# Did Marx or Lenin Really Believe in Any of That Crap? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 30, 2011, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463 "2011-03-30T03:19:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/41 "2011-03-30T23:09:25Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > How did the rest of the world keep them from implementing Communism, at least after the Civil War was over? They certainly wanted to see the Communists fail, but the Communists wanted to see the capitalist nations fail also. I’m not saying they didn’t bring it on themselves - but it would be interesting to see if communism worked in a vacuum. Or in a country which wasn’t flat broke in the first place, as Russia and its satellites were. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/42 "2011-03-30T23:30:31Z")
After WW I, the Soviet Union didn’t have any satellites. There were probably as close to being left alone as any country is, and didn’t even have the massive military expenditures they had during the Cold War era. They did suffer a lot more damage during WW II, but large chunks of Russia were untouched, unlike much of the rest of Europe, and they also stripped assets from the satellite nations. If Communism had worked as advertised, they should have been able to outgrow the rest of Europe quite handily. Instead, they lied about production a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/43 "2011-03-30T23:37:21Z")
The large untouched chunks of Russia were largely uninhabited (and unliveable). ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/44 "2011-03-30T23:39:31Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I’m not saying they didn’t bring it on themselves - but it would be interesting to see if communism worked in a vacuum. Or in a country which wasn’t flat broke in the first place, as Russia and its satellites were. Russia was the largest nation on earth, the most populated country in Europe, the breadbox of the world, with access to every natural resource known to man. They were potentially more self-sufficient than any other nation in their hemisphere, and if they were broke, well, so what? They were trying to set up a system that wasn’t based on money! If anything, being broke was a GOOD thing! ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/45 "2011-03-30T23:41:19Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The large untouched chunks of Russia were largely uninhabited (and unliveable). The part of the Soviet Union west of the Urals - the habitable part - was still larger than all but three or four countries in the world. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/46 "2011-03-30T23:50:36Z")
It’s debatable how much Lenin or Stalin believed in “social and political equality”. However from what I’ve read I think they believed in _Marxism._ Which is to say that they were enthralled by the idea that there could be a general theory of human society, and by being conciously aware of it’s tenets and applying them, societies could be engineered. Lenin and Stalin were acutely aware of how backward Russia was due to the Tsar’s “ancien regime”, and believed that they could leapfrog the capitalist countries (which were due to collapse or become obsolete anyway) by conciously molding the Soviet Union into the society of the future. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Wouldn’t a non-profit in a Capitalist society suffer the same issues of lack of enthusiasm that a Communist society does? We are talking ideology here so if working for the common good fails for Communism why would it work for non-profits doing the same thing? Not everyone enthusiatically devotes hours of work to non-profit causes. Those that do know that the government won’t declare that half the money they raise has to go to the Pentagon. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/47 "2011-03-31T00:07:50Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The large untouched chunks of Russia were largely uninhabited (and unliveable). Like Moscow? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/48 "2011-03-31T00:39:23Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > After WW I, the Soviet Union didn’t have any satellites. There were probably as close to being left alone as any country is Actually, the Soviet Union was invaded by a number of other countries during and after World War I: Australia, Canada, China, Czechoslovakia. Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Ottoman Empire, Poland, Romania, Serbia, the United Kingdom, and the United States all sent troops into the Soviet Union. And there were various anti-Soviet factions operating in the country (most of which were supported by the interventionists) like the Anarchists, the Armed Forces of South Russia, the Baltic Free Corps, the Caucasus Army, the Don Army, the Northwestern Army, the Russian Army, the Siberian Army, the Volunteer Army, and the Western Army. And there was secessionist movements in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Central Asia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Siberia, and Ukrainia. But other than that, things were going well. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/49 "2011-03-31T00:46:53Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Actually, the Soviet Union was invaded by a number of other countries during and after World War I: Australia, Canada, China, Czechoslovakia. Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Ottoman Empire, Poland, Romania, Serbia, the United Kingdom, and the United States all sent troops into the Soviet Union. And there were various anti-Soviet factions operating in the country (most of which were supported by the interventionists) like the Anarchists, the Armed Forces of South Russia, the Baltic Free Corps, the Caucasus Army, the Don Army, the Northwestern Army, the Russian Army, the Siberian Army, the Volunteer Army, and the Western Army. And there was secessionist movements in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Central Asia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Siberia, and Ukrainia. > > But other than that, things were going well. Yeh, just to exist in the first place the Soviet Union had to be founded on the principle of “kill anyone who opposes the Party”. That set the foundation for a promising future… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/50 "2011-03-31T02:46:54Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Yeh, just to exist in the first place the Soviet Union had to be founded on the principle of “kill anyone who opposes the Party”. That set the foundation for a promising future… I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. The founders of the Soviet Union could have chosen to allow political diversity. But it’s an interesting commentary of the value of communism that communist regimes always prohibit any competing political systems when possible. If communism lived up to its claims, there’d be no need to prohibit alternatives. People would freely choose communism out of all the available choices. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/51 "2011-03-31T05:01:59Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Stalin was just a tyrant-he saw the whole apparatus of the Soviet government as something that was his to control personally. Lives meant nothing to him-he engineered the Ukrainian famine (that killed over 4 milion people), and made war on Finland, became an ally of Germany and then (when Hitler turned on him) switched sides, and engaged in new wars (Korea). The North Korean invasion of South Korea was Kim Il Sung’s idea. I have read that Stalin counseled against it, but Mao Tse Tung said, “Go ahead. We’ll back you up.” When the United States asked for a UN resolution against the invasion the Soviet Union was unable to veto the resolution because the Soviet UN ambassador was boycotting the UN because of a refusal to admit Communist China. That indicates that the invasion came as a surprise to the Soviets. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/52 "2011-03-31T05:03:48Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > To get back to the OP, I think the evidence is very strong that early communists really did believe what they were espousing. Most of them, after all, did not get any advantages from being identified as communists, so why would they have faked it? > > It was only after communist regimes were established that there was any point in pretending to be a communist for personal advantage. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/53 "2011-03-31T05:41:11Z")
To the best of my knowledge Karl Marx was the first economist to study the business cycle. Adam Smith makes no mention of it in his Wealth of Nations. Marx argued that capitalism was fated to experience increasingly serious economic down turns. That is what did happen. One can argue that when he wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1848 he predicted the Great Depression, which began in 1929. He also said that the natural tendency of capitalism was to build wealth while spreading poverty: per capita gross domestic product (GDP) goes up; median income adjusted for inflation goes down. He did not predict Keynesian economic policies, which regulated capitalism in ways that achieved a more equitable distribution of economic growth, and reduced the severity of recessions. Because of de regulation and tax cuts for the rich, Marx’s predictions are coming true again. We are experiencing the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression. The standard of living for most Americans has declined since 2000 even as corporations are more profitable than ever before. Although Marx was a good economist of laissez faire capitalism, he was a bad sociologist. He believed that among blue collar workers class consciousness is stronger than national, racial, and ethnic loyalty. The opposite is usually more nearly the truth. Consequently, Marx did not predict the First World War. According to his theories the workers of various European countries would have refused to fight in it. He also did not predict the rise of fascism that followed the war. According to his theories economically stressed members of the middle class would move to the left, not to the totalitarian right. His theories cannot explain why in the American South lower income whites preferred the Klu Klux Klan to labor unions from the end of the Civil War to the civil rights movement. He cannot explain why most white blue collar workers in the U.S. vote Republican. Marx argued that the historical role of capitalism was to create an economy of abundance that Communists would have the agreeable task of spreading around. Russia was still a poor country that needed to go through a capitalist period to create that abundance. Marx was never tempted by power. Vladimir Lenin was. He succumbed. According to orthodox Marxists at the time, the Russian Revolution should give power to the business class in Russia. After seizing power, Lenin did not want to give it up to people he never liked to begin with, and who had made no sacrifices to overthrown Czarism. To justify what was a putsch by an armed minority, rather than a revolution by the Russian majority against an aristocratic minority, Lenin argued that while Russia was not fully capitalist, it was part of an international economy that was capitalist, so the Russian Revolution would be the spark that would ignite revolutions in fully capitalist countries. There were Communist uprisings in Hungary and Germany, but these were put down. When it became obvious that there were not going to be revolutions in other countries, Joseph Stalin came up with the idea of “socialism in one country.” He successfully created the Russian industry that produced the weapons Russia needed to defeat the German invasion. He created the government that carried Russia from semi feudalism to the space age. However, because Russia did not have the economy of abundance that Marx thought was a necessary pre condition for socialism, Stalin’s methods were harsh. I am confident that Marx, Lenin, and Stalin believed in their theories. I personally think that Marx had good insights, but that his oversights prevent his political philosophy from being an adequate guide to action. Most of the time most people do not behave the way Marx said that they do. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/54 "2011-03-31T15:43:38Z")
