Analysis of Russian Communist Leaders

Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin were both autocratic leaders who were in power for the name of communism. They were accepted amongst the Soviets but looked down upon by many other larger world powers. The Soviets defended their actions in the name of communism, but did their actions live up to what the founder of communism though they should be? Were hanging orders and secret police forces necessary for communism? Lenins ideas are justified because he was working in the name of communism but Stalin’s actions are not justified because it is not necessary to use force and to kill just to make people believe in the government. 

Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx were basically following the same rules. Marx set the rules and Lenin abided by them by helping the country grow and settle by ending wars and starting development. After a while things started to get a more serious and many people such as Kulaks, were being deported or killed. There was one thing that Lenin incorporated into the ideas of Marx which Marx had left out which is a major thing to consider. Lenin had to figure out how to convert the people of Russia into communists. This is why I think most of Lenins actions were justified. How else would somebody get millions of people to change if there was no incentive to? Lenin had to scare the people into changing into communists, especially people like Kulaks and the people surrounding Kulaks because they were the most capitalist based people in the country at the time. In order to get them to change, he had to scare them and kill them to get his point across. One instance is when Lenin had issued a hanging order on November 18, 1918. The reason for this hanging order is that the Kulaks had to be scared and killed in order for them to stop being capitalists and for people that worked with them they had to be scared enough for them to stop working with the Kulaks. This follows Karl Marx in the way of The Communist Manifesto where it says “The workers have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire all political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must continue itself the nation, ti is, so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeoisie sense of the word (The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx).” This means that the workers who use the Kulaks have to first become superior and get their land, then must continue on with that land as their own. That is why the Kulaks had to be eliminated and Lenin followed though on the idea which Marx had about it. Lenin also argued for the necessity of a secret police which would be named the KGB (Lenin Argues for the Necessity of a Secret and Elite Party of Professional Revolutionaries, Vladimir Lenin). Although there is no source from The Communist Manifesto which is for or against this, I think it was the right thing to do because they could help completely transform the country into a communist nation. A third thing is Lenins New Economic Policy which let some capitalism into Russia but overall helped Russia develop more and become a more stable nation. Lenin was a justified and stable man who was actually for the good of communism and the good of Russia.