Lenins brother attempted to assassinate Alexander III. The serfs were freed by Alexander II. Neither of these were Nicholas II and they occurred in different periods of time than implied.
His statues even stand in the poorest town's near Mongolia where the populations are mostly ethnically Mongolian. He still has supporters in all former USSR states besides maybe the few in West Europe.
That is very one sided. I've seen his statues vandalized, knocked over, and even urinated on like it was a public toilet. People also support Hitler and think he was an alright guy. It doesn't mean everyone does.
@@StaticImage Depends on where you are. If you're talking about other former soviet-block countries, that's fair. They don't like soviets, and they tore down a bunch of statues. In Russia, however, it's a different. I've never heard about that nor seen that. A lot of Russians tend to idealise and romanticise the USSR. According to Levada Centre (an independent pollster in Moscow), 66% of Russians regret that the USSR was dissolved. This percentage has never been lower than 50% (except in 2012 when it was 49%)
@@scottplumer3668 Ohhhh....that makes sense!....so when he wrote 'back in the USSR' he was reminiscing and missing his famous brother. There is a lyric in that song that goes 'Come and keep your comrade warm' ...so he must have been talking about the cold weather there
@Jeffrey Herrera You say you want a revolution? Well you know... We all wanna change the world. But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao. You're not gonna make it with anyone anyhow. don't you know it's gonna be... Allright!
Ouch. His brother was hanged for plotting the execution of Tsar Alexander III - not Nicky 2. This basic error makes me doubt the facts here -- so for the sake of fans, fact check your work. Thanks!
@@HaiderAli-it9pn yeah I was about to watch this but seeing the guy's face reminded me I saw another video that was wrong on every level. So I'll be looking for a different vid
Sorry to be one of those people noticed a mistake a 3:29. It was not Tsar Nicolas II that released the peasants but Tsar Alexander II his grandfather. He did so via the emancipation edict of 1861
IMO it got better when Stalin gave way to Khrushchev, and when Gorbachev came to power and started trying to 'modernize' Leninism. Probably also got better once the economic turmoil in the 1990s was over; just a shame that when given the chance at true democracy they ended up with the Medvedev/Putin power monopoly.
20:56 "In 1991, the Soviet Union, it collapsed, and all of the statues of Lenin, they were torn down." False. The first time I was in Russia was 1999, two days in St Petersburg as part of a choir's tour of the Baltic. It was no longer Leningrad, but I saw at least 3 or 4 Lenin statues. I didn't see any statues of Stalin. The second time I was in Russia was 2005, and I spent 3 weeks in Moscow, Vladimir, Suzdal, Yaroslavl, Kazan, Tver, Novgorod, St Petersburg, Petrozavodsk, and Kizhi. During this trip, I saw dozens of statues of Lenin, I'm sure at least 30. I even saw a few statues of Stalin. If you are a Russian reading this, please reply with how many statues of Lenin are in your city/town. Cпасибо.
errrr dude I visited Saint Petersburg in July/2019 and you can literally guide yourself in the city by counting the monuments dedicated to Lenin. you don´t need a GPS or GLONASS just count his momuments. Russians may not be a big fan of him but they do recognize him as a very historical person and played a gigantic part on Russia´s history
I love even today how Western so-called Marxist-Leninists have no idea that: Karl Marx was a petty bigot, casual racist and anti-semite in his letter to Engels 30th of July, 1862. A womanising misogynist who had an affair with his maid behind his petit-Bourgeoisie wife's back, a secret son, had Engels often pay his rent, and also they had a laugh about a rival German socialist getting arrested for homosexual activity, appropriately, in *1869* How Trumpian of him! I like his dream, dream it myself. I just understand it will take a 98% automated international economy. He himself however was the kind of person the TRIGGERED, Virtue-Signalling, Lefty Thought Police *Tankies* would get *CANCELLED* today. Then we get onto Lovely Laudable Lenin. Man of the people. Who just like C21st Western Marxists today, insisted that anyone who doesn't 100% agree or obey is a Fascist Capitalist Enemy of the People's Revolution. When he himself starved peasant farmers with Forced Collectivisation, no understanding of logisticis, and then when some rose against the Bolsheviks in the Tambov Rebellion, this Man of The People murdered many with chemical weapons. Hooray the peasants got to learn to read at last! Reading Tankie propaganda that is. Stalin, oh my days, an ethnic-cleansing genocidal maniac, racist, sexist, homophobe who thought of Western homosexuals as 'Useful Idiots' Even Lenin didn't want him to have power. Bolsheviks vs Mensheviks. The mentally contaminated Western Ultra-Left Yuri Bezmenov is correct about vs Liberals, Welfarists, C21st Social Democrats and other reformist Socialists. Lefty Infighting vs Organised Turbo-Capitalists, the Far White and Extreme Theocrats. The perpetual side battle to Labour VS Capital that will go on perpetually until we reach Full Automation. "Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the great" - Sir Clement Attlee, amazing Social Democrat PM of the Labour Party, started the NHS, the process of freeing the colonies, improved the intelligence services and tried to meddle with Stalin in the Post WW2 era. He achieved more than emotionally and mentally unstable drunkard Marx and Crab-Bucket Mentality multiplied by Victim Mentality Marxists ever did or ever will. * chuckles in 95% BRITISH Socialism of the Chartists, Robert Owen, Sir Clement Attlee, 5% nasty highly intelligent thug Sir Winston Churchill *
@@aaronnilestoussaint5672 "Gassing peasant farmers angry at the not-Bourgeois Bolshevik Elites stealing their food is ok if Lenin orders it. Socialism!" - you & all the other Tankies. 😆😆 "The middle-class doesn't exist they're workers who have been co-opted by the Bourgeois so that makes it ok to genocide these people who don't exist like successful peasant farmers with a little food spare to trade" - you and all the other Tankies "Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx & Catherine the Great" - Sir Clement Attlee, one of a long line of British Socialists who did more good for Humanity, than: Randy bigot Karl Marx, and the Russian Soviet Empire. Trotsky was the only ok original Russian 'Communist' and Kruschev was the best ever Dictator of the USSR. Change my mind.
one big lie here. Every Russian city on this date 2019 with exception of moscow has a lenin square asmain square ( st petersburg it's secondary square at finland railway terminal) and every city's main street ( exception moscow and st pete's ) is named ulitsa lenin or lenin prospect . Thousands of statues of Lenin remain including in Moscow. check your facts . Google map will show it.
@@rojoskies81 The American civil war is probably something we don't get taught enough about in foreign countries, yet again not many Americans know what a Lenin is.
@@rojoskies81 You're seriously comparing the Confederates to Lenin? Afaik those confederates wanted to keep the slaves and we're very racist. Lenin and the Bolsheviks on the other hand provided more workers rights, women also got better rights, they didn't condemn homosexuals and blacks. Soviets enjoy better standard of living compared during the Tsarist regime.
@@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan Actually they are heavily biased towards mindless videos to promote raking in Google ad dollars for Google's benefit with channels and creators not fitting the "algorithim" written by naive Google employees aiming for constantly lower targets to market and kiss up to. Interrupted by occasional attempts by concerned, sometimes scholarly types to present more a more accurate picture to be targeted by trolls who cannot start a comment or grasp the idea that what they've heard and learned, increasingly from overrated, biased college instructors who still insist on being paid big bucks , is wrong. Ignoring those who lived during the period on both sides that actually lived through it
David Myrick yeah I hate that no one thinks critically, I went to college and was the only one concentrating on the research and I'M not even particularly Bright.
@@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan I hope you realize that Trump is 100% in bed with Israel, which is extremely pro-fascist and pro-capitalist. His administration has been Israel First since he stepped into office. Trump is not anti-establishment, rather Trump is apart of the establishment.
how did Lenin get the support he needed for a coup, you ask? Well, its because when he returned to russia, it was right after Alexander Kerensky had just dissolved the duma, and cancelled the upcoming elections. So the kerensky's opposing revolutionaries, along with the monarchists asked the bolsheviks to assist in overthrewing the kerensky government, all these factions underestimated Lenin's persistance, and the bolsheviks were able to use the instability to seize power, the monarchists didn't like that, and many of the worker's councils in the west of Russia revolted and joined Lenin, pushing the monarchists out to siberia, starting the Russian Civil war.
