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Fascism

2009-12-27T20:09:50Z

Jindal20120:

'''Fascism''' is a [[totalitarian]] economic and political ideology that arose in early twentieth-century Europe and came to dominate the social and political systems of Italy under Benito Mussolini and Germany under Adolf Hitler. It was influential in Portugal as well, and had followers in most European countries. The last fascism regime, that of [[Francisco Franco]] in Spain, came to an end in 1975.

The name "fascism" derives from an ancient Roman symbol, the ''[[fasces]],'' a group of birch rods bundled together with an axe. It symbolizes strength in unity; the rods are weak by themselves but strong when bundled together. Historian [[Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.]] has stated, "The Fascists were not conservative in any very meaningful sense. They did not wish to preserve the existing order, or even to turn back the clock to some more stable century. They purposefully planned to transform the existing order into a new and all-absorbing authoritarianism, based upon the energies and frustrations of modern industrialism. The Fascists, in a meaningful sense, were [[Revolution|revolutionaries]]."<ref>[http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schlesinger-notrightleft.html Not Right, Not Left, But a Vital Center], [[Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.]], ''New York Times Magazine'', April 4, 1948.</ref> Facism can best be described as extreme centrism.

== Beliefs ==
Fascists believe that all actions should be done for the good of the state (rather than [[classical liberalism]], which focuses on the good of the individual). It ignores or rejects Christianity. This definition expands to economic policy as well, with government and business working together for this end - this is called "corporatism." Modern "public-private partnerships" have their roots in corporatism, though they are not necessarily oppressive.

Characteristics of fascism include a belief that the state is more important than the individual; a leaning towards authoritarian government and centralized [[economic planning]]; an emphasis on [[nationalism]] and national traditions; militarism; information control and censorship; media propagation of the Great Leader which demonizes and trivializes his critics; and a rejection of both free enterprise and [[Social democracy]] in favor of [[corporatism|corporatist]] economic policies.

Fascist regimes have often concentrated on a "scapegoat" to push their agendas, such as Nazi attack on the [[Jewish|Jews]] after 1920.

The characteristics of fascism also include rampant [[cronyism]] and [[corruption]], as well as rigged elections and a general disdain for human rights.<ref>Dr. Lawrence Britt "Fascism Anyone?," Free Inquiry, Spring 2003, page 20</ref>

== Examples ==

The prototypical fascist regime was that of [[Benito Mussolini]], who ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943. Other regimes which included corporatist elements are those of [[Francisco Franco]] in Spain (1936-1975) and [[Antonio Salazar]] in Portugal (1932-1968). German [[Nazism]] referred to government mandated corporatist entities as industrial cartels and added an obsession with [[race]]. Austrian economist [[Friedrich Hayek]] observed in the final stages of [[World War II]], "the rise of fascism and [[Marxism]] was not a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period but a necessary outcome of those tendencies. Yet it is significant that many of the leaders of these movements, from Mussolini down (and including [[Laval]] and [[Quisling]]) began as socialists and ended as fascists or Nazis. <ref>Friedrich A. Hayek, [http://www.iea.org.uk/files/upld-publication43pdf?.pdf ''Road to Serfdom'',] Reader's Digest Condensed Version, April 1945, pg. 31 - 32.</ref>

==Inspiration for the New Deal==
:''Main article: '''[[New Deal]]'''''

Italian Premier [[Benito Mussolini]] was convinced that the [[New Deal]] was copying Fascist economic policies.<ref>Stanley G. Payne, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=NLiFIEdI1V4C A History of Fascism, 1914-1945]’’ (University of Wisconsin Press, 1996) ISBN 0299148742, p. 230</ref> Nazi Minister of Economics [[Hjalmar Schacht]] declared that President [[Franklin Roosevelt]] had the same economic idea as [[Hitler]] and Mussolini;<ref> William E. Leuchtenburg, ‘’[http://ia311511.us.archive.org/3/items/franklindrooseve006302mbp/franklindrooseve006302mbp.pdf Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal]’’ (Harper & Row, 1963), p. 203</ref> the official Nazi Party organ, ''Völkischer Beobachter'', applauded “Roosevelt’s adoption of [[National Socialist]] strains of thought in his economic and social policies.”<ref> Wolfgang Schivelbusch, ‘’[http://books.google.com/books?id=Z3GV5_n1h04C Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939]’’ (Macmillan, 2006) ISBN 080507452X, p. 19</ref> Hitler expressed admiration for FDR’s approach, saying, “I have <ref>[http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20716F839591A728DDDA90994DF405B838FF1D3],</ref> sympathy with President Roosevelt because he marches straight toward his objective over Congress, over lobbies, over stubborn bureaucracies.” FDR's Secretary of the Interior [[Harold L. Ickes|Harold Ickes]] conceded that “what we were doing in this country were some of the things that were being done in Russia and even some of the things that were being <ref>[http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1502/article_detail.asp done under Hitler]</ref> in Germany. But we were doing them in an orderly way.”

