Changes

In October 1917, Lenin masterminded a [[coup d'état]] which overthrew the [[Provisional Government]] which had replaced the [[Russian Empire]]. In what historian [[Simon Sebag Montefiore]] has described as a comedy of errors, the Winter Palace was shelled and the Provisional Cabinet was placed under arrest by a mixture of Red Guards and radical sailors from the Kronstadt Naval Base.  

In October 1917, Lenin masterminded a [[coup d'état]] which overthrew the [[Provisional Government]] which had replaced the [[Russian Empire]]. In what historian [[Simon Sebag Montefiore]] has described as a comedy of errors, the Winter Palace was shelled and the Provisional Cabinet was placed under arrest by a mixture of Red Guards and radical sailors from the Kronstadt Naval Base.  

==Dictator==

==Dictator==

Lenin ruled the [[Soviet Union]] under Marxism-Leninism, until 1922, when he had a debilitating stroke and retired.   

Lenin ruled the [[Soviet Union]] under Marxism–Leninism, until 1922, when he had a debilitating stroke and retired.   

{{Cquote|A wide campaign of "education" was undertaken to show the people why "workers' rule" meant, in practice, [[Nomenklatura|managers]]' rule. Where necessary, the education by the word was supplemented with education by [[firing squad]] or [[concentration camp]] or forced labour battalion.<ref>James Burnham, ''The Managerial Revolution'', (1940).</ref> }}

{{Cquote|A wide campaign of "education" was undertaken to show the people why "workers' rule" meant, in practice, [[Nomenklatura|managers]]' rule. Where necessary, the education by the word was supplemented with education by [[firing squad]] or [[concentration camp]] or forced labour battalion.<ref>James Burnham, ''The Managerial Revolution'', (1940).</ref> }}

==Leninism as a religion==

==Leninism as a religion==

Lenin's utopian design of a revolutionary community of virtuosi was a typical political religion of an intelligentsia longing for an inner-worldly salvation, a socialist paradise without exploitation and alienation, to be implanted in the backward Russian society at the outskirts of the industrialized and modernized Western Europe. The Russian Revolution of October 1917 accomplished the institutionalization of a political religion combining a political and sacral monopoly of power and belief. Consequently, the Leninist policy of social extermination of political opponents, ideological rivals, and stigmatized social classes became a sacral obligation to be fulfilled by the new ideological orthodoxy. The beginning iconography of a Leninist sacral tradition praised Lenin as a messianic and numinous leader. This process of iconographic work in progress culminated after Lenin's death in the sacral Lenin cult. The Lenin mausoleum served as the monumental centerpiece of sacral rites and practices to be enacted by the Stalinist orthodoxy. Joseph Stalin's invention of a sacral tradition of Marxism-Leninism qualified him as the only true disciple of Lenin. Therefore, Stalin claimed the monopoly of the infallible interpretation of the holy scriptures, summarized in his own dogmatic performances. In this sense, Stalin's Leninism became itself the religion of the Soviet state.<ref>Klaus-Georg Riegel, "Marxism-Leninism as a Political Religion," ''Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions'' 2005 6(1): 97-126 in [[EBSCO]]</ref>

Lenin's utopian design of a revolutionary community of virtuosi was a typical political religion of an intelligentsia longing for an inner-worldly salvation, a socialist paradise without exploitation and alienation, to be implanted in the backward Russian society at the outskirts of the industrialized and modernized Western Europe. The Russian Revolution of October 1917 accomplished the institutionalization of a political religion combining a political and sacral monopoly of power and belief. Consequently, the Leninist policy of social extermination of political opponents, ideological rivals, and stigmatized social classes became a sacral obligation to be fulfilled by the new ideological orthodoxy. The beginning iconography of a Leninist sacral tradition praised Lenin as a messianic and numinous leader. This process of iconographic work in progress culminated after Lenin's death in the sacral Lenin cult. The Lenin mausoleum served as the monumental centerpiece of sacral rites and practices to be enacted by the Stalinist orthodoxy. Joseph Stalin's invention of a sacral tradition of Marxism–Leninism qualified him as the only true disciple of Lenin. Therefore, Stalin claimed the monopoly of the infallible interpretation of the holy scriptures, summarized in his own dogmatic performances. In this sense, Stalin's Leninism became itself the religion of the Soviet state.<ref>Klaus-Georg Riegel, "Marxism-Leninism as a Political Religion," ''Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions'' 2005 6(1): 97-126 in [[EBSCO]]</ref>

==Image and memory==

==Image and memory==