Putin denounces Soviet founder Lenin

[bemildred]

Source: AP

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticized Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin for placing a “time bomb” under the state, and denounced brutal repressions by the Bolshevik government.

The harsh criticism of Lenin, who is still revered by communists and many others in Russia, is unusual for Putin, who in the past carefully weighed his comments about the nation’s history to avoid alienating some voters.

Putin’s assessment of Lenin’s role in Russian history during Monday’s meeting with pro-Kremlin activists in the southern city of Stavropol was markedly more negative than in the past.

He denounced Lenin and his government for brutally executing Russia’s last czar along with all his family and servants, killing thousands of priests and placing a “time bomb” under the Russian state by drawing administrative borders along ethnic lines.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/putin-denounces-soviet-founder-lenin/2016/01/25/72ca5e64-c37d-11e5-b933-31c93021392a_story.html

[Proserpina]

1. Interesting. Thanks for the post!

[bemildred]

2. Very. You're welcome. nt

[thereismore]

3. He's right in this respect. nt

[Hortensis]

4. Funny. Putin's an authoritarian right-winger by personality,

busily accumulating more wealth and power than any Czar or Patriarch ever had/ but conservative Russisans are doing what conservatives do -- revering the past -- and are thus nostalgic for the authoritarian but "left-wing" communism of the glory-days of the Soviet Union. So, sure Putin's been careful not to alienate his own conservative base by kicking over their collectivist-oligarchy idols.

Until now. I'm guessing nostalgia's probably dying off fast, in the literal sense.

[elias49]

7. Ha! That's a mouthful!

Not sure it's digestible, but it seemed very scholarly!

[bemildred]

9. It's not really different.

Except he is going after Lenin some, but he has been doing religious nationalist for some time now, so no surprise.

He's already gone after Stalin. The New Caesar comments on his predecessors, who can't talk back.

However I think he does have a point, police states never last. If you want to rule for a long time, you must rule by consent. That was Lenin's big mistake. Totalitarianism does not work for very long, too expensive, too inefficient, can't keep up.

[Hortensis]

15. Probably. His religious nationalist targets

would have a very large overlap with nostalgic conservatives. Likely majority of those would also be social and/or religious conservatives, after all, and the rest economic conservatives with their own overlap.

[bemildred]

17. Yep. He knows his audience, he is one of them.

Big Man politics doesn't change much anywhere you go, either.

It is worth remembering here that Putin is NOT a communist, he is an oligarch, and Communism is in much better repute in Russia than it was 20 years ago, so he may well just be fending off people who want to go back to what they had before. Private property is just fine by Putin, he has some too.

[elias49]

29. Vladimir Putin is an interesting man -

Some of the folks that are fond of demonizing the man every time his name appears should read a little about him on Wikipedia (Not the be-all and end-all of current information, but generally worth a look!)
The man is no fool. On the contrary he's a pretty accomplished and well-educated guy. He has done some very good things for Russia, economically and politically, if anyone is open-minded enough to spend a half-hour reading about his career.
Just saying...
and please spare me the "Putinista" stuff. It means nothing to me.

[bemildred]

31. Granted. nt

[uhnope]

33. how interesting is getting beaten to death by a neo-nazi death squad approved by Putin's Kremlin

"interesting", right?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

10. given his mutual admiration society which includes Trump,

maybe he is trying to rehab his repulsi...reputation so he and President Trump can party.

[dawn frenzy adams]

25. Indeed.

The deification of royal families can not be a good sign for a democracy. It makes no sense in 2016 that there is such thing as a monarchy or that these bloodlines should be revered. Sorry, but I think that queen and her lot in England should be tossed out. Monarchies presided over feudalism, one step above slavery. I am not a fan.

[Hortensis]

27. Well, I do feel the Windsor family is far, far, far

too wealthy for decency. That said, people do like stability and tradition, so some British want to keep them, some to dethrone them but somehow keep some parades. Whatever. Fortunately, not on my own list of things I need to vote on.

[Proserpina]

30. Says who?

Got any proof?