The Italian Fascist Party program, first promulgated in 1919, demanded “Suppression of incorporated joint-stock companies, industrial or financial. Suppression of all speculation by banks and stock exchanges,” and “Control and taxation of private wealth. Confiscation of unproductive income.”<ref> Count Carlo Sforza,’’[http://books.google.com/books?id=5a0EHPh-X-YC Contemporary Italy - Its Intellectual and Moral Origins] (Read Books, 2007) ISBN 1406760307), pp. 295-296</ref> The Fascists called this economic system ''corporativismo'' (corporativism). As UCLA international relations and political science professor Herbert Steiner observed in 1938, “So substantial are the limitations under which private property and capital are exercised in Italy, that the conception of ‘capitalism’ is avowedly destroyed and replaced by ''corporativismo''.”<ref> H. Arthur Steiner, ‘’[http://books.google.com/books?id=1LqtuYl43dwC Government in Fascist Italy]’’ (McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1938), p. 92</ref>

===National Recovery Administration===
:''Main article: '''[[National Recovery Administration]]'''
The centerpiece of the New Deal was the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933, which was “similar to experiments being carried out by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in Italy and by the Nazis in Adolf Hitler's Germany,” according to John A. Garraty, <ref>[http://sah.columbia.edu/about/history.html past president]</ref> of the Society of American Historians.<ref> John Arthur Garraty, ‘’[http://books.google.com/books?id=DGRuAAAAMAAJ The American Nation]’’, 4th ed., vol. 2 (Harper & Row, 1979) ISBN 0060422696, p. 656</ref> NIRA established the [[National Recovery Administration]] (NRA), “the New Deal’s attempt to bring to America the substance of Mussolini’s corporativism.”<ref>Leonard Peikoff, ‘’[http://books.google.com/books?id=2_xpAAAAIAAJ The Ominous Parallels]’’ (Stein and Day, 1982) ISBN 081282850X, p. 293</ref> As one NRA study concluded, “The Fascist principles are very similar to those which have been evolving in America and so are of particular interest at this time.”<ref>Janet C. Wright, "Capital and Labor Under Fascism," National Archives, Record Group 9, Records of the National Recovery Administration,[http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/009.html#9.2.4 Special Research and Planning Reports and Memoranda, 1933-35], Entry 31, Box 3</ref>

Just as Mussolini “organized each trade or industrial group or professional group into a state supervised trade association” that “operated under state supervision and could plan production, quality, prices, distribution, labor standards, etc.,”<ref> John T. Flynn, ‘’[http://mises.org/books/rooseveltmyth.pdf The Roosevelt Myth]’’ (The Devin-Adair Company, 1948) pp. 42-43</ref> the NRA “forced virtually all American industry, manufacturing, and retail business into cartels possessing the power to set prices and wages, and to <ref>[http://www.fee.org/pdf/the-freeman/1005RMEColumn.pdf]</ref> dictate the levels of production.”