The monarchists certainly weren't a fan of Kerensky, who somewhat spontaneously decided that Russia shall from now on be a Republic, either. Truth be told however, they weren't much of a relevant force and while they of course also later opposed the Bolsheviks, much of the resistance against the Bolsheviks also came from Liberals, Anarchists and many other types of Socialists. Other far-left groups, after all, had many reasons to be mad at the Bolsheviks as well. Many more moderate Socialists disapproved of how the Bolsheviks had ended the war early and thought that the massive amounts of land they gave up were overall hurtful to the revolutionary cause. Many also opposed the very bureaucratic type of rule Lenin intiated and especially Anarchists were of course shocked at the establishment of, for example, a secret police force. The Civil War rather boiled to "Bolsheviks vs everyone opposed to them" and not "Bolsheviks vs monarchists".
This video misses out sooo much tho. Lenin tried to prevent Stalin from taking power, he wanted all his statues tore down, claiming that these things were false idols and that icons such as these dampened the desire to change. He didn't want people to see the revolution as something that succeeded but as an on going process. 1st the violent tearing out of old ideals and power bases followed by the slow building of a new nation and idealolgy. He even wanted his own body to be cremated for these reasons (not that Stalin cared what he wanted). Also he never saw Russia as being fully communist under his rule, that was the whole point of Lennism, he saw his philosophy and rule as a stop gap on the way to true communism. He believed, same as Marx did, that communism could only be achieved through the proletariat. The idea was that the lower classes would educate themselves and , guided by the Bolsheviks, one day form their own government. There's so much more to delve into here. Don't get me wrong I love the channel but you simply can't do a 20 min video on Lenin and the Russian revolution and paint a clear picture there's so many characters, philosophers, poor management (seriously the Tsar was just terrible at ruling a country), then the impact of WW1, the civil war, the building of the trans Siberian railway, foreign interference, the 4 Dumas etc. And it just ends up being a "communism bad" "boo russia" video.
In fact , Lenin was not against Stalin as head of the Council of People 's Commissars . Lenin quarreled with Stalin because he was in conflict with his wife, but in Lenin's will, Stalin was one of the candidates for this post and was chosen by vote. Speaking of the video, yes, it was quite fun, he even says that Lenin became the head of the USSR immediately after the revolution, although the USSR was formed five years later
There's so many inaccuracies and straight up lies in this video that I can't even begin to sum them up. But the one that struck me the most was the "bolsheviks-mensheviks" one. This was a party dispute about which tactics to follow. It was also a discussion within the whole of the 2nd internationale! With factions and tendencies all over the place. Kautsky, Plechanov, Lenin, Luxemburg, Liebknecht, Trotsky, the list goes on. They all chose sides on whether capitalism was able to surpass its inherent contradictions. That's the reason for the split. Not a stupid one time argument. Read a book before you make these vids please.
@@xelaredna6841 But he didn't make any critical argument at all... Which parts are inaccurate? Which parts are speculation? Suggesting he actually explain what he means by that with his own video is a perfectly valid response to a vague and unhelpful comment.
*They are churning out way too many of these "Biographics" videos and not doing proper research. Many people who have written comments prior to this one have rightly pointed out its many inaccuracies.*
just checked the sources it's quite the joke, one biased book, one biased article - a video that doesn't exist anymore and 3 wikipedia articles... the whole part about the february revolution was pretty dodgy that's what made me wonder.
The brazen lies in this video are countless. I wonder where the author got half the facts, did he come up with them himself or did he just copy propaganda? For example, who told him that the Lenin monuments were demolished? Every city in Russia has at least one monument to him, and the people have great respect for him. Recently a poll came out where 60% of respondents had a positive view of his figure and 20% were neutral.
No matter how you debate this man, he started 70 years of sickening terror. Over 100 million people murdered and over 1 billion displaced. An evil monster. Period.
The source of the hundred million deaths comes from the book The Black Book of Communism. A book that half its writers and coauthors denounce. As it has been proven that the main writer inflated the numbers. The American CIA has said many years ago that the numbers were inflated for properganda reasons. This is public knowledge and you can find this out by googling any of the points above.
He tends to be less critical of information about Russia I noticed. Compare his Ivan video to his Bloody Mary one, where he decides Ivan was definitely a terrible person despite the mistranslation of his name, but the British Queen was just a bit misunderstood during all her mass murders and religious purges. He repeats post-hoc propaganda about Rasputin as if it were fact. I'm not Russian nor have any connection to Russia, but I've read enough about the Tudors, Peter the Great and the Romanovs to notice the different treatment.
@@bosman5803 Trotsky said that Lenin knew and approved of the executions. Trotsky asked, "The children too?", and Lenin replied that all of the Romanovs needed to be eliminated.
To be fair, the Russian Empire in 1914 although lagging behind the west, was catching up and quickly. One of the reasons the German Empire entered WW1 was because they thought they would not be able to defeat Russia later.
Communists have ALWAYS been evil, period. They murdered a family, and even killed a sick little boy who probably wasn't even going to survive to adulthood anyway. And today, there are violent groups like "Antifa" who want Communism again. So, honestly, who gives a damn if it's "biased." Communists are evil, end of story. There's your documentary.
@@ct92404 Hey man, thanks for your reply. I have to say that I strongly disagree. It is true that many manifestations of communism throughout history have been very oppressive and violent. This fact tells a lot about humans but little about the ideology itself. If you compare communism and the liberal market in vitro, you will see how the first has human rights as its core value and the latter has some very serious intrinsic flaws, which are always present, however well the system is implemented and followed. Severe wealth inequalitites, exploitation of the weaker countries, economic crises, all that are structural parts of the free market. Ideologically it comes down to this (for me): do we try to implement a left wing planned economy which opens up the path of true progress (true progress can only be achieved when we actively and safely plan our own future), or do we keep on with the gambling of the liberal market which inevitably leads to financial bubble bursts and extreme poverty? You also talk of violence. Thing is, the groups you are refering to have realized that violence is necessary as a means of self defense against the systematized, institutionalized and legalized brute force and extreme violence that right wing goverments impose upon the majority of the people. Maybe their kind of violence is not as evident as lighting up a trash can or beating up a cop, but it is much, much, much more painful and destructive.
@@SomeOne-db7xs Antifa doesn't use violence for "self-defense," they use it to try to CENSOR anyone who says things they don't like. I don't know where you live, but the Antifa groups here in the US claim that they are fighting "Nazis" and say things like "punch a Nazi" ...but the problem is that they can identify ANYONE as a "Nazi." If anyone expresses views that are against SJW politics (like political correctness or transgenderism ideology), Antifa thugs brand them a "Nazi" and violently attack them. They riot, set fires, and attack innocent people just to block a person from giving a public talk. Antifa thugs have attacked innocent bystanders. During the riots they started in Berkley, California, a group of Antifa thugs beat up a 17 year old kid who was just a bystander. He had to be hospitalized. They beat up another person with a bike lock and nearly killed him. Antifa are domestic terrorists, and coincidentally they also are pushing for Communism. People who have a victim mentality and think there is some kind of "systematic oppression" working against them are prone to following extreme ideologies...which inevitably leads to violence. You talk about human nature - well, human nature is that most normal people aren't comfortable with extremes. Normal people generally have a "live and let live" philosophy. But communism is an extreme ideology, and so therefore the only way you will implement it is with violence and oppression. First, you have a "revolution" to overthrow the present government, but then inevitably you have to make sure everyone is following the same ideology, so you have to control them. The Soviet Union was infamous with how they controlled media and spied on their people. It got to the point where they were trying to bug EVERYONE'S phones. But they couldn't keep up with listening to all the tapes. This is what Communism always leads to - violence and oppressing people with fear and control.