> [@dbx820](#): > > My Question: Did Marx or Lenin really believe that communism was a path toward social and political equality? Were there any true “believers” in the power sphere in the USSR during this time or was all just a cover for a power grab? Definitely. Marx, remember, was just a writer. He was never in a position to grab power for himself. Lenin was, but he was a True Believer in the cause. He had no interest in glory – the Russian people, under his rule, saw less of him than they had of the Tsar; he never would have thought of renaming St. Petersburg after himself, that was Stalin’s idea. I also read (in [_Comrades,_](http://www.amazon.com/Comrades-1917-Russia-Revolution-Brian-Moynahan/dp/0316586986) by Brian Moynahan) that when the October Revolution happened, Lenin offered to let Trotsky head the government while Lenin remained as head of the Bolshevik Party. Trotsky objected that, as a Jew, he was unsuitable; besides, “You will only stay outside and criticize.” Lenin reluctantly agreed to head up both Party and government. Not the act of a man mad for personal power – but that of a man who believed in his cause. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/55 "2011-03-31T17:05:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Definitely. Marx, remember, was just a writer. He was never in a position to grab power for himself. Lenin was, but he was a True Believer in the cause. He had no interest in glory – the Russian people, under his rule, saw less of him than they had of the Tsar; he never would have thought of renaming St. Petersburg after himself, that was Stalin’s idea. I also read (in [_Comrades,_](http://www.amazon.com/Comrades-1917-Russia-Revolution-Brian-Moynahan/dp/0316586986) by Brian Moynahan) that when the October Revolution happened, Lenin offered to let Trotsky head the government while Lenin remained as head of the Bolshevik Party. Trotsky objected that, as a Jew, he was unsuitable; besides, “You will only stay outside and criticize.” Lenin reluctantly agreed to head up both Party and government. Not the act of a man mad for personal power – but that of a man who believed in his cause. I have read that Lenin insisted on paying himself and his top officials only twice as much as factory workers were paid. He was embarrassed by that discrepancy, and maintained that eventually everyone would be paid the same. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/56 "2011-03-31T17:06:55Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Definitely. Marx, remember, was just a writer. He was never in a position to grab power for himself. No, but he _was_ in a position to sacrifice for his ideology. There’s a reason he lived in England, and it’s not because he liked scones. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/57 "2011-03-31T17:25:58Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > No, but he _was_ in a position to sacrifice for his ideology. There’s a reason he lived in England, and it’s not because he liked scones. Marx would not have advanced his philosophy by living in a country that censored his writings. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/58 "2011-03-31T18:00:21Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > To the best of my knowledge Karl Marx was the first economist to study the business cycle. That would have been either Sismondi in his “New Principles of Political Economy”, Dunoyer , or Juglar, in his “The Commercial Crises that Recur Periodically in France, the United Kingdom and the United States”. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/59 "2011-03-31T18:14:51Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > That would have been either Sismondi in his “New Principles of Political Economy”, Dunoyer , or Juglar, in his “The Commercial Crises that Recur Periodically in France, the United Kingdom and the United States”. I stand corrected. However, Sismondi was considered to be a socialist. [http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072819359/student\_view0/chapter8/origin\_of\_the\_idea.html](http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072819359/student_view0/chapter8/origin_of_the_idea.html) His ideas may have influenced Marx. I could not find a reference to Juglar’s book. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463/60 "2011-03-31T18:27:25Z")
Also important to note about Lenin: He did not believe Russia was all that important in the general scheme of things. His loyalty was to the international Socialist cause. In 1917, he genuinely believed all Europe was ripe for the Revolution, and just needed a spark to set it off (the Bolshevik magazine was called _Iskra_ – “Spark”), which Russia could provide. In the event, [there were some leftist revolutions west of Russia,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1917-23) but they all failed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-marx-or-lenin-really-believe-in-any-of-that-crap/576463.md?page=4)