(Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov; Simbirsk, 1870 - Nijni-Novgorod, 1924) born on april 22 was a Russian communist leader who led the October Revolution and created the Soviet communist union. A member of a middle-class family in the Volga region, his animosity against the tsarist regime was exacerbated after the execution of his brother in 1887, accused of conspiracy. He studied at the Universities of Kazan and Saint Petersburg, where he settled as a lawyer in 1893.

His activities against the tsarist autocracy led him to come into contact with the main Russian revolutionary leader of the time, Georgy Plekhanov, in his exile from Switzerland (1895); it was he who convinced him of the Marxist ideology. Under his influence, he helped found in Saint Petersburg the League of Combat for the Liberation of the Working Class, the embryo of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party chaired by Plekhanov.

In 1897, Lenin was arrested and deported to Siberia, where he devoted himself to the systematic study of the works of Marx and Engels. After his liberation in 1900 he went into exile and founded the newspaper Iskra (the spark) in Geneva, in collaboration with Plekhanov

In the II Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party (1903), Lenin imposed those ideas at the head of the radical Bolshevik group, which defended his strongly disciplined party model as the vanguard of a revolution that he believed was viable in the short term; In 1912, the break with the Plekhanov and Martov Menshevik minority would be definitively confirmed, attached to a mass party model that would prepare the conditions for the triumph of the workers’ revolution in the longer term.

In 1905 Lenin returned to Saint Petersburg to participate in the revolution that had broken out in Russia, Lenin considered that movement as a “dress rehearsal” of the socialist revolution, of which he especially appreciated the spontaneous organizational form of the Russian revolutionaries, such as the soviets or popular councils. he would go into exile again in 1907 due to the failure of the revolution.

Lenin was completing a revolutionary program of immediate application for Russia: mixing the heritage of Marxism with the insurrectionary tradition of Louis Auguste Blanqui, he proposed to anticipate the revolution in Russia by being this one. from the “weak links” of the capitalist chain, where a small group of determined and well-organized revolutionaries could drag the working and peasant masses into a revolution, from which a socialist state would emerge.

The outbreak of the First World War (1914-18) gave him the opportunity to put his ideas into practice: he defined the conflict as the result of the contradictions of capitalism and imperialism and, in the name of proletarian internationalism, later, the deterioration of the tsarist regime as a result of the war allowed him to think about launching the socialist revolution in his country as the first step towards an era of world revolution.

The Russian Revolution USSR

When the February Revolution of 1917 overthrew Tsar Nicholas II and brought Kerensky to power, Lenin rushed back to Russia with the help of the German army (which saw in Lenin an agitator capable of weakening his enemy Russia). He published his April Theses ordering the Bolsheviks to cease support for the provisional government and to prepare their own revolution by claiming “all power to the Soviets.”

A first failed attempt in July forced him to take refuge in Finland, leaving Trotsky to lead the party to seize power through a coup in early November 1917 . The coup became the triumphant October Revolution thanks to the Bolshevik strategy of focusing their demands on the end of the war and the distribution of land . Lenin immediately returned to preside over the new government or Council of People’s Commissars.

As the leader of the Bolshevik Party , he has since directed the building of the first socialist state in history. He fulfilled his initial promises by removing Russia from the war for the Peace of Brest-Litowsk (1918) and distributing expropriated land to peasants from large landowners.

He delegated to Trotsky the organization of the Red Army, with which he managed to resist the combined attack of the white armies and foreign intervention in the course of a long Civil War (1918-20). Once control of the old empire of the czars was recovered, he articulated the territory by creating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922), which he gave a formal organization by the Constitution of 1923.

Driven by the needs of the war, but also following his own ideological convictions, he imposed a policy of immediate socialization of the economy, nationalizing the main means of production and subjecting activities to strict central planning (war communism); the difficulties of such a radical transformation caused the collapse of production and a general disorganization of the Russian economy.

Lenin then had to rectify his initial mistakes, convincing his party of the need to introduce the New Economic Policy (1921), which consisted of going back on the path of socialization, leaving a certain margin for freedom of movement. market and private initiative (authorization of foreign investments, freedom of wages), with which it achieved an appreciable economic recovery.