@@ct92404 I agree with you on some points, pity we're discussing through youtube and not over a few beers :) I completely agree on the fact that many leftist movements misinterpret the self defense doctrine of violence and go overboard. I am completely against blind violence, censorship and misinformation.Same goes for many right wing movements that border on the extreme right. Yes, there are such groups, but they do not characterize the ideology nor the means of implementing it; they are clumsy ways of dealing with the social/political suffocation they are experiencing. I do not believe that we should judge a whole system of ideas based on the way that a few people have chosen to understand it. Same goes for communist China. What they are doing has actually nothing to do with Marxist ideals. About the victim mentality. Well, I do not think there is such a mentality regarding the matters we are discussing, I do think there are actual victims though. I mean yeah ok, we live in the so called advanced world but what about third world countries being continuously exploited by the big guys? Do they have a victim mentality or are they actual victims? What about Venezuela? You live in the states so i suppose you do believe that you guys actually want to restore democracy there, as you thought you did with Chile in '73 or the freedom you brought to Iraq. However, the truth is far from this. Mainstream media do project a completely distorted image of what is happening. In short, yes, there are victims of the free market and their suffering is true and ongoing. In the same sense, we can also be victims of manipulation and misinformation by being consciously misled, as is current state of things. You talk about systematic oppression like it's something imaginary, when it is - and has always been in the civilized world - all around us. Regarding human nature. You misuderstood, or maybe I did not express myself clearly. I am not talking about human nature; this would mean that I suggest humans being born with such behaviors. I am talking about social construct; about what people have come to be like. Nobody is born violent or deceitful, yet many of us end up this way through social stimuli. Being violent and oppressive is not hard coded in our system, it's a reflex, a reaction, a development. The live and let live you are talking about would be a wonderful state of things; "live" is happening, "let live" not so much. Look at Venezuela again. How is the State's claims a "let live" policy? Seems like whenever a nation wants to be left alone and stand in its own feet, not participating in the global deceit that's been goig on, it's immediately being subjugated in the name of Democracy. Well, democracy is the new Christianity, seems to me. Lastly, concerning the control. Here, we need to take into account the fact that whenever a nation tries to become communistic then the whole world turns against it and shuts it off, proclaiming it an enemy of freedom and mobilizing propaganda to have everybody thinking the same. It is natural that this is a huge hit and greatly affects the way which such a nation would deal with its people, namely resorting to such propaganda and censorship policies itself. Now, of course I am condemning such actions but what i want to point out is that what the Soviets, for example, did was a counter attack against capitalism, in an effort to preserve their ideals. It went awfully wrong, it got completely derailed (they also had a devastated economy and a famine to work with but ok). All in all, I do think that if a communistic nation was not regarded as the devil itself - hence fought to death -, it would not have to resort in extreme control policies so as to defend its ideals and only then it would be able to actually implement communism, not having to deal with the capitalist world suffocation.
@@SymphonyBrahms LOL. I was in Russia 12 years ago. In St. Petersburg most buildings are limited to six stories height b/c of the swamp base and fact that Catherine the Great wanted a Parisian look - Paris also had a 6 story limit at that time. My group toured St. Petersburg before we visited the palaces. When we drove by the former KGB building the guide quipped that "it's been said that if you stand on the roof, you can see all the way to Siberia". I noted a question you had (or so I thought) about responsibility for the Royal Family's assassination. It's harder to come by that than other information about Bolshevik times. Trotsky did write of this in his diary and you can read his short passage via Google "Execution of the Romanov Family". There is also one video (only one so far) that I found on TH-cam with deeper history, impressive Russian covert researchers and some reasonable answers. It's Nicholas and Alexandra by HRH Prince Michael of Kent A&E Biography Part 2. Yes, ultimate culprits include Lenin and I don't know how there can be any doubt of that. Why these things are not better known? I think one of the prime reasons is that Russians are a wonderful people and want to be proud of their country, and well ......... they've been shielded. I think that's part of the answer. Best regards!
ruby T Because it ignores a lot of the good that Lenin did such as the decrees, the NEP, The decriminalisation of homosexuality and increasing women’s rights. It also features blatantly wrong information such as claiming it was Nicolas II who ended serfdom.
David A. Simon I agree with you. Although I hold some respect for Putin in bringing back the tune of the Soviet anthem and still allowing Russian people to celebrate and feel nostalgic for their Soviet past. I visited Leningrad during workers day in May, and saw a huge parade of people waving Soviet flags and holding portraits of Stalin ect. It was really cool to see. However I agree Putin is nowhere near the leader that Lenin was in terms of their individual personalities and values. Putin probably only ‘supports’ his people’s nostalgia for the Soviet period to stay on their good side, as on my trip most of the locals I spoke to were very against Putin and his leadership in general.
David A. Simon True. One Woman I spoke to in Russia called Putin ‘the creepy guy’. A lot of nostalgia for the Soviet past also comes from Putin’s failures to create a fair Government that everybody is happy with.
@@mysteriousmuffin6017 Was bound to happen when you had the US and EU cashing in on the privatization orgy along with structuring the Russian economy in a way that keeps it subservient to both powers as well. Nothing bad enough could ever be done to Gorbechev and Yeltsin that would come anywhere close to providing justice to the Russian people.
Lenin was not panicking because the revolution started without him. He and most of bolchevik leaders agreed that they had to be in exile to avoid been killed by the tzar.
@@ThomasHarding1990 Not really. Trump may not be a good guy, but you can't say that he is intolerant to any other opinions because he puts up with the media when a man like Lenin (or Hitler) would have had them all killed or enslaved.
To anyone who actually wanted a better take on lenin, watch "History vs Lenin" on Ted-Ed TH-cam channel.. In 4 minutes, that video gives a better view. I'm usually never disappointed by this channel. But this time, you definitely failed.
really sore knee The thing is this video is exclusively bad about Lenin. Not once is one of his many achievements mentioned or credited. Not to mention the many examples of blatantly wrong facts.
@Lobo You do know that a lot of our current economic system comes from Marx's theories right? Also the fact that Marx and Lenin were "rich" (which is false, Marx had to live under a small allowance that his friend Engels gave him) only makes their ideals more credible, like, it's a rich person advocating for economic equality and whatnot, they just sound more believable.
You kind of simplified things too much and got quite a few things wrong. Serfdom wasn't abolished by Nicholas II but by his grandfather Alexander II. It is also unclear as to who actually ordered the firing upon demonstrators on Bloody Sunday, yet there isn't evidence to demonstrate that Nicholas II gave the order, and if we look at his personality as a ruler, this conclusion does not fit.
@Chris Oh so sorry. That was Stalins collectivist nonsense. I do apologize. Lenin was still an evil person. Anyone that defends either of these two people are either ignorant or evil themselves.
Why? Just because it's based on facts - his letters, orders etc? And not on Soviet fairy tales of writing in milk in jail, sharing soap between children and other crap?
@@eugeneperstube We know that the U.S government deliberately spread lies and anti communist propaganda during the Cold War of course the Soviets did the same to the west, but you'd be a damn fool to believe every western account of the USSR
killing innocent people ! , the upper class has just as much of a right to live as any other social class , if you think otherwise , than your an insane braindead communist
@@dragoncrown2029 People who take 90% of the profit of their workers and cause workers to live in poverty are not innocent. There no different then feudal lords.
@@kittenmastermind660 Lenin was the leader of the Bolshevik regime , Bolshevik soldiers killed 100 000 people , they spread their Red terror among the Russian people , so that everyone would understand that , resistance against the Bolshevik party would lead to death , the Bolsheviks were Brutal dictators ! ( much worse than Tzar Nicholas ever was ) , and btw the Bolsheviks killed Tzar Nicholas and his family in a basement ! , they murdered his wife , son and daughters ( you support disgusting cowardly men who murdered innocent women and children to gain / secure power for their Bolshevik party ) , only the worst kind of human would support the Bolsheviks , i seems to me that you are one of the worst !
