrote a lot of pamphlets. By 1918 he had pulled Russia out of the war with Germany so that he could concentrate on the goals of universal health care, electricity, education and setting up the dictatorship of the proletariat. This, he knew, would take a lot of meetings.
But not everyone was happy. People tried to overthrow him, he was shot a few times, and his early enemies, the Mensheviks, were causing trouble. So he set up the Cheka and killed a few tens of thousands of counter revolutionaries. As is normal after a revolution, there was a civil war. Lenin’s Red Army, led by Trotsky, beat the Brit, Yank and Euro supported White Army.
And everyone lived happily ever after in a perfect Utopia.
2 comments
v
May 11, 2006 at 2:56 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I bet his friends were swell chaps as well.
Seriously Ryan, the History Channel should call you any minute now.
Grumpy Owl
May 11, 2006 at 4:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
They were better than swell. Stalin killed Trotsky because – I quote – “he drinks the wrong time of whiskey!” Might not be an exact quote but if you want exact, try the history channel.