Plagued by a serious illness, Lenin gradually retired from the political leadership, while he saw how his collaborators - especially Trotsky and Stalin - began the dispute over the succession. he eventually passed away in 1924

Lenin is known for establishing the political tradition of Marxism-Leninism, which emphasizes the creation of a dictatorship of the proletariat by means of a revolutionary vanguard party and democratic centralism, in which political decisions reached through free discussion are binding upon all members of the political party.

Lenin is one of the most influential political thinkers of modern history, authoring influential communist texts such as “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”, “State and Revolution”, and “What Is to Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement”.

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  • the_itsb [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    tbqh, can’t believe I’ve managed to be awake at the right time to be so early to a megathread

    Confession Time

    I came to Hexbear last summer as an anarchist who loved the vibe here, and I think maybe you all have made me much more a tankie, and tbqh -

    Thanks, I love it ❤️🥰❤️

    idk, I used to think that eventually, someday, everybody would give enough of a shit to be involved in the decision-making because of course they’re all adults, but it has become increasingly clear that most people do not give a single fuck and you need a core group of People Who Care to get anybody else to do anything

    this has been a sad epiphany, but hey 🤷 oh well, we deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it should be

  • Dirt_Owl [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    The average person has been completely misstaught history and politics and I find that very frustrating and depressing.

    How do you even begin to get through to people who think that Putin is a communist or that the Nazis were socialists?

    • SpiderFarmer [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      I guess for the latter you can refer to socialists or even socdems in periods of history where they’ve fought nazis and/or improved labor conditions. Wisconsin didn’t do a good job or hiding their socialist history, especially since Milwaukee named several streets and roads after socialists. Just start them small on that.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      At this point i’m exploring the merits of the Ludovico technique.

      Several years ago it kind of clicked in my head why re-education camps were a thing in some places. The only way you’d even be able to shatter the amount of weaponized ignorance and wrongness society armors itself with is putting a lot of people in school-prison, and that is the humane alternative to just shooting them and starting over.

      Christ i used to be such a nice person.

    • StalinStan [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      You know how the government only lies about stuff? Pick one and just expand out slowly. Talked about wmd in Iraq, to the gulf of Tonkin, to some South America war. Just establish the narrative that the government that only lies to you has lied to you and will only lie to you. Then tease them for being lied to. They will defend any lie our of pride but if you laugh at them it gets under the wall of defence.

  • very_poggers_gay [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    i presented some of my research at a virtual conference on friday at one of the primary (albeit small) conferences for my small research niche. it’s a conference i look forward to every year, because my research area is pretty small, and i think what i bring to the field is pretty unique (i’m a filthy commie in a field of liberals very-normal )

    so i had spent most nights in april staying up until 2am working on my research and presentation, because i was really stoked to present, and i knew that some of the bigger names in the field would be attending. i was really nervous because of these stakes and because everything was coming together so last minute (compared to how i usual approach presentations)

    my presentation went so fucking poorly in my eyes. i immediately went off my script and into adhd overexplaining on the background info, and I was missing the mediator’s signals that i was running out of time, until i had less than 1 minute left in the 15 minute talk, and I had just started talking about the results from all of my analyses. i spent like 75% of my talk on the 25% least important information.

    as soon as the presentation ended i slammed my laptop shut and i banged my head a lot and just wailed under my blankets. i don’t know if i ever felt so crushed in my entire life. my partner said the talk didn’t look so bad, and some friends/colleagues sent nice messages about my talk too, but i was devastated. i just put so much into the talk, and it all just crumbled in on me. i put off so much other work and shit to focus on this presentation, and i have to play so much catch up and send so many apologetic e-mails about that. i feel so small cri

    • Hexagons [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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      7 months ago

      I’m so sorry! Talks are really hard and can go poorly in so many different ways, I hate giving them so much. It really did probably go better than you felt like it did. Still though, I know that feeling of veering off into an unnecessary explanation. It always feels at the time like I really should have included this background, what was I thinking leaving it out, I’ll just explain it real quick, and then oops, I’ve spent way too long here and now don’t have time for the actually important stuff!

      Just a terrible feeling, all in all. Still, what’s important is that your colleagues vaguely know what you’re working on so they can talk to you or read your papers or what have you. It’s ok! A terrible talk isn’t the end of the world, you’re still cool and intelligent and competent!

