Talk:Vladimir Lenin

Problems with sources

Wikipedia states:

• Wikipedia articles should use reliable, third-party, published sources. Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand.

This article contains sources that do not conform to Wikipedia's policies. First, Robert Gellately is not a specialist on the history of Russia. Nor is Melgunov's nearly 90-year-old work reliable because he was a politician, not a professional historian. Melgunov, as a member "People's Socialist Party", a right-wing faction of the SR Party, was a politician hostile to the Russian Government. Aleksandr Yakovlev was not a professional historian at an academic institution but was a politician who supported the policies of Yeltsin. Professor Donald Rayfield is a specialist in literature, not history. These sources have to be removed. Examples of reliable sources include work by specialists on Russian history such as Alexander Rabinowitch, Evan Mawdsley, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Diane Koenker, Isaac Mints, G.N. Golikov and others. Kasernewinkt (talk) 18:44, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

First of all, we are quoting Gellately directly from a book he wrote...about Hitler, Stalin, and Lenin. Melgunov's wikipedia article states, and I quote: "Sergei Petrovich Melgunov was a Russian historian, publicist and politician best known for his opposition to the Soviet government." The other sources all seem semi-reliable/questionable at best. "Gellately, Earl Ray Beck Professor of History at Florida State University, claims...Gellately claims" You see, even if Robert Gellately is not a specialist on the history of Russia, that doesn't mean he does not understand the material. He is a historian, and a Professor of History. Look at you or me. We're not specialists, yet we edit Wikipedia to the perspectives that we find correct...albeit those verifiable.Luna Rain^HowL_Cry 02:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

We are not specialists. But there are plenty of people who are, who disagree with Gellately. And plenty who do make their central interest Russian history. If we will follow deference to academia, as you (rightly) suggest, then we must stop quoting Gellately. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.232.247.64 (talk) 08:10, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

The test is the quality of evidence and reasoning deployed, not the professional position of the writer. So Gellately should not be relied on, nor Richard Pipes or Robert Conquest. Signed Will Podmore —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.105.85.214 (talk) 20:03, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Nadezhda Krupskaya

I noticed that on a few occasions in the article mention is made of "Lenin's wife", and there is even a picture with the caption "Lenin and his wife"; but there is no mention whatsoever of her name; Nadezhda Krupskaya. As this article is "semi-protected" would one of the page's dignatories like to correct this ommission? Thanks! --TTKK (talk) 19:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous.

This is an encyclopedia, not a forum for propaganda. Criticism of Lenin is understandable and quite possibly deserved; but no matter what your position on the man and his deeds, sections like the one about the Red Terror are simply absurd. To mention that crimes were committed is fine; to go into lurid and lengthy detail about them smacks of the blandest of propaganda. Mentioning the opinions of anti-communists is also fine; but it has to be taken into consideration that these are not "neutral" sources and cannot make up such a large proportion of the article (neither can those of his defenders). This article reads like it was written by crazy conspiracy theorists, or by Joe McCarthy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.221.56.17 (talk) 17:55, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

You cannot ignore the atrocities which took place, justice to the dead requires that they be explored even if the details are horrifying and sickening —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.160.116.181 (talk) 11:08, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Article title

Is "Vladimir Lenin" the correct title for this article? This is a subjective view, but I don't recall ever hearing or reading of him by this name - it's either "Lenin" or "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin". Can anyone point to sources that say that "Vladimir Lenin" is the WP:COMMONAME for this person? Phil Bridger (talk) 22:11, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I see nobody seems interested in this issue, so if there are no objections in the next couple of days I'll move this article to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Using Google Books searches, which is the best way I could think of for judging the most commonly used name, I find 959 hits without the patronymic and 1435 with. Amongst the sources with the patronymic Ilyich and Ilich are pretty nearly equal, but WP:RUS would suggest using Ilyich. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:35, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

it is my understanding that the pseudonym Lenin did not include a patronymic, and this is a confusion. But in any case, we don't normally use patronymics in article titles; compare Stalin, Pushkin, Tolstoy, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich. Ilyich should be twice avoided; the spelling variation makes the article harder to find and link to. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:57, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Public Perception?