U.S. Ambassador to Italy Breckinridge Long wrote to Roosevelt’s economic advisor [[Rexford Tugwell]], “Your mind runs along these lines [corporativism]… It may have some bearing on the code work under N.R.A.”<ref>Long to Tugwell, May 16, 1934, [http://lccn.loc.gov/mm%2078030502 Breckinridge Long Papers], Box 111, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress)</ref> Tugwell, the “most prominent of the Brain Trusters and the man often considered the chief ideologist<ref>[http://www.fff.org/freedom/0201e.asp FDR — The Man, the Leader, the Legacy], Part 11
by Ralph Raico, Future of Freedom Foundation, February 2001. </ref> of the ‘first New Deal’ (roughly, 1933–34),” said, “I find Italy doing many of the things which seem to me necessary…. Mussolini certainly has the same people opposed to him as FDR has. But he has the press controlled so that they cannot scream lies at him daily.”<ref>Jonah Goldberg, ‘’[http://books.google.com/books?id=wHihWKJE3asC Liberal Fascism: the Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning] (Random House, Inc., 2008) ISBN 0385511841, p.156</ref>

As head of the NRA and thus “FDR’s leading bureaucrat,”<ref>[http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/hsjohnson.htm Hugh Samuel Johnson],
Arlington National Cemetary Website.</ref> the President appointed<ref>[http://www.condenaststore.com/VanityFair/ProdDetail.aspx?prodId=19968 General Hugh Johnson], Vanity Fair.</ref> General Hugh Johnson, who was granted “almost unlimited powers over industry.” <ref>[http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0716FC3E5F1A7A93CBA8178ED85F478385F9 NEW LAW IS ANTICIPATED; President Telephones Associate of Baruch of His Selection. ANSWER AWAITS PASSAGE As Administrator, He Would Have Under Roosevelt Vast Powers Over Business. LEADER IN DRAFTING BILL Plans Made to Put Measure in Operation Within Week After It Is Enacted. JOHNSON CHOSEN INDUSTRY CHIEF], The [[Associated Press]], May 19, 1933. </ref> According to economist Thayer Watkins (who teaches economic history<ref>[http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/economics/faculty/thayer.htm Thayer Watkins, Ph.D], San Jose State University.</ref> at California’s San José State University), Johnson was “an admirer of Mussolini’s National Corporatist system<ref>[http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/corporatism.htm The Economic System of Corporatism], Thayer Watkins, San José State University. </ref> in Italy and he drew upon the Italian experience in formulating the [[New Deal]].” Walker F. Todd, research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, agrees that Johnson “did admire greatly what Mussolini appeared to have done,” and identifies the NRA as a “thoroughly corporativist” <ref>[http://www.aei.org/docLib/Todd%20-%20The%20Federal%20Reserve%20Board%20and%20the%20Rise%20of%20the%20Corporate%20State.pdf The Federal Reserve Board and the Rise of the Corporate State, 1931-1934], Walter F. Todd, Economic Education Bulletin, Great Barrington, Massachusetts (ISSN 0424–2769) (USPS 167–360),</ref> idea.

Johnson was said to carry around with him a copy of Raffaello Viglione’s pro-Mussolini book,<ref>http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html</ref> ''The Corporate State''<ref>‘’http://books.google.com/books?id=vIJQHAAACAAJ</ref>, even presenting a copy to Secretary of Labor [[Frances Perkins]].<ref>Frances Perkins, ‘’[http://books.google.com/books?id=AIEhAAAAMAAJ The Roosevelt I Knew]’’ (The Viking press, 1946) p. 206. Socialist (Kent Worcester, ‘’[http://books.google.com/books?id=TwTTArAPWswC C.L.R. James: A Political Biography]’’ [SUNY Press, 1995] ISBN 079142751X, p. 175) George Rawich wrote that Perkins told him Johnson gave each member of the Cabinet a book by [http://www.marxists.org/archive/rawick/1969/xx/self.html Fascist theoretician Giovanni Gentile], “and we all read it with great care.” Schivelbusch suggests the book was actually [http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo172.html Mussolini advisor] Fausto Pitigliani’s ‘’The Italian Corporativist State.’’ (‘’Three New Deals’’, p. 203, n. 28)</ref> In his 1934 retirement speech, he invoked what he called the “shining name” of Mussolini.<ref>Arthur Meier Schlesinger, ‘’[http://books.google.com/books?id=mj3VmJ38tHIC The coming of the New Deal, 1933-1935]’’ (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003) ISBN 0618340866, p. 153</ref> According to Jonah Goldberg, Johnson displayed a portrait of ‘’Il Duce’’ in his NRA office and actually “distributed a memo at the Democratic Convention proposing that FDR become a Mussolini-like dictator.”<ref>http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Mjc0ZmFlMDFiNDJkODdjYjE3NDY5OGVlY2JiZWRmNjM= </ref>

