QUORA: Was Lenin bad?

[David P.]

QUORA: Was Lenin bad?
by Susanna Viljanen, Works at Aalto University, Aug 23

Not any worse than any other syphilitic dictator who sticks
pedantically to an ideology which has never been tried in practice,
makes peace with his enemy on very unfavourable terms just to ignite
a civil war in his own country, has 10 million people killed, starved
to death or exterminated, plunges the economy of his country into
chaos and creates a major clusterfsck where the only way to recover
is the NEP (= return back to petty bourgeoisie Capitalism).

Otherwise, he was pretty good. He recognized the independence of
Finland. In my opinion, he was the Plato’s Philosopher King as
applied in the real life.
---------------
[COMMENTS]
Paul Irving, Aug 23
He was remarkably careless of lives. There was an incident where
something he said was misunderstood or mis-heard & over 1000 people
were killed because subordinates wrongly thought he'd ordered it.
When he found out he was annoyed. Not because of the people who'd
been killed, but because officials had acted without being sure it
was what had been ordered. He had harsh words for them. And that
was that. His attitude seems to have been “take this seriously,
because next time it might be something important".
Lenin was a very nasty man.
-----------
Miles Kimber, Aug 23
Good commentary, of course. Plato, it will be recalled, advocated
for a philosopher king imbued with the rectitude of virtue & true
wisdom…certainly not a syphilitic egotist bereft of any aptitude
to rule intelligently. But no doubt Lenin imagined he was such a
king who had no deficits of character.
---------------
Susanna Viljanen, Aug 23
Already Niccolò Machiavelli warned of the philosopher kings, saying
it is the worst imaginable combination. In real life, the synonym
for “philosopher king” is “a dictator with an ideological agenda”.
-----------------
Gorden Russell, Aug 23
It has been so many years since I read Machiavelli that I don't
remember that Passage. Can you find that somewhere and cut and
paste it over to here?
----------------
Ciprian Elliu Ivanof, Aug 23
I don’t remember that in The Prince. Was it in the commentaries
on Livy or somewhere else?
-----------------
Susanna Viljanen, Aug 24
I’d recall it was in Discourses.
------------------
Simon Long, Aug 27
‘Ideology’: more opinions than brains.
----------------
Michael Ansley, Aug 23
I suspect that (Lenin’s imagination) was the ‘as applied to
real life’ part of Susanna’s final comment. I have always had
this problem with the ‘philospher king’ idea from Plato… the
characteristics that draw people to power are exactly those
characteristics that make them unsuitable for it (to paraphrase
from I forget where), and Plato didn’t really articulate how to
solve that problem in any meaningful *and practical* way.
At least, so far as I have read.
---------------
Miles Kimber, Aug 23
You’re quite correct, Mr. Ansley. Practicality of the concept
eluded Plato. Truly virtuous, wise people typically shun the
attention that peak leadership requires. One of the finest
“philosophers” of the 20th century whom I’ve read and appreciated
knew to keep a very low profile and never sought widespread
publication of his writings, speaking engagements, or any of the
trappings of fame. True wisdom is not pursued by very many humans,
and those who achieve it are almost always attacked or deprecated
by others, certainly.
--------------
Joe Lammers, Aug 23
Or as Groucho Marx said: “I refuse to join any club
that would have me as a member.”