@@dragoncrown2029 Do research on communism. If you did you would find out that many communists hate the USSR and China. The TH-camr Vaush is a good entry point for people to learn about socialism. Socialism is when the workers control the business where they work. Socialism can be a market economy, a command economy, or a mixed economy. Communist is a stateless classless and moneyless society. If you did research before opening your mouth you would know this. Also don't complain about dicators if you think the Russian royal family or any nobility is innocent. Nobility can only maintain there power by the use of violence and exploiting others this is true for all members of all ruling classes. Form Stalin to Obama. Communism is anti dictator and this is why many people do not think the USSR and China are communist. Not that my saying any of this will process with you, it just going to go right over your head.
@@kittenmastermind660 So you think that murdering the Tsar's innocent children was ok. You have a heart of stone. Children Children. Shame on you, you devil.
The craziest thing about this video is when he essentially said “ this is history and it is, however TH-cam doesn’t like it because children. So they don’t pay you.”
In Moscow I went to the Lenin Mausoleum where his body lies embalsed. Statues of Lenin are still around in the former Soviet Union. In East Ukraine, as well as the unregignized state of Transnistria Lenin statues are all over the place!
This is easily the most infuriatingly inaccurate video I’ve seen on this channel. Loved every video on this channel I saw before this one but the falsehoods present here are so egregious it’s basically historical revisionism
I normally love your videos but I personally found this video to needlessly polemic and biased against Lenin. Please read more around the subject and reconsider his legacy.
@@modigrey Maybe not directly but his ideas and the forcing of said ideas down the throats of the Russian poor and working class put Russia on a collision course for mass genocide.
so upsetting to see Simon have such a negative slant against Lenin, clearly forming an opinion without reading any of his or other communist leaders writings from the time. Lenin was a great hero to many in the working class and the USSR, although it had it's faults and shortcomings as any other country, was a beacon of hope to workers who dream to be freed from the toils of capitalism. Love from the USA.
When Lenin first met Stalin, he was not interested, but Stalin managed to get Lenin on his good side by robbing banks to raise money for the cause. Lenin saw Stalin very useful, and made Stalin an enforcer to the Bolsheviks.
Moses Ramirez Who in his inner circle did he kill? He killed opposition that was in open rebellion. By that logic, Lincoln deserves to also be called a mass murderer because after all he killed those who opposed him. See, part of the reason Lenin gets criticized is that we know what came afterward. Lenin was a man with faults. Yet, unlike Stalin, did not seek total control, and held no official position. He was an idealist who believed what he believed. But, he was also willing to change to adapt to the situation, ala NEP.
@@bensagal-morris8072 It sounds like you have wholly swallowed all the "pro Lenin" revised history that the Soviet Union pushed after his death...Hitler only killed during war too so i guess by your logic he was a decent man with only a few faults too and you admire him too??
Fun fact: Lenin was a hero because the way he treated his people, he supported the LGBT rights, and defended Judaism for his country, although it's not know whether he did order the execution of the Romanov family, after his death he wishes to be buried next to his mother, before his death he never wanted Stalin to succeed him.
Tsar Nicoluas II Did NOT order the shootings on Bloody Sunday. He wasn't at home and an officer did that on his own and the Tsar actually got angry about what he had done.
your take on Lenin and Kerensky isn't backed by fact. an unpopular and fringe group isn't going to win a civil war against a united liberal front of supposedly popularly backed mensheviks and a half dozen other countries. They were heavily popular because of their stance on the war, which Russians were sick of, not anxious to fight.
There is a statue of Lenin also in Italy, in Cavriago, a small town in Emilia Romagna. The inhabitants of the village after the October Revolution sent money to Russia to help the new government. After the Second World War the Soviet Union thanked them by sending the statue, which since then is in the main square, called "piazza Lenin".
*I think that most of Simon Whistler's videos are excellent--as far as videos go--but this one "misses the train" on several counts. If you are really interested in Lenin and what happened to the Russian Empire/Soviet Union in the 19th and 20th centuries, please read a book about it. There are dozens of them, even among those written in English alone, that give a much more interesting and accurate account of Lenin and what formed his life's course. Mr. Whistler's video is riddled with inaccuracies, as has been pointed out by many of those who contributed comments to this particular video.*
Most Lenin statues in Russia have not been destroyed; they still stand in Moscow and every city and town across the country. In fact, I have a personal photo collection of Lenin statues from all around the Russian Far East.
There is a statue of Lenin also in Italy, in Cavriago, a small town in Emilia Romagna. The inhabitants of the village after the October Revolution sent money to Russia to help the new government. After the Second World War the Soviet Union thanked them by sending the statue, which since then is in the main square, called "piazza Lenin".
Russian populace: 'You're too bloodthirsty! The nobility isn't that bad!' Narrator: 'They would later come to realize that maybe Vladimir had a point.'
Correction right off the bat: 0:30 "He pushed his version of communism." That is incorrect. The label "communist" was not an indication of the system he or anyone else claimed to be creating or upholding, but a label to differentiate the Bolsheviks from others who claimed to be socialist (the Bolsheviks used to be part of the "Social Democratic" party, like Marx), but were far more moderate in that they sought to preserve the bourgeoisie in order to have capitalism take over and run its course until the people were "ready" for socialism. "Communists," then, were not people who had created communism or were part of a communist system, but were people who wanted to make it clear that they wanted to fight for a communist future *now* instead of *later.* That meant "democracy from below" (an oft-repeated slogan of Lenin), "all power to the soviets" (another slogan), and other bottom-up policies that would be necessary for the people to rule themselves through economic, social, and political democracy. "War Communism," the term used to identify what went on during their civil war, was not "communism," but just a label to describe it in a "patriotic" (?) way. 3:15 Statements made by his teachers and other staff, as well as looking at the records, Lenin had an immaculate record of behavior. People like to suggest that he was rebellious etc growing up, but that was very far from the truth. If you want to know about Lenin's life and politics, then "Lenin's Political Thought" by Neil Harding is a solid source. More than just saying stuff happened "because believe me," Harding references diary entries, pamphlets, testimonies, etc, some of which are really hard to find without knowing where to look (in other words, Harding did a LOT of work getting the best picture of Lenin that he could). 3:25 This action led to a lot of problems. Look up the 1861 Emancipation. Land was taken from the wealthy landowners and leased to the peasants, but the landowners got to choose which land they would keep and give up, meaning that they kept the best land for themselves. The peasants largely were unable to support themselves on what land they were given. The wealthy landowners were promised bonds that for giving up their land, which would pay out because of the new productivity, but because the productivity was low, the peasants couldn't pay their leases, and the landowners didn't get the money promised. Peasants were also not able to get rid of their land obligations, driving obscene numbers to move to cities (many dying along the way) to find work that would pay their debts. This, along with other things, was the start of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. It is something Lenin wrote about, providing hard statistics and verified facts so that nobody could claim it wasn't so. 5:10 This is not accurate, but one of the common misconceptions people have based on what other people said about what Lenin wrote. If you read Lenin's works for yourself (I have, footnotes and all, without relying on another text to explain why he meant X instead of Y), and then compare it what Marx wrote (again, read it for yourself), you'll have a tough time differentiating between them. There are two main differences: 1) Lenin was writing about Russia specifically, whereas Marx was more proliferate and international, and 2) their writing styles are very different. Beyond that, they're almost identical. Lenin quoted Marx/Engels A LOT, and explained (to the approval of prominent Marxists, including Plekhanov and Kautsky) what a lot of it meant in simpler terms. Lenin was explicit about the role of the intelligentsia. It was to advise the people who would actually lead the revolution: the advanced workers. The advanced workers were nothing more than those workers who worked in factories and other jobs, crammed together in large numbers that allowed them to be more socially connected than others. The less connected the workers were to each other by proximity, the less advanced. Again, this is all stuff you can get from actually reading Lenin for yourself. 9:20 It was a long process, but "slithering" and the rest shows bias perpetrated by a lot of Menshevik propaganda from after the split (and right wing authors who came later, like Richard Pipes). The split between Bolshevik and Menshevik started small, but the ideological shift didn't happen until some time around 1914 (if I recall), when the Mensheviks became more blatantly in favor of more moderate reformism and other not-so-socialist things. Lenin did tend to make things black-and-white "you're either with us, or you're not," but this part of the video is pretty inaccurate. The rest after this also appears to be dripping with bias and full of inaccuracies based on biases and propaganda.