===Agricultrual Adjustment Administration===
:''Main article : '''[[Agricultural Adjustment Administration]]'''''
Roosevelt appointed Johnson’s former business partner [[George Peek]] to head the [[Agricultural Adjustment Administration]] (AAA). Both men had “worked with the War Industries Board, the agency that regulated American production during [[World War I]], and they believed their experience of managing an economy almost totally sealed off from the world market would suit the country now.”<ref> Eric Rauchway, ‘’[http://books.google.com/books?id=BtSU6ZaCbzMC The Great Depression & the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction]’’ (Oxford University Press, 2008) ISBN 0195326342, p. 76</ref> They had long advocated a policy of expanding tariffs to keep foreign agricultural products out of the United States,<ref> William J. Barber , ‘’[http://books.google.com/books?id=Nks8pTPnsVYC From New Era to New Deal: Herbert Hoover, the Economists, and American Economic Policy, 1921-1933]’’ (Cambridge University Press, 1989) ISBN 0521367379, p. 50</ref> a policy that would have again rendered the U.S. economy “almost totally sealed off from the world market”<ref> Neil Vousden, ‘’[http://books.google.com/books?id=uabXBMnp7XgC The Economics of Trade Protection]’’ (Cambridge University Press, 1990) ISBN 052134669X, p. 91</ref>—a fair approximation of “ autarky,”<ref>http://www.economist.com/research/economics/alphabetic.cfm?letter=A#autarky</ref> an economic policy particularly but not exclusively “associated with Nazi economic organization.” <ref>http://www.history-ontheweb.co.uk/concepts/autarky.htm</ref>

===Admiration for Mussolini and Hitler===

The ''[[New York Times]]'' reported that the mood in [[Washington]] in 1933 was “strangely reminiscent of Rome in the first weeks after the march of the Blackshirts, of [[Moscow]] at the beginning of the Five-Year Plan... America today literally asks for orders.” The Roosevelt administration, reported the ''Times,'' “envisages a federation of industry, labor and government after the fashion of the corporative State as it exists in Italy.”<ref>http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60A1FFF3E5C16738DDDAE0894DD405B838FF1D3</ref>

Roosevelt privately found Mussolini "admirable," writing to his personal friend John Lawrence, "I don't mind telling you in confidence, that I am keeping in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman." <ref>David F. Schmitz, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=Pzt2AAAAMAAJ The United States and fascist Italy, 1922-1940]'' [University of North Carolina Press, 1988 ISBN 080781766X, p. 139)</ref> FDR also wrote to U.S. Ambassador to Italy Breckinridge Long about Mussolini, "I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy and seeking to prevent general European trouble." <ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=aHEbAAAAIAAJ F.D.R., His Personal Letters, Vol. 3] [Ed. Elliott Roosevelt] [Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1947], p. 352.</ref>

Hitler likewise expressed "admiration" for Roosevelt's economic policies, and said he was in accord with" Roosevelt's "moral demand," which he identified as the "quintessence of German philosophy of the State," as he wrote in a letter<ref>http://www.cdojerusalem.org/icons-multimedia/ClientsArea/HoH/LIBARC/ARCHIVE/Chapters/Forging/Foreign/Message.html</ref> to U.S. Ambassador to Germany [[William Dodd]].

===Fascist means to liberal ends===

[[George Soule]], editor of the pro-Roosevelt ''[[New Republic]]'' magazine, wrote in his 1934 book ''The Coming American Revolution'',<ref>George Soule, [http://books.google.com/books?ei=R4CcSoqXK6SCywSm9tzwDg&id=I89fAAAAIAAJ ''The Coming American Revolution]'', p. 294.</ref> "We are trying out the economics of Fascism without having suffered all its social or political ravages." In the ''North American Review'' in 1934, the progressive writer Roger Shaw described the New Deal as “Fascist means to gain liberal ends.”<ref>http://www.reason.com/news/show/122026.html</ref>

== World War II Era ==
Fascism as an ideological theory was comprehensively discredited in the eyes of most Westerners because of the defeat of the [[Axis]] powers in [[World War II]].