From my readings, I am a little unsure. How was Lenin perceived as a leader from the general public? Had he have been around for much longer (and not died) I believe he would've been like Stalin, however his body was pickled and perserved. My understanding is that he wanted a regular funarel and he is still considered a 'hero' today. Can anyone comment on this and maybe clear it up as I can't find anything that makes this clear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.234.222.217 (talk) 06:14, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, given a choice, the people of what was then Leningrad much preferred the name of St. Petersburg. I would imagine that similar sentiments were across all Russia.  SmokeyTheCat  •TALK• 15:44, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was NO CONSENSUS to move page, per discussion below. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

---

Also refer to previous discussion on the topic above.

• Vladimir Lenin → Vladimir Ilyich Lenin — Most sources either just say "Lenin" or use the patronymic --Phil Bridger (talk) 18:44, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • This move discussion is actually above in the section "Article title", as clearly indicated in the move template at the top of this talk page. Please don't create duplicate discussions that can only lead to confusion. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:45, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
    • Previous discussion noted and link changed. No harm in having the discussion here to keep the talk page in chronological order. — AjaxSmack 02:27, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose for reasons under #article title. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:59, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. First of all, the change would make the article harder to find and to link to (although a good percentage of readers will just type "lenin" and be redirected here). Secondly, the naming convention specifically states that the Russian patronymic is usually not to be included in the article title. Jafeluv (talk) 08:24, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose Only if there were 2 Vladimir Lenins and both of equal notability would we need to move article to include the patrynomic. --Russavia ^Dialogue 09:35, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The Iskra or the Zarya?

I'm a High School student trying to do an essay on Lenin, yet two of my sources contradict each other...

Encyclopedia Britannica states that, after leaving Russia to Germany in 1900 that he began working for the Iskra

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/335881/Vladimir-Ilich-Lenin

However, the American Law Encyclopedia Vol 6 states that he began working for the Zarya

http://law.jrank.org/pages/8215/Lenin-Vladimir-Ilyich.html

I'd like to clear up any confusion here, can someone please enlighten me to which newspaper he did, indeed work on? Wikipedia says the Iskra...and if this is incorrect, I'd like it to be changed.

24.8.128.152 (talk) 00:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Cause of his death was syphilis

The article forgets the cause of Lenin's death.He died of syphilis.Please see these sites: [New York Times] and [[1]] .Agre22 (talk) 19:33, 8 May 2009 (UTC)agre22

Oh, please! The NYT article doesn't even name the Treponema Pallidum correctly. Only a very bad doctor would confuse stroke with syphilis. Man, kids that study medicine these days have a complete disregard for propedeutics depending exclusively on specialized diagnostic procedures. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.105.171.232 (talk) 03:27, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

On popular underwear

A cartoon representation of an iconic image of Lenin's speech appeared on men's underwear manufactured by British fashion retailer Next in 2009. The underwear was recalled after complaints from customers who believed the image depicted Adolf Hitler.^[2] Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 10:58, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

"Bob Ryan"?

The article currently has the mention of one Bob Ryan as the man to whom the assassination attempt gunmen belonged, and also translates Lenin's name at the top of the page as "Bob Ryan". Is there something I don't know, or is this vandalism? Just wanted to make sure, first-time editor here. ~Lexi (talk) 12:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism would be my guess, so I have reverted it.[3] -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 12:53, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Red Terror

I find it odd that the so-called "White Movement" is said to have started the Russian Civil War as the section on the Red Terror currently suggests. As the "Whites" were defending the "status quo" and the "traditional" form of Russian government and state, surely the Civil War and the Revolution cannot be distinguished. They are one and the same. The Revolution thus began the Civil War in and of itself, and the "White Movement" was only a reaction (hence, "reactionary") to the Revolution (Kornilov vs Kerensky and then a larger movement against the Bolsheviks). Therefore, I am going to edit this sentence unless someone advances a compelling reason not to: "In 1918, the White Movement started the Russian Civil War against the newly created Russian SFSR." I would replace it with: "In 1918, anti-Bolshevik forces consolidated and began to take military and political action against the revolutionary regime." Also, there must absolutely be a cite (non-Bolshevik) that suggests that the Red Terror was in fact a reaction to the White Terror (who would have thought the Bolsheviks were also reactionaries?) or I will remove it.99.240.139.189 (talk) 23:14, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Have consolidated these threads, it seems to be the major action item on the article. Please use proper formatting. Lycurgus (talk) 10:28, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Red Terror too long

