# Who's your favourite leader of the USSR? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 6, 2012, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-leader-of-the-ussr/608612 "2012-01-06T10:04:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2012, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-leader-of-the-ussr/608612/41 "2012-01-16T06:31:01Z")
Lenin-hands down! How can you NOT like a guy who came out with a line like this: “Communism plus electrification equals Soviet power”! Althogh Stalin had a neat mostache!😃 ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2012, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-leader-of-the-ussr/608612/42 "2012-01-16T06:48:08Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Lenin-hands down! > How can you NOT like a guy who came out with a line like this: > “Communism plus electrification equals Soviet power”! > Althogh Stalin had a neat mostache!😃 Lenin was full of quotable sayings. Some are actually witty. Some are simply hilarious, in Soviet context. And some (especially his philosophical musings) are so screwed up, you can only laugh at the poor Russian students who were required to memorize them. “Better less, but better”. “Liberty is precious - so precious that it must be rationed”. “One cannot live in society and be free from society”. "The entire trend of development is towards abolition of coercive domination of one part of society over another. " “Only by abolishing private property in land and building cheap and hygienic dwellings can the housing problem be solved.” “Communism cannot be imposed by force.” “For the first time the peasant has seen real freedom — freedom to eat his bread, freedom from starvation.” “Rectilinearity and one-sidedness, woodenness and petrification, subjectivism and subjective blindness — voilà the epistemological roots of idealism.” “One can’t pat anyone on the head nowadays, they might bite your hand off. Hence, you have to beat people’s little heads, beat mercilessly, although ideally we are against doing any violence to people.” ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2012, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-leader-of-the-ussr/608612/43 "2012-01-16T07:01:56Z")
I went with Stalin in the mustache category. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2012, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-leader-of-the-ussr/608612/44 "2012-01-16T18:37:30Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > Golda Mier could make them all run up a tree. On _Seinfeld_ once, they were debating who was the ugliest world leader. Golda, De Gaulle and LBJ were the finalists, I think. > [@Terr](#): > > Lenin was full of quotable sayings… > > “Communism cannot be imposed by force.” > > … Gah. If only they’d listened to him! ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2012, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-leader-of-the-ussr/608612/45 "2012-01-16T19:23:48Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Lenin was full of quotable sayings. Some are actually witty. Some are simply hilarious, in Soviet context. And some (especially his philosophical musings) are so screwed up, you can only laugh at the poor Russian students who were required to memorize them. > > “Better less, but better”. > > “Liberty is precious - so precious that it must be rationed”. > > “One cannot live in society and be free from society”. > > "The entire trend of development is towards abolition of coercive domination of one part of society over another. " > > “Only by abolishing private property in land and building cheap and hygienic dwellings can the housing problem be solved.” > > “Communism cannot be imposed by force.” > > “For the first time the peasant has seen real freedom — freedom to eat his bread, freedom from starvation.” > > “Rectilinearity and one-sidedness, woodenness and petrification, subjectivism and subjective blindness — voilà the epistemological roots of idealism.” > > “One can’t pat anyone on the head nowadays, they might bite your hand off. Hence, you have to beat people’s little heads, beat mercilessly, although ideally we are against doing any violence to people.” Yep, Lenin was the original Jewish comedian..except he wasn’t Jewish..of course, he was also a tyrant that caused the deaths of millions:eek: ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2012, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-leader-of-the-ussr/608612/46 "2012-01-16T19:55:34Z")
I voted Gorbachev for the same boring but ultimately sensible reason as everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-leader-of-the-ussr/608612/47 "2012-01-16T20:04:01Z")
Kruschev. He was a Soviet’s Soviet. Shoe banging, missile crisis, managed to be bald without a birth mark - and Nikita’s such a cute name. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-leader-of-the-ussr/608612/48 "2012-01-16T20:05:32Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Kruschev. He was a Soviet’s Soviet. Shoe banging, missile crisis, managed to be bald without a birth mark - and Nikita’s such a cute name. And adaptable, too!: [http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjU5NjMxNDM1Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwODAwNzk5.\_V1.\_SY317\_CR4,0,214,317\_.jpg](http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjU5NjMxNDM1Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwODAwNzk5._V1._SY317_CR4,0,214,317_.jpg) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-leader-of-the-ussr/608612.md?page=2)