Alright, but why did you not point out how Winston Churchill used British Indians in World War 2 for his own gain? And how the British promised India independence if they took part in the second World War as soldiers but the British did not fulfill this promise. Overall, a good video. However, you have a tendency to immortalize Western heroes and denounce non-Western ones.
The Soviet Union didn't come into existence until December 1922, when the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Republic came together and signed the Treaty on the creation of the USSR. At that point the USSR was born. Just wanted to point that out. Also for those wondering, the central asian Soviet Socialist Republics didn't exist yet. They were still Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (ASSR) within the RSFR, and didn't gain Union Republic status till later.
Lenin actually wasn't too bad looking considering the fact that he........let the hair on the sides and back of his head grow instead of cutting ALL the hair off!
I’d. love to see you do a Ho Chi Minh biographic. Most of the info/bios/history in your videos I’m already familiar with but I enjoy the way you present it.
Hey man it's not true that they took down all of Lenin's statues in the former soviet union.....I lived in Almaty in Kazakhstan there's a park I'd go to daily that had a huge statue of the man.
It is true but only partially. There were 15 states (republics) that formed USSR. When USSR collapsed in many of them such as 3 Baltic countries, that were at the forefront of USSR break up by the way, they were taken down and communist party was outlawed. They are, however, still standing in Russia, Kazakhstan and few other places possibly. Hes statement was not a lie but it was not accurate enough, I agree.
This video is greatly biased. Lenin was a great genius who brought about the Soviet Union which proved to the world that socialism is a greatly preferable to capitalism. The Soviet Union fell only because of the corruption of the politicians who took over the government after Lenin died. Lenin did bring Russia and the Soviet Union into the modern world.
It was more the introduction of privately own businesses into Russia because Gorbachev freaks out because Russia's GDP didn't grow even though GDP is a crap measurement of the economy.
I’m from Latvia I lived in Līgatne and I used to do cadets in this old Russian built bunker full of scythes and sickles and at the very bottom a cast statue of the main man him self Lenin. So even in Latvia a country that was pressured by Russia Lenin was not a villain
The "good Lenin bad Stalin" idea was what I thought as a teen, but it's been regarded as a joke for some decade now. Stalin took the apparatus of terror Lenin started, and amped it up for his own purposes, killing most of Lenin's comrades in the process. And a lot of other people
Is this guy for real it was Alexander the second who freed the serfs and Lenin's brother did not try to kill NICHOLAS the second as he was dead before NICHOLAS became Czar
Video is absolutely terrible and full of biases; there are tons of areas where the full context isn't given, certain real events are worded in a way that slanders Lenin, some things are overestimated while others are underestimated, logical contradictions (for example, apparently everyone hated Lenin even in his own party but his army grew), outright lies, etc. Lenin wasn't some cartoon villain caricature. He was a real person who did both good things and bad things, but one thing almost every historian and his contemporaries agree on is that he wasn't some kind of power hungry dictator like you portray him to be, and that he was actually an idealist, a workaholic, and a sincere believer of his ideology and that it would help the people. No matter what he did, he did them not for his own personal gain but because he believed he was doing the right thing; this obviously doesnt absolve him of the negative things he did, but this is the historical consensus regarding him as a person, and contrasts greatly with the lie you present as a fact in this trash tier video.
Despite the fact that Lenin had long planned for the establishment of the Constituent Assembly and had even postponed many decisions for them to be later undertaken by it, he quickly deemed it counterrevolutionary and dissolved it as soon as the results came out against his party's favour. Instead, he overthrew the more moderate government and quickly initiated a rule dominated by his own party, favoring members of exactly this party at all levels of governance. More moderate socialists and Anarchists quickly became targets of prosecution and subjects of summary execution, sometimes ordered by Lenin directly. Even simple protests of the peasantry, many of whom were literally starving during times of shortage, were often answered with violence. Freedom of press was quickly eliminated and all other parties were either outlawed or freed of any serious chance of political representation. The Kronstadt rebellion, a rebellion of fellow socialists, even demanded this to change, acknowledging that elections to worker's councils were not free. Further, they implied in their demands that Bolsheviks were even favoured in matter like food rationing. The result was that 2000 rebels were, again, executed on the spot. Other rebellions were answered with leftovers of chemical weapons from World War 1. These disgusting pseudo-historical portrayals of Lenin as a defender of the people makes my blood boil. Learn history or atleast shut your mouth if you cannot bother to.
Nicholas : Who would try to overthrow the Russian Empire and start a socialist revolution 3 A.M. ?
Lenin : *OH BOY 3 A.M.*
I love that meme
If that happened today: OMG REVOLUTION AT THE RUSSIAN PALACE ****AT 3AM**** (WOULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED) (NOT CLICKBAIT)
@@randomgames4063 me 2
@@randomgames4063 Me also
Trotsky did
Lenins brother attempted to assassinate Alexander III. The serfs were freed by Alexander II. Neither of these were Nicholas II and they occurred in different periods of time than implied.
Cool
@@toneohm215 yeah massive error on the creators part.
There’s a lot of mistakes in this video
😮😮😮😮 OH wow
Only leader whose body was preserved for decades.
Egyptian kings: Are we a joke to you?
@Ethan Wallick who tf is linkon. I think you mean Lincoln.
Technically, he was only preserved for decades.
Those Egyptian kings were preserved centuries, even longer
@@InvadeleYogurt millennia.
@@timothyhouse1622 And that's why I said "even longer"
Mao Zedong: *Tries to cough but can't because he is dead*
Lenin isn't really remembered as a villain in Russia, and Lenin's statues are still standing in Moscow
Give it time.
That's scary
His statues even stand in the poorest town's near Mongolia where the populations are mostly ethnically Mongolian. He still has supporters in all former USSR states besides maybe the few in West Europe.
That is very one sided. I've seen his statues vandalized, knocked over, and even urinated on like it was a public toilet. People also support Hitler and think he was an alright guy. It doesn't mean everyone does.
@@StaticImage Depends on where you are. If you're talking about other former soviet-block countries, that's fair. They don't like soviets, and they tore down a bunch of statues. In Russia, however, it's a different. I've never heard about that nor seen that. A lot of Russians tend to idealise and romanticise the USSR.
According to Levada Centre (an independent pollster in Moscow), 66% of Russians regret that the USSR was dissolved. This percentage has never been lower than 50% (except in 2012 when it was 49%)
Wow...he did all that AND he was in the Beatles???
No, that was his brother Ivan Lenin. He changed his name to John to have a broader appeal.
@@scottplumer3668 Ohhhh....that makes sense!....so when he wrote 'back in the USSR' he was reminiscing and missing his famous brother. There is a lyric in that song that goes 'Come and keep your comrade warm' ...so he must have been talking about the cold weather there
Jeffrey Herrera soviet anthem plays
@Jeffrey Herrera You say you want a revolution? Well you know... We all wanna change the world. But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao. You're not gonna make it with anyone anyhow. don't you know it's gonna be... Allright!
The Beatles one is Lennon, the Russian communist is Lenin, both sound alike, but are different. Though John Lennon may have been a communist.
Ouch. His brother was hanged for plotting the execution of Tsar Alexander III - not Nicky 2. This basic error makes me doubt the facts here -- so for the sake of fans, fact check your work. Thanks!
No, you are wrong. Must be A Mendela effect.