The section is too long and goes back and forth. It should be summarized and reduced in length. Biographies about Lenin do not devote one-fifth of the content to a period in 1918 spanning a few months. Kasernewinkt (talk) 00:33, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Rather than reverting it 6 times, why don't you wait until a discussion has began. You can't just revert things because of your opinion. Get some other editorial support. By the way, for breaking 3RR, expect to be banned. Luna Rain^HowL_Cry 01:42, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree it's too long. Let's create a draft here. Brown99 (talk) 04:55, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

After the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, Anti-Communist grouped themselves loosely into the 'White Movement'. In 1918, the White Movement started the Russian Civil War against the newly created Russian SFSR. The mass arrests and summary executions carried out by the White Movement became known as the White Terror. The Red Terror was claimed to be introduced in reply to White Terror. Following the assassination attempt on Lenin and the successful assassination of Petrograd chief of secret police Moisei Uritsky, Stalin, in a telegram argued that a policy of “open and systematic mass terror” be instigated against “those responsible”. The other Bolsheviks agreed, and instructed Felix Dzerzhinsky, whom Lenin had appointed to head the Cheka in 1917, to commence a “Red Terror”, which was officially announced to the public on 1 September 1918, by the Bolshevik newspaper, Krasnaya Gazeta. According to Christopher Read, at this time, due to the assassination attempt by Kaplan, Lenin was lying severely wounded in the hospital and was too ill to advise retaliatory measures. But, according to MI5's official historian at the University of Cambridge, Christopher Andrew, and Richard Pipes, while recovering from his wounds, Lenin instructed: "It is necessary - secretly and urgently to prepare the terror." According to Pipes, Lenin's Hanging Order, which was translated and published by Robert Service Professor of history at Oxford and an outspoken anti-communist, claims that Lenin himself ordered terror on 11 August 1918, before he was fired on.

Lenin remained an advocate of red terror, according to Richard Pipes. In a letter of 19 March 1922, to Molotov and the members of the Politburo, following an uprising by the clergy in the town of Shuia, Lenin outlined a brutal plan of action against the clergy and their followers, who were defying the government decree to remove church valuables: “We must (…) put down all resistance with such brutality that they will not forget it for several decades. (…) The greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeoisie we succeed in executing (…) the better.” Estimates of the numbers of the clergy killed vary. According to Orlando Figes and The Black Book of Communism, 2,691 priests, 1,962 monks and 3,447 nuns were executed as a result of Lenin's aforementioned directives. Historian Christopher Read estimates from the records that a grand total of 1,023 clergy were killed in the whole period 1917-23. However, the late Alexander Yakovlev, the architect of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) and later head of the Presidential Committee for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression, cites documents that confirm nearly 3,000 were shot in 1918 alone. Yakovlev stated that Lenin was "By every norm of international law, posthumously indictable for crimes against humanity."

During the Civil War, atrocities were carried out by both Reds and Whites. According to historian Christopher Read the numbers killed by the White forces were on a comparable scale to the Bolsheviks and can probably be numbered in hundreds of thousands. For instance, the Whites killed 115,000 Ukrainian Jews in 1919 alone. But, according to The Black Book of Communism, the two types of terror were not on the same level. The Red Terror, which was official policy, was more systematic, better organized, and targeted at whole social classes (i.e. Decossackization). The White Terror was never systematized in such a fashion, and was almost invariably the work of detachments that were taking measures not authorized by the military command. Professor Donald Rayfield asserts that only Roman Ungern von Sternberg, Nestor Makhno and some Cossack forces employed terror on a scale comparable to the Red Terror. However, according to historian Evan Mawdsley, the White general Anton Denikin "deserves criticism" for not fully condemning anti-Jewish pogroms. According to Lenin critic Robert Conquest, "Lenin's terror was the product of years of war and violence, of the collapse of society and administration, of the desperate acts of rulers precariously riding the flood, and fighting for control and survival. Stalin, on the contrary, attained complete control at a time when general conditions were calm." The late Australian historian and leftist intellectual Manning Clark described Lenin as "Christ-like, at least in his compassion." Some of Lenin's own writings tend to contradict this view; like in "How to Organize the Competition," which proclaimed the common, united purpose of purging the Russian land of all kinds of "vermin, of fleas—the rogues, of bugs—the rich, and so on" and that "one out of every ten idlers will be shot on the spot." Christopher Hitchens, a former Trotskyite, also describes Lenin as "a great man." According to Hitchens: "One of Lenin's great achievements, in my opinion, is to create a secular Russia. The power of the Russian Orthodox Church, which was an absolute warren of backwardness and evil and superstition, is probably never going to recover from what he did to it." Some social democratic Marxists from Lenin's time, such as Yuliy Osipovich Martov and Karl Kautsky, were highly critical of his regime's use of capital punishment, which Kautsky described as "terrorism". Russian Provisional Government minister Viktor Chernov described Lenin as "a virtual Robespierre."