[Herman4747]

5. Unlike Putin, Lenin was "The ends justify the means"...

...whereas Putin is "I am the ends!"

[Brickbat]

6. Here we go.

[MisterP]

8. the USSR took a lot more from HG Wells than from Engels

even the anticlericalism was ultimately from a stuffy Englishman's prejudices than the Orthodox's role under the Tsars or Marx's (curiously ambiguous) declarations on its role

[bemildred]

11. Lenin in Zurich Paperback – May, 1976 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 starsMeet Lenin, a man with a grudge
By Turbomotive on October 15, 2011
Format: Paperback

This is a hugely underrated book that deserves greater attention. Solzhenitsyn gets novelistically into the mind of Lenin, including his relationships with Swiss communists and other politicians, with the Russian emigre community, and his fellow Bolsheviks - key characters like Parvus whom history has now forgotten, and most of whom, were destined to be purged by "Koba" (Stalin). It is conveniently bracketed between the outbreak of WWI and Lenin's departure by sealed train to unleash the Bolshevik reolution on Russia. One gets to admire Lenin's firmness of mind and purpose, but he is not a sympathetic character, a tyrant in his household, contemptuous of dissent, and a despiser of democratic bourgeois Switzerland, which he tries vainly to overthrow. A glossary in the back makes all the characters clear. As an impressionistic attempt to portray Bolsheviks on the cusp of power, Solzhenitsyn drives the narrative with a good deal of irony and humour.

http://www.amazon.com/Lenin-Zurich-Alexander-Solzhenitsyn/dp/0809604825

Maybe Putin has been reading Solzhenitsyn.

[FLPanhandle]

12. How long before St. Petersburg is renamed yet again?

Leningrad....Stalingrad...Putingrad?

[eggplant]

19. Undergrad.

[NaturalHigh]

13. There's something I didn't expect to see.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. Why did I picture Putin doing a Trump impression?

"Lenin? Total loser. No, really. A total lightweight. He should have offered a better deal."

[olddad56]

16. I think the key word is the borders. I think Putin wants to abolish the borders.

and be one big unhappy USSR again.

[Crowman1979]

18. Actually, Putin is a monarchist.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/586470/Russia-royal-family-Vladimir-Putin-reinstate-Tsar-Nicholas-Second-Romanov

Imagine the chaos that will erupts once the Romanov's are brought back into the Russia.

[bemildred]

20. Yeah, he wants to be Britain, I think that's about right.

Managed democracy with a symbolic figurehead to unify the masses.

[former9thward]

21. Putin's grandfather was a chef who cooked for Lenin and Stalin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin#CITEREFSakwa2008

[bemildred]

22. +1.

Interesting.

[Monk06]

35. Both of them believed to have been poisoned Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

[former9thward]

38. I wasn't going to go that far.

But I was thinking it.

[vinny9698]

23. Russian TV Drama Documentary about WWI, WWII, from Russian perspective on YouTube

In the series about WWI, it is very critical of Lenin. Signing a peace treaty with Germany, which had very favorable terms to Germany. All for keeping his Bolksves in power. Gave away a lot of Russian land, with factories, skilled labor, in-fracture, farms,

This episode 5, but you need to watch the whole series to get a true sense of WW1.
The Russians had troops on the Western front. That Zuchko, the Soviet general who captured Berlin, was a soldier on the Western Front.

[uhnope]

34. cool thx nt

[Kaleva]

24. Another grave dancing thread here on DU

Sad

[Kennah]

26. He was just back from riding bear

[DonCoquixote]

28. I thought this was the Onion

The Soviet union really is dead.

[bemildred]

32. Yep.

I spent some time trying to figure out what he was up to (Putin), but after a while I decided it was not that big a deal, as I said, it's not really new.

And yes, the USSR is no more and its not coming back, an analogy with the Ottomans or the British comes to mind, the nation is still there, the empire is gone.

[uhnope]

36. yes but tell that to Pussy Riot., Litvinenko, and the nation of Ukraine

[bemildred]

37. I'll bring it up next time I see them. nt