Essay: LENIN: COMMUNISM'S CHARTER MYTH

THE scene was symbolic and significant: Soviet leaders gathering solemnly, even reverently last week in Ulyanovsk (formerly Simbirsk), where, 100 years ago, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was born on April 22. They had excellent reason to be reverent and grateful, for their formidable aggregate of power still derives from Lenin's genius and from his achievements as the true architect of Communism. Thus they will invoke his name to legitimize their rule, and adroitly select from his speeches and writings to justify the existing social order. They will cite Lenin to sanctify Russia's quarrel with...

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