@@greggutierrez6339 Yeah, i'm pretty sure that Alexander III was Tsar in 1887 when Lenin's brother was hung.
This guy's videos are always filled with huge errors.
He makes videos about Canada that aren’t true
@@HaiderAli-it9pn yeah I was about to watch this but seeing the guy's face reminded me I saw another video that was wrong on every level. So I'll be looking for a different vid
Sorry to be one of those people noticed a mistake a 3:29. It was not Tsar Nicolas II that released the peasants but Tsar Alexander II his grandfather. He did so via the emancipation edict of 1861
Yes I was just about to say that.
don't be sorry, we learn even more from people like you!
They also say Lenin's brother was trying to assassinate Nicholas the second, when he was trying to assassinate Alexander III.
he should reupload ngl
Thanks for noticing that.
Ngl; Stalin was a looker when he was a young man.
All of Russian history can be summed up with this phrase, "and then it got worse."
That photo is actually retouched. He had facial scars from the pox, I believe
"Young Stalin had a great haircut... And then it got worse"
@@grantmclean4744 папа
Because that's all atheist socialism ever does is get worse & ultimately leads to mass murder & horrendous dictatorships.
IMO it got better when Stalin gave way to Khrushchev, and when Gorbachev came to power and started trying to 'modernize' Leninism. Probably also got better once the economic turmoil in the 1990s was over; just a shame that when given the chance at true democracy they ended up with the Medvedev/Putin power monopoly.
20:56 "In 1991, the Soviet Union, it collapsed, and all of the statues of Lenin, they were torn down."
False. The first time I was in Russia was 1999, two days in St Petersburg as part of a choir's tour of the Baltic. It was no longer Leningrad, but I saw at least 3 or 4 Lenin statues. I didn't see any statues of Stalin.
The second time I was in Russia was 2005, and I spent 3 weeks in Moscow, Vladimir, Suzdal, Yaroslavl, Kazan, Tver, Novgorod, St Petersburg, Petrozavodsk, and Kizhi. During this trip, I saw dozens of statues of Lenin, I'm sure at least 30. I even saw a few statues of Stalin.
If you are a Russian reading this, please reply with how many statues of Lenin are in your city/town. Cпасибо.
A lot. Most importantly, no one really sees him as a villain in Russia.
In America there's a Lenin statue
On private property
Ironic,is it not?
Yeah, Russia is full of Lenin statues, still in 2019. I am Russian. Its hard to find a city without monument of him.
Actually, St. Petersburg in in Leningrad Oblast still, they changed the name of the city, not the province.
Kildare Aleksander All evils they’ve done with the world ? That’s cute. Tell me more about USA-France-England coalition.
Nicholas the 2nd never freed the serfs, that was Alexander the 2nd
errrr dude I visited Saint Petersburg in July/2019 and you can literally guide yourself in the city by counting the monuments dedicated to Lenin. you don´t need a GPS or GLONASS just count his momuments. Russians may not be a big fan of him but they do recognize him as a very historical person and played a gigantic part on Russia´s history
I love even today how Western so-called Marxist-Leninists have no idea that:
Karl Marx was a petty bigot, casual racist and anti-semite in his letter to Engels 30th of July, 1862. A womanising misogynist who had an affair with his maid behind his petit-Bourgeoisie wife's back, a secret son, had Engels often pay his rent, and also they had a laugh about a rival German socialist getting arrested for homosexual activity, appropriately, in *1869* How Trumpian of him!
I like his dream, dream it myself. I just understand it will take a 98% automated international economy. He himself however was the kind of person the TRIGGERED, Virtue-Signalling, Lefty Thought Police *Tankies* would get *CANCELLED* today.
Then we get onto Lovely Laudable Lenin. Man of the people. Who just like C21st Western Marxists today, insisted that anyone who doesn't 100% agree or obey is a Fascist Capitalist Enemy of the People's Revolution.
When he himself starved peasant farmers with Forced Collectivisation, no understanding of logisticis, and then when some rose against the Bolsheviks in the Tambov Rebellion, this Man of The People murdered many with chemical weapons. Hooray the peasants got to learn to read at last! Reading Tankie propaganda that is.
Stalin, oh my days, an ethnic-cleansing genocidal maniac, racist, sexist, homophobe who thought of Western homosexuals as 'Useful Idiots' Even Lenin didn't want him to have power.
Bolsheviks vs Mensheviks.
The mentally contaminated Western Ultra-Left Yuri Bezmenov is correct about vs Liberals, Welfarists, C21st Social Democrats and other reformist Socialists.
Lefty Infighting vs Organised Turbo-Capitalists, the Far White and Extreme Theocrats.
The perpetual side battle to Labour VS Capital that will go on perpetually until we reach Full Automation.
"Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the great" - Sir Clement Attlee, amazing Social Democrat PM of the Labour Party, started the NHS, the process of freeing the colonies, improved the intelligence services and tried to meddle with Stalin in the Post WW2 era.
He achieved more than emotionally and mentally unstable drunkard Marx and Crab-Bucket Mentality multiplied by Victim Mentality Marxists ever did or ever will.
* chuckles in 95% BRITISH Socialism of the Chartists, Robert Owen, Sir Clement Attlee, 5% nasty highly intelligent thug Sir Winston Churchill *
I am Russian and Lenin will always be a hero to me.
No one sees him in a bad light he literally is a hero
@@aaronnilestoussaint5672 "Gassing peasant farmers angry at the not-Bourgeois Bolshevik Elites stealing their food is ok if Lenin orders it. Socialism!" - you & all the other Tankies. 😆😆
"The middle-class doesn't exist they're workers who have been co-opted by the Bourgeois so that makes it ok to genocide these people who don't exist like successful peasant farmers with a little food spare to trade" - you and all the other Tankies
"Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx & Catherine the Great" - Sir Clement Attlee, one of a long line of British Socialists who did more good for Humanity, than:
Randy bigot Karl Marx, and the Russian Soviet Empire.
Trotsky was the only ok original Russian 'Communist' and Kruschev was the best ever Dictator of the USSR. Change my mind.
Lenin was genius and he fought for rights poor people’s
one big lie here. Every Russian city on this date 2019 with exception of moscow has a lenin square asmain square ( st petersburg it's secondary square at finland railway terminal) and every city's main street ( exception moscow and st pete's ) is named ulitsa lenin or lenin prospect . Thousands of statues of Lenin remain including in Moscow. check your facts . Google map will show it.
kinda like the confederates? except we have whiney ass people trying to remove them cause they dont like to do their history also
There are also 5 busts of his punk ass in America
@@matty7006 Where?
@@rojoskies81 The American civil war is probably something we don't get taught enough about in foreign countries, yet again not many Americans know what a Lenin is.
@@rojoskies81 You're seriously comparing the Confederates to Lenin? Afaik those confederates wanted to keep the slaves and we're very racist. Lenin and the Bolsheviks on the other hand provided more workers rights, women also got better rights, they didn't condemn homosexuals and blacks. Soviets enjoy better standard of living compared during the Tsarist regime.
Next, could we do Leon Trotsky? Complete the communism trio lmao
Poor old Trotsky, made it all the way to the Americas before Stalin got an icepick in him.
Jak Lawrence real true my guys now in my community make Leon Trotsky assassination a meme ( sorry I'm Vietnamese my grammar is not good)
I thought they did one on Trotsky already?
Well holy crap. They didn't. My head is telling me lies.
Hopefully it is not filled with as many mistakes or overlooking the actual facts.
Do a video about yourself Simon Whistler
He isn't Tim Pool
He already did, he is hitler living in Uk. Wops...
Not another bald man.
Do one on Jason Genova
Mahinda Githaiga Oh can I do it
This video is full of inaccuracies. Way too many to list in a TH-cam comment. It makes me wonder how inaccurate all of the other videos are.