Red Terror

I note that the subsection on Red Terror includes the following:

"Some of Lenin's own writings tend to contradict this view; like in "How to Organize the Competition," which proclaimed the common, united purpose of purging the Russian land of all kinds of "vermin, of fleas—the rogues, of bugs—the rich, and so on" and that "one out of every ten idlers will be shot on the spot.

Lenin did not publish this. In fact, it was first circulated by Stalin in 1929–five years after Lenin's death–as a justification for the forthcoming terror that would be instituted under Stalin. Robert C. Tucker, who is not at all sympathetic to Bolshevism, even admits that in all likelihood Lenin had very different second thoughts after rereading the article. In all likelihood, the passage has no bearing on Red Terror.

Anybody may see the text of Tucker's book at

http://books.google.com/books?id=L9pcTIEP1OQC&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=Lenin+idlers+shot&source=bl&ots=Z0JdBidZ92&sig=hMLJDNv7Rm5QRZZ69QV1Bb7fQJk&hl=en&ei=wKXdSeTuNZKimAeu8NikDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3#PPA90,M1

If not, simply enter the phrase

Lenin idlers shot

into Google; the third hit I got was the Tucker excerpt. For convenience's sake, I shall reproduce Tucker's writing right here:

Another document that proved useful was "How to Organize

Competition," an essay written by Lenin in January 1918 and withheld from publication. It appeared in Pravda on 20 January 1929 under the title "Lenin--Banner of the Millions," sharing space that day with Krupskaya's "Ilyich and Kolkhoz Construction.
In one part of this previously unpublished article, Lenin launched into a tirade against "the rich and their hangers-on, and the crooks, the idlers, and the hooligans" and those described as "these dregs of humanity, these hopelessly decayed and atrophied limbs, this contagion, this plague, this ulcer that socialism has inherited from capitalism." He went on: "No mercy to these enemies of the people, the enemies of socialism, the enemies of the toilers! War to the bitter end to the rich and their hangers-on, the bourgeois intellectuals; war on the rogues, the idlers, the hooligans!" As for the way to wage the war, and "to cleanse the land of Russia of all sorts of harmful insects, of the flea-crooks and bedbug-rich, and so on and forth," Lenin had these thoughts to offer: "In one place half a score of the rich, a dozen crooks, half a dozen workers who shirk their work (in the hooligan manner in which compositors in Petrograd, particularly in the party printing shops, shirk their work) will be put in prison. In another place they will be put to cleaning latrines. In a third place they will be provided with 'yellow tickets' after they have served their time, so that all the people shall have them under surveillance, as harmful persons, until they reform. In a fourth place, one out of every ten idlers will be shot on the spot." After appearing in Pravda and other soviet [sic] papers, this short essay was put out as a pamphlet with a circulation of 3.5 million copies.
Why Lenin chose to whithold it from publication is unknown. Krupskaya's much later statement in her memoirs that he did so b ecause he considered it "unfinished" is not convincing; it is as finished as other quickly written pieces that he did publish. Conceivably, he himself was taken aback by its extremism when he reread it on returning from

the brief vacation in Finland during which he wrote the essay.

--Robert C. Tucker, Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928-1941. W. W. Norton & Company, 1992 ISBN 0393308693, ISBN 9780393308693. Pp. 89-90; emphasis mine.

Since I am not one of the elect Wikipedians charged with disseminating enlightenment on all subjects, I myself am rendered it incapable of editing the article. I would appreciate, however, if somebody "nuanced out" what is presently written with the addition of Tucker's highly important commentary on this issue.