  • ashinadash [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    My dad thinks the war in Ukraine is because Putin is trying to spread communism, and once Ukraine falls he won’t stop for anything. He also thinks Trump(??) is holding up the money(???) to both Ukraine and Israel.

    I love this, it’s great. My dad is so born in 1961 that it hurts.

  • 2Password2Remember [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    i’ve spent the last five hours getting drunk by myself at various bars in valencia and let me tell you what i fucking love spain dude, i’m moving here and buying a house and becoming a citizen and shit. then i’m gonna lead a revolution to get rid of all the racist freaks ruining my beautiful sunny tapas country and everyone’s gonna work 20 hours a week and it’s gonna be sick. if you’re reading this you’re invited

    Death to America

  • EstraDoll [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    kiryu-slam thinkin about all the little hamsters in the world that i’ll never be able to give a little smooch on their tiny little heads

  • 2Password2Remember [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    imagine thinking “black people are only 13% of the US population but constitute 50% of the country’s prisoners” means “black peoples are inherently more likely to be criminals than other races” and not “america is an inherently, systemically racist country and should be conpletely destroyed”

    Death to America

    • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      If I recall correctly, the police stations also got some flexibility in what info they submitted. It painted this as a self-report of bias. The special context of slavery, segregation, and generally just fucking hating black people has had horrible effects on the culture and lived experience. Just imagine if MLK weren’t assassated. Imagine if the Black Panthers had a chance to build power. Imagine if Black Wall Street weren’t burned to the ground. African American history is filled with people trying to build structures and institutions. It’s simply antithetical to the end goals of capitalism to have the mass cooperation that sane people crave. There is no other role in society to play than a disenfranchised underclass. I see a lot of the crime as energy that has no empowering institutions to direct it. I see NEETs on 4chan lamenting marriage as a scam, how they’d never fight for America because there are minorities, and their would-be boss is… not Nazi-approved. Same sort of deal in that the alienated culture can’t have a group of people coming together to build a community center with a library, child care, a cafeteria, a gym, a theater, etc. that makes all the hard work worthwhile. If African Americans got together as a cohesive unit today because they were magically a leftist monolith, Compton would be reduced to rubble by the end of the month.

      Does any of this make sense? Does any of this resonate?

    • someone [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      The exact percentages are different in Canada but the same applies with our First Nations population. A small proportion of the general public, but the racist police regime makes sure they make up a huge proportion of the prison population.

      Did you know that the RCMP’s official motto is “Maintiens le Droit”, which they officially translate as “Uphold the right”? Technically “droit” should have been translated as “law”, but given the average Canadian cop’s political beliefs, it makes one wonder if they prefer the ambiguity as their own dark inside joke.

    • StalinStan [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      There is an element to where opressed people are forced to make bad circumstances. Poor people. Commit more crimes than rich people. If they really care about stopping that crime the only way to prevent it is to give them money.

  • Moss [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    i swear to god at least half of the evangelion fanbase are completely media illiterate. people say shit like “evangelion made me depressed” and “evangelion is a hopeless story”. did you watch the fucking show. do you remember the ending at all. did you miss how the entire point of the finale is about shinji finding self-worth. did you not listen to the bit in end of evangelion where hidieki anno turns to the camera and says “our connections with other people are what make life worth living. intimacy requires vulnerability. its okay to take the risk of being hurt if it means you might make a friend. go outside. touch grass and talk to your loved ones.”

    but nooooo, evangelion is about how depression is impossible to overcome and the only thing to be done is to sexualise teenagers.

  • EstraDoll [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    going to form a “mafia” that’s actually just a LARP club where we have fancy dinner parties and vaguely allude to dastardly crimes we didn’t actually commit

  • Babs [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    Learning Chinese is fun cause every now and then you’ll read something and be like “holy crap how did I read that? I sure didn’t sound it out phonetically!”

    And maybe there’s like 1 or 2 words that you don’t know and that’s enough that you can’t understand the sentence, but you can still read most of the characters that some months ago would just be cool drawings.

    It’s neat.

  • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    YouTube algo is so busted. Recommending me 300 view videos.

    Ikik it’s trying to promote smaller channels but it always ends up being Nazi garbage or AI Content farms.