== Modern Times ==

"Fascist" is today frequently used as a term of abuse both on the left and on the right against one's political opponents. While few people are willing to describe themselves as fascists or endorse the fascist regimes of the past, fascist parties and parties descended from fascist parties (such as the [[Alleanza Nazionale]] in [[Italy]]) continue to be a minor force in European politics. Fascism seems not to flourish in countries with an Anglo-centric heritage: America, Australia and Canada have never had significant fascist movements, and the [[British Union of Fascists]] was never an important force in British politics; though it was significant enough for the government to consider its leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, dangerous enough to intern during the war.

==See Also==
*[[Nazism]]
==Further reading==
* Eatwell, Roger. ''Fascism: A History.'' (1996). 432 pp.
* Laqueur, Walter. ''Fascism: Past, Present, Future.'' (1996). 245 pp.
* Payne, Stanley G. ''A History of Fascism, 1914-1945.'' U. of Wisconsin Press, 1995. 613 pp. the standard history, by a leading conservative historian

==References==
<references/>

[[category:Forms of Government]]
[[category:Fascists]]
[[category:Dictators]]
[[category:World War II]]

Vladimir Lenin

2009-12-27T20:02:46Z

Jindal20120: Added information academic liberals dont want you to know

[[Image:Khvhkgfiy.jpg|right|thumb|Lenin]]
'''Lenin''' (born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov <ref>"Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" (Russian: Владимир Ильич Улянов, Ленин) was the pseudonym he used after 1900 to disguise his identity.</ref>) (1870-1924) was a Russian Jew, and the leader of Russian Communism and an important theoretician of Marxism. Coming to power in 1917 he became dictator of the [[Soviet Union]]. All over the Soviet Union there were statues and paintings honoring his memory; they were removed when Communism collapsed in 1991. It is also believed in some circles that he was a homosexual.

==Early Life==
Lenin was born in 1870 to a middle class Russian family; his parents were school teachers. In 1889, he became a [[Marxist]] after his older brother was hanged for the murder of Tsar Aleksandr II. Lenin obtained a law degree shortly afterwards, and by 1895 was a [[subversion (political)|subversive]] who was arrested and sent to a prison in [[Siberia]] as punishment. He was in exile 1900-1917. He collaborated with Georgy Plekhanov and others to set up the clandestine newspaper ''Iskra'' (The Spark), designed to "ignite" radical consciousness. In the pages of ''Iskra'', Lenin denounced any alliance with liberals or other elements of the bourgeoisie because they would keep power in the hands of the middle class. He emphasized social democracy--equality of condition, rather than political democracy, as the basis for individual freedom. His major theoretical publication was the pamphlet "What Is to Be Done?" (1902). In 1903 he organized and controlled the '''"Bolshevik"''' wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor party, fighting the opposition "Mensheviks." Lenin, like his populist predecessors in the Russian radical movement, stressed the need for a small elite vanguard to lead the revolution

Despite disapproval of the Mensheviks, Lenin's followers continued to raise money through a mixture of bank robberies, kidnapping, extortion, terrorism, and murder. Unlike the leaders of other Marxist organizations, Lenin did not spent the money on his own lifestyle and carefully strengthened his movement.

With German help he returned to Russia after the [[Tsar]] abdicated in March 1917 and a short-lived liberal democracy allowed for free elections. At the time, most Bolsheviks were more interested in using the ballot box to gain political power. Lenin rejected elections,and declared, "History will not forgive us if we do not take power now."

==Revolution==
In 1917 Lenin opposed Russia's continued participation in World War I and advocated proceeding directly to a socialist revolution, bypassing bourgeois rule. He rejected cooperation with the Provisional Government and drove some old Bolsheviks out of the party, while coopting many younger, more radical members. [[Joseph Stalin]], [[Grigori Zinoviev]], and others rallied to Lenin's side during the elections to the party's Central Committee during the 7th Party Conference in April 1917 and became the new leadership. The Bolsheviks were allowed free expression of disagreements until a decision by the Central Committee was reached, and then no opposition or disagreement was permitted. Lenin now ruled the Bolsheviks from his base in Petrograd (St. Petersburg).