Even Andrzej Walicki, in Marxism and the Leap to the Kingdom of Freedom (Stanford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0804731640, ISBN 9780804731645. P. 307.), throughly condemning Lenin and Leninist policy, is forced to admit as much:

True, the article containing these practical recommendations never appeared in print

http://books.google.com/books?id=NgZ6vitEjq4C&pg=PA307&lpg=PA307&dq=Lenin+idlers+shot&source=bl&ots=R_5B1_CyEG&sig=nv2pUnfZVREJGtDM3pGzclOkzdg&hl=en&ei=wKXdSeTuNZKimAeu8NikDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9

166.217.251.170 (talk) 09:37, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

• This is described in all textbooks. The orders by Lenin were send as secret ;etters/telegrams to Bolshevik regional authorities and Cheka. It was only much later that the original texts became public. Stalin cited a few of Lenin's letters to justiy the terror and to prove that he was a good follower of Lenin (and in fact he was).Biophys (talk) 14:52, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Biophys, given the POV advocated in your contributions, you're going to need a source for that. If you have references for the idea that Lenin sent out the same words as those in "Competition" in secret telegrams, we'll accept them. PasswordUsername (talk) 17:13, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Almost any good Western books on the subject tell about secret telegrams by Lenin (like Lenin's Hanging Order): "Black book of Communism" by European historians, "Russia under Bolshevik regime" by Pipes, books by Robert Conquest, books by many Russian historians like Edvard Radzinsky, and so on.Biophys (talk) 03:35, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

• Biophys, I think you'll find that every source you've listed here should be treated with extreme scrutiny given the explicitly Anti-Communist leaning of their authors. Not only are the authors mentioned here embroiled in academic controversies for these works(with the exception Black Book of Communism, which is almost laughable from a scholarly point of view) these sources are sensationalist histories, intended either to entertain or discredit the Soviet system (Conquest, for instance, received grants from the CIA*) the impartiality of these studies deserves questioning.
  

[*]http://www.cambridgeclarion.org/e/fo_deceit_unit_graun_27jan1978.html

OK, a completely different order, one which is not known to have been actually carried out in actual fact. I find it interesting that of all the books out there you choose to cite a British intelligence agent and a TV host to carry across your point. PasswordUsername (talk) 07:48, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

My suggestion is that this § become an article in its own right or have much of its content moved to an existing one if it already exists. Then this section can refer to that article and concentrate on Lenin's role. Please use proper indentation, this thread is very hard to follow. Lycurgus (talk) 10:07, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

It turns out there is already a Red Terror. Have added the main link to the § and will perform edit to focus the § on the subject of this article if no one else does. Lycurgus (talk) 11:04, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

A posthumously published article which never appeared in Lenin's lifetime is irrelevant and should not be discussed at length. It will be removed per undue weight. Srazin (talk) 21:03, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

You (Srazin) are a banned vandal therefore your opinion is irrelevant. Your latest sockpuppet account will be banned soon enough. But I concur with others here that the Red Terror section is too long. I propose deleting the entire last paragraph.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 21:48, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

White Anti-Semitic Terror

Anyone have any thoughts about this sentence: "For instance, the Whites killed 115,000 Ukrainian Jews in 1919 alone.[79]" (Reed, 2005) Does anyone have Reed's book and can they check the citation? I understand that the Whites were absolutely vicious when it came to the Jewish population but does the mention of "Whites" in this context include Ukrainian nationalists and irregulars, who, while perhaps considered "Whites" by the Bolsheviks, were at various times fighting Germans, Poles, "Whites" proper (e.g. Russians) and Bolsheviks? E.g. I note that the Symon Petliura notes that Ukrainian nationalist pogroms claimed tens of thousands of Jewish lives: "the number of Jews killed during the period is estimated to be between 35 and 50 thousand." Similarly, are some Polish anti-Jewish atrocities being attributed to the "Whites"? 99.240.139.189 (talk) 09:13, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

"Religion" entry in infobox

I don't quite know what's behind User:DR2006kl's objection to the infobox "Religion" entry of "None (Atheist)". It's beyond doubt that Lenin was an atheist – I've provided a single citation from a reliable source to support that, and can find dozens more, if necessary – and also beyond doubt that atheism is not a religion. I read the entry as saying "Lenin did not have a religion, however he was an atheist" or "Lenin did not practice a religion, the reason being his atheism." In other words, "Atheist" is not being supplied as an answer to "Religion", but as a further explanation of why Lenin had no religion. That's how I read it, and I don't see anything wrong with that -- however DR2006kl obviously does, so I've invited him here to explain what his objection is. (I don't think DR's last version, piping to "Atheism" with a display of "None", is a particularly good compromise, since it hides the fact of the matter where it's only seen by someone curious enough to click the link.) Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 11:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