@@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan Actually they are heavily biased towards mindless videos to promote raking in Google ad dollars for Google's benefit with channels and creators not fitting the "algorithim" written by naive Google employees aiming for constantly lower targets to market and kiss up to. Interrupted by occasional attempts by concerned, sometimes scholarly types to present more a more accurate picture to be targeted by trolls who cannot start a comment or grasp the idea that what they've heard and learned, increasingly from overrated, biased college instructors who still insist on being paid big bucks , is wrong. Ignoring those who lived during the period on both sides that actually lived through it
David Myrick
yeah I hate that no one thinks critically, I went to college and was the only one concentrating on the research and I'M not even particularly Bright.
I mentioned a few. Really embarrssingly sloppy and misleading stuff.
Lots of inaccuracies! It is hard to get the real facts. I won't be checking out the other videos on other subjects.
@@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan I hope you realize that Trump is 100% in bed with Israel, which is extremely pro-fascist and pro-capitalist. His administration has been Israel First since he stepped into office. Trump is not anti-establishment, rather Trump is apart of the establishment.
how did Lenin get the support he needed for a coup, you ask? Well, its because when he returned to russia, it was right after Alexander Kerensky had just dissolved the duma, and cancelled the upcoming elections. So the kerensky's opposing revolutionaries, along with the monarchists asked the bolsheviks to assist in overthrewing the kerensky government, all these factions underestimated Lenin's persistance, and the bolsheviks were able to use the instability to seize power, the monarchists didn't like that, and many of the worker's councils in the west of Russia revolted and joined Lenin, pushing the monarchists out to siberia, starting the Russian Civil war.
The monarchists certainly weren't a fan of Kerensky, who somewhat spontaneously decided that Russia shall from now on be a Republic, either. Truth be told however, they weren't much of a relevant force and while they of course also later opposed the Bolsheviks, much of the resistance against the Bolsheviks also came from Liberals, Anarchists and many other types of Socialists.
Other far-left groups, after all, had many reasons to be mad at the Bolsheviks as well. Many more moderate Socialists disapproved of how the Bolsheviks had ended the war early and thought that the massive amounts of land they gave up were overall hurtful to the revolutionary cause. Many also opposed the very bureaucratic type of rule Lenin intiated and especially Anarchists were of course shocked at the establishment of, for example, a secret police force. The Civil War rather boiled to "Bolsheviks vs everyone opposed to them" and not "Bolsheviks vs monarchists".
This video misses out sooo much tho. Lenin tried to prevent Stalin from taking power, he wanted all his statues tore down, claiming that these things were false idols and that icons such as these dampened the desire to change. He didn't want people to see the revolution as something that succeeded but as an on going process. 1st the violent tearing out of old ideals and power bases followed by the slow building of a new nation and idealolgy. He even wanted his own body to be cremated for these reasons (not that Stalin cared what he wanted). Also he never saw Russia as being fully communist under his rule, that was the whole point of Lennism, he saw his philosophy and rule as a stop gap on the way to true communism. He believed, same as Marx did, that communism could only be achieved through the proletariat. The idea was that the lower classes would educate themselves and , guided by the Bolsheviks, one day form their own government. There's so much more to delve into here. Don't get me wrong I love the channel but you simply can't do a 20 min video on Lenin and the Russian revolution and paint a clear picture there's so many characters, philosophers, poor management (seriously the Tsar was just terrible at ruling a country), then the impact of WW1, the civil war, the building of the trans Siberian railway, foreign interference, the 4 Dumas etc. And it just ends up being a "communism bad" "boo russia" video.
That's because "Communism bad" "boo Russia".
SOURCE!
Really I actually want to see if this is real, to put Lenin is a better light
@@Sandy-qr2ff it's so much a singular source as more I spent 2 years studying the Russian Revolution as part of my history A level.
@@lukecollins2485 thanks
In fact , Lenin was not against Stalin as head of the Council of People 's Commissars . Lenin quarreled with Stalin because he was in conflict with his wife, but in Lenin's will, Stalin was one of the candidates for this post and was chosen by vote. Speaking of the video, yes, it was quite fun, he even says that Lenin became the head of the USSR immediately after the revolution, although the USSR was formed five years later
There's so many inaccuracies and straight up lies in this video that I can't even begin to sum them up. But the one that struck me the most was the "bolsheviks-mensheviks" one. This was a party dispute about which tactics to follow. It was also a discussion within the whole of the 2nd internationale! With factions and tendencies all over the place. Kautsky, Plechanov, Lenin, Luxemburg, Liebknecht, Trotsky, the list goes on. They all chose sides on whether capitalism was able to surpass its inherent contradictions. That's the reason for the split. Not a stupid one time argument. Read a book before you make these vids please.
Oversimplified actually presents more facts then this guy
Give oversimplified 's Russian revolution video a watch, funny while still being accurate and self aware
aCtChUaLlY
Kautsky and Luxemburg were not members of the RSDLP buddy. Seems like you don't know much about it either.
@@thechekist2044 he referred to the second international
I am sorry, but you history of Lenin is quite inaccurate. And too much speculation.
Well why don't you produce a video and enlighten us all
@@boomerhgt "let's see you do better" is not a valid response to criticism.
@@xelaredna6841 But he didn't make any critical argument at all... Which parts are inaccurate? Which parts are speculation? Suggesting he actually explain what he means by that with his own video is a perfectly valid response to a vague and unhelpful comment.
@@bluesrocker91 There are way too many for a youtube comment.A lot of guesses too.
@@bluesrocker91 for starters, Lenin's brother didn't try to kill TSAR Nicholas II. Nicholas wasn't tsar in 1887, his father was still very much alive.
0:55 - Chapter 1 - Early life
3:25 - Chapter 2 - Sparks that ignited a revolution
7:35 - Mid roll ads
9:10 - Chapter 3 - The bolshevik revolution
15:20 - Chapter 4 - Lenin's violent reign
19:35 - Chapter 5 - Death & legacy
Early life check:
"His mother was descended from a wealthy Jewish family..."
Every. Single. Time.
Vladimir Lenin, otherwise known as Vlad the Lad
Vlad the Chad
The original incel
Vlad the Bad
Vladimir and Vladislav(vlad) are two completely separate names, like John and James. Short form for "Vladimir" is "Vova" , Slavic analog of Bob
Vlad mAh Man 😎
*They are churning out way too many of these "Biographics" videos and not doing proper research. Many people who have written comments prior to this one have rightly pointed out its many inaccuracies.*
just checked the sources it's quite the joke, one biased book, one biased article - a video that doesn't exist anymore and 3 wikipedia articles... the whole part about the february revolution was pretty dodgy that's what made me wonder.
Stay Mad Tankie
The brazen lies in this video are countless. I wonder where the author got half the facts, did he come up with them himself or did he just copy propaganda? For example, who told him that the Lenin monuments were demolished? Every city in Russia has at least one monument to him, and the people have great respect for him. Recently a poll came out where 60% of respondents had a positive view of his figure and 20% were neutral.
Agreed the Romanovs were not executed on lenins order but by drunk soldiers paranoid about the white armies advance
No matter how you debate this man, he started 70 years of sickening terror. Over 100 million people murdered and over 1 billion displaced. An evil monster. Period.
The source of the hundred million deaths comes from the book
The Black Book of Communism.
A book that half its writers and coauthors denounce.
As it has been proven that the main writer inflated the numbers.
The American CIA has said many years ago that the numbers were inflated for properganda reasons.
This is public knowledge and you can find this out by googling any of the points above.
He tends to be less critical of information about Russia I noticed. Compare his Ivan video to his Bloody Mary one, where he decides Ivan was definitely a terrible person despite the mistranslation of his name, but the British Queen was just a bit misunderstood during all her mass murders and religious purges. He repeats post-hoc propaganda about Rasputin as if it were fact. I'm not Russian nor have any connection to Russia, but I've read enough about the Tudors, Peter the Great and the Romanovs to notice the different treatment.
@@bosman5803 Trotsky said that Lenin knew and approved of the executions. Trotsky asked, "The children too?", and Lenin replied that all of the Romanovs needed to be eliminated.