In October 1917, Lenin masterminded a [[coup d'etat]] 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==
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> }}

==Death==
Lenin, a workaholic who avoided vacations and downtime, died in 1924 following a series of progressively more serious strokes. [[Joseph Stalin]] was his even more brutal successor.
==Interpretations==
===Lenin on revolution===
Before 1917 lenin thought that revolution was more likely to break out in Russia than in any other country on the continent, and he expected the outbreak of other revolutions in Europe, or at least in Central Europe, after the Russian Revolution. During the Civil War he considered a short period of War Communism as an extension of the revolutionary situation from which a direct path might open toward socialism. However, after the failure of War Communism he returned to his earlier viewpoint, that is, to the necessity of a transition period. This was reflected in the New Economic Policy (NEP) - which meant a transition including both private enterprise and a market economy. Stalin deemed the transition favored by Lenin to be too dangerous, because it carried with it the threat of a defeat and an eventual restoration of capitalism
===Dictatorship of the proletariat===
see also [[Dictatorship of the proletariat]]
Lenin saw the Marxist concept of the "Dictatorship of the proletariat" in terms of a dictatorship exercised not by a democratically chosen majority but by a vanguard minority revolutionary party, ruthlessly controlled by a few leaders like himself. He eventually accepted the need for a state bureaucracy, and his more extreme opposition to the bourgeoisie led him to favor their exclusion and disenfranchisement to the benefit of the urban working class.

==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>

==Image and memory==
After his death in 1924 Stalin portrayed Lenin as an infallible humanitarian; his writings were viewed as gospel. Museums were devoted to his life and work, cities were named for him, and huge statues and monuments honored his memory. Beginning in 1985, however, the Lenin cult began to crumble. Party chairman [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] was a faithful disciple of Lenin, but he now faced the reality that the economically bankrupt Communist state was rapidly decaying. As the Communist nation unraveled, so did the Lenin personality cult. Leningrad residents voted to restore the St. Petersburg name; the once-crowded museums attracted few visitors; and Lenin's philosophy and actions were found less than perfect. In 1991 as Communism fell, the statues and paintings went into cold storage. By 1995 plans were being made to bury Lenin's corpse, which was finally acknowledged to be putrefying just as the remains of any other mortal, as the cult itself fell into "the dustbin of history."<ref> Trevor J. Smith, "The Collapse of the Lenin Personality Cult in Soviet Russia, 1985-1995," ''Historian'' 1998 60(2): 325-343, in [[EBSCO]]</ref>
== See also ==
*[[Karl Marx]]
*[[Joseph Stalin]]
==Further reading==
===Biography===
* Clark, Ronald W. ''Lenin'' (1988). 570 pp.
* Service, Robert. ''Lenin: A Biography'' (2002), 561pp; standard scholarly biography; a short version of his 3 vol detailed biography
* Volkogonov, Dmitri. ''Lenin: Life and Legacy'' (1994). 600 pp.
===Specialized scholarly studies===
* Anderson, Kevin. ''Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism: A Critical Study'' (1995) 311 pp.
* Copleston, Frederick Charles. ''Philosophy in Russia: From Herzen to Lenin and Berdyaev'' (1986). 445pp. by a conservative
* Debo, Richard K. ''Survival and Consolidation: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918-1921'' (1992).
* Marples, David R. ''Lenin's Revolution: Russia, 1917-1921'' (2000) 156pp. short survey
* Pipes, Richard. ''A Concise History of the Russian Revolution'' (1996) [http://www.amazon.com/Concise-History-Russian-Revolution/dp/0679745440/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232393501&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search], by a leading conservative
* Pipes, Richard. ''Communism: A History'' (2003), by a leading conservative
* Pipes, Richard. ''Russia under the Bolshevik Regime.'' (1994). 608 pp.
* Pomper, Philip. ''Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin: The Intelligentsia and Power.'' (1990). 446 pp.
* Schapiro, Leonard and Reddaway, Peter, eds. ''Lenin: The Man, the Theorist, the Leader - a Reappraisal'' (1987). 317 pp.
* White, James D. ''Lenin: The Practice and Theory of Revolution'' (2001) 262pp.

===Primary sources===
* Desai, Meghnad, ed. ''Lenin's Economic Writings.'' (1989). 363 pp.
* Pipes, Richard, ed. ''The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive.'' (1996). 185 pp.
==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Russian History]]
[[Category:Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Dictators]]
[[Category:Communism]]
[[Category:Socialism]]