No answer from this editor for over 48 hours. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 18:18, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Technically, Atheism doesn't imply a lack of religion, just a lack of belief in god (and usually as in Chinese society, demons, ghosts, and the supernatural in general). Buddhism (Theravada at any rate) and others are, essentially, atheistic in this sense. So probably the matter of fact, if the highest standards of language usage were in effect would be simply "None". However the thing that caught my attention about this is how you seem to have squatted this article setting this 48 hr. and other various rules which you have made yourself the enforcer of. Editors are not paid here and so your setting a time period for them to respond and two days at that is curious. Just make the change if it's justified and if there's likely to be contention and a time period for response is to be set, unless the subject matter calls for urgency, at least "several" days is appropriate. Lycurgus (talk) 19:48, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting interpretation. Let's see how it sounds expressed another way: I made an attempt to resolve a conflict, which was not responded to, so after waiting more than a reasonable amount of time, I went ahead and restored the prior status of the article, before the editor began fooling around with it. Seems pretty reasonable to me. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 20:12, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, wait - I remember you now... You're the editor who called me a "stupid asshole" (twice! - once in quasi-German) and then admitted on your talk page that you really didn't know if I was a stupid asshole or not! Have you taken to following me around, or something? Got nothing better to do with your precious volunteer time? Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 21:43, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

|:) Always have tiem for the crusty ole skanks klub. Lycurgus (talk) 01:43, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Atheism is not a religion. Hence, it cannot be an answer to the religion question. Besides, there is no evidence that Lenin was atheist and not nontheist, for example. Finally, Lenin was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church, hence he was Christian for at least part of his life. None with a reference to atheism may be fine but I have to think about the issue first. DR2006kl (talk) 09:52, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Well for the purposes of these fora, what a religion is is defined by en.wikipedia.org categories. Since Secular Humanism is not in one of these and furthermore a lot of processing about what constitutes a Religion value in the template not being a good, crusty #1's adjudication should probably stand. Lycurgus (talk) 17:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Whoe started Civil War?

I prefer "In 1918, fighting erupted between the White Movement and the revolutionary regime, the newly created Russian SFSR" to "If In 1918, the White Movement started the Russian Civil War against the newly created Russian SFSR". The former states a fact, the latter is an opinion. One can equally blame reds for disbanding constitutional assembly and therefore starting a civil war. DR2006kl (talk) 09:13, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

According to Lenin in November 1917 [4]

The civil war was started by a handful of men. It is not over. Kaledin’s troops are approaching Moscow, and the shock troops are approaching Petrograd. We do not want a civil war. Our troops have shown great restraint. They held their fire, and it all began when three of our men were killed. Krasnov was given soft treatment. He was only placed under house arrest. We are against civil war. But if it nevertheless goes on what are we to do?

Srazin (talk) 21:06, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Trotsky, Lenin and Kamenev at the II Party Congress in 1919

The incription underr the picture says Trotsky, Lenin and Kamenev at the II Party Congress in 1919. In fact the 2nd congress was long bfore 1919.--79.111.130.49 (talk) 10:51, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

What does this mean?

"...popularized Kautsky's take". Despite being English myself, I don't understand what this combination of words means. Could someone who does understand it please rephrase it? APW (talk) 07:57, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm under the impression that it simply means: popularized Kautsky's perspective. But I'm not even English.--Pedro magalhaes86 (talk) 20:47, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Adoption of the name

When did Vladimir Ulyanov start using the name Lenin? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.198.250.66 (talk) 17:43, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Last photo of Lenin

The alleged last photo of Lenin is incredibly dubious. I mean, the guy was paralysed, he couldn't face the camera like that or even stand straight like that, and the photo doesn't resemble him at all. It looks like a Chinese guy in a pyjama. Also, there is no information concerning the author of such photograph. It strikes me as false. --Pedro magalhaes86 (talk) 20:40, 8 September 2009 (UTC)