100 years today since he passed.
To be fair, the Russian Empire in 1914 although lagging behind the west, was catching up and quickly. One of the reasons the German Empire entered WW1 was because they thought they would not be able to defeat Russia later.
I think one statement that everyone will agree on. Russia has a very interesting history....God bless you all
A pity, this one was articulated rather biasedly.
Communists have ALWAYS been evil, period. They murdered a family, and even killed a sick little boy who probably wasn't even going to survive to adulthood anyway. And today, there are violent groups like "Antifa" who want Communism again. So, honestly, who gives a damn if it's "biased." Communists are evil, end of story. There's your documentary.
@@ct92404 Hey man, thanks for your reply. I have to say that I strongly disagree. It is true that many manifestations of communism throughout history have been very oppressive and violent. This fact tells a lot about humans but little about the ideology itself. If you compare communism and the liberal market in vitro, you will see how the first has human rights as its core value and the latter has some very serious intrinsic flaws, which are always present, however well the system is implemented and followed. Severe wealth inequalitites, exploitation of the weaker countries, economic crises, all that are structural parts of the free market. Ideologically it comes down to this (for me): do we try to implement a left wing planned economy which opens up the path of true progress (true progress can only be achieved when we actively and safely plan our own future), or do we keep on with the gambling of the liberal market which inevitably leads to financial bubble bursts and extreme poverty? You also talk of violence. Thing is, the groups you are refering to have realized that violence is necessary as a means of self defense against the systematized, institutionalized and legalized brute force and extreme violence that right wing goverments impose upon the majority of the people. Maybe their kind of violence is not as evident as lighting up a trash can or beating up a cop, but it is much, much, much more painful and destructive.
@@SomeOne-db7xs Antifa doesn't use violence for "self-defense," they use it to try to CENSOR anyone who says things they don't like. I don't know where you live, but the Antifa groups here in the US claim that they are fighting "Nazis" and say things like "punch a Nazi" ...but the problem is that they can identify ANYONE as a "Nazi." If anyone expresses views that are against SJW politics (like political correctness or transgenderism ideology), Antifa thugs brand them a "Nazi" and violently attack them. They riot, set fires, and attack innocent people just to block a person from giving a public talk. Antifa thugs have attacked innocent bystanders. During the riots they started in Berkley, California, a group of Antifa thugs beat up a 17 year old kid who was just a bystander. He had to be hospitalized. They beat up another person with a bike lock and nearly killed him. Antifa are domestic terrorists, and coincidentally they also are pushing for Communism.
People who have a victim mentality and think there is some kind of "systematic oppression" working against them are prone to following extreme ideologies...which inevitably leads to violence. You talk about human nature - well, human nature is that most normal people aren't comfortable with extremes. Normal people generally have a "live and let live" philosophy. But communism is an extreme ideology, and so therefore the only way you will implement it is with violence and oppression. First, you have a "revolution" to overthrow the present government, but then inevitably you have to make sure everyone is following the same ideology, so you have to control them. The Soviet Union was infamous with how they controlled media and spied on their people. It got to the point where they were trying to bug EVERYONE'S phones. But they couldn't keep up with listening to all the tapes. This is what Communism always leads to - violence and oppressing people with fear and control.
@@ct92404 I agree with you on some points, pity we're discussing through youtube and not over a few beers :) I completely agree on the fact that many leftist movements misinterpret the self defense doctrine of violence and go overboard. I am completely against blind violence, censorship and misinformation.Same goes for many right wing movements that border on the extreme right. Yes, there are such groups, but they do not characterize the ideology nor the means of implementing it; they are clumsy ways of dealing with the social/political suffocation they are experiencing. I do not believe that we should judge a whole system of ideas based on the way that a few people have chosen to understand it. Same goes for communist China. What they are doing has actually nothing to do with Marxist ideals.
About the victim mentality. Well, I do not think there is such a mentality regarding the matters we are discussing, I do think there are actual victims though. I mean yeah ok, we live in the so called advanced world but what about third world countries being continuously exploited by the big guys? Do they have a victim mentality or are they actual victims? What about Venezuela? You live in the states so i suppose you do believe that you guys actually want to restore democracy there, as you thought you did with Chile in '73 or the freedom you brought to Iraq. However, the truth is far from this. Mainstream media do project a completely distorted image of what is happening. In short, yes, there are victims of the free market and their suffering is true and ongoing. In the same sense, we can also be victims of manipulation and misinformation by being consciously misled, as is current state of things. You talk about systematic oppression like it's something imaginary, when it is - and has always been in the civilized world - all around us.
Regarding human nature. You misuderstood, or maybe I did not express myself clearly. I am not talking about human nature; this would mean that I suggest humans being born with such behaviors. I am talking about social construct; about what people have come to be like. Nobody is born violent or deceitful, yet many of us end up this way through social stimuli. Being violent and oppressive is not hard coded in our system, it's a reflex, a reaction, a development. The live and let live you are talking about would be a wonderful state of things; "live" is happening, "let live" not so much. Look at Venezuela again. How is the State's claims a "let live" policy? Seems like whenever a nation wants to be left alone and stand in its own feet, not participating in the global deceit that's been goig on, it's immediately being subjugated in the name of Democracy. Well, democracy is the new Christianity, seems to me.
Lastly, concerning the control. Here, we need to take into account the fact that whenever a nation tries to become communistic then the whole world turns against it and shuts it off, proclaiming it an enemy of freedom and mobilizing propaganda to have everybody thinking the same. It is natural that this is a huge hit and greatly affects the way which such a nation would deal with its people, namely resorting to such propaganda and censorship policies itself. Now, of course I am condemning such actions but what i want to point out is that what the Soviets, for example, did was a counter attack against capitalism, in an effort to preserve their ideals. It went awfully wrong, it got completely derailed (they also had a devastated economy and a famine to work with but ok). All in all, I do think that if a communistic nation was not regarded as the devil itself - hence fought to death -, it would not have to resort in extreme control policies so as to defend its ideals and only then it would be able to actually implement communism, not having to deal with the capitalist world suffocation.
@@ct92404 yeah and the tsar murdered and enslaved his own people hmm
I missed the point where he left the Beatles because of Yoko.
I know, and for some reason he completely mixed up St Petersburg with Liverpool...
"In Soviet Russia, you not go to party - Party come for YOU!"
This meme is unoriginal
But still gives a warm fuzzy.
"And give you long vacation in Siberia".
@@SymphonyBrahms LOL. I was in Russia 12 years ago. In St. Petersburg most buildings are limited to six stories height b/c of the swamp base and fact that Catherine the Great wanted a Parisian look - Paris also had a 6 story limit at that time. My group toured St. Petersburg before we visited the palaces. When we drove by the former KGB building the guide quipped that "it's been said that if you stand on the roof, you can see all the way to Siberia". I noted a question you had (or so I thought) about responsibility for the Royal Family's assassination. It's harder to come by that than other information about Bolshevik times. Trotsky did write of this in his diary and you can read his short passage via Google "Execution of the Romanov Family". There is also one video (only one so far) that I found on TH-cam with deeper history, impressive Russian covert researchers and some reasonable answers. It's Nicholas and Alexandra by HRH Prince Michael of Kent A&E Biography Part 2. Yes, ultimate culprits include Lenin and I don't know how there can be any doubt of that. Why these things are not better known? I think one of the prime reasons is that Russians are a wonderful people and want to be proud of their country, and well ......... they've been shielded. I think that's part of the answer. Best regards!
This is quite possibly the shittiest and most historically inaccurate explanation of the Russian Revolution I have ever heard or seen.
how so?
ruby T Because it ignores a lot of the good that Lenin did such as the decrees, the NEP, The decriminalisation of homosexuality and increasing women’s rights. It also features blatantly wrong information such as claiming it was Nicolas II who ended serfdom.
David A. Simon I agree with you. Although I hold some respect for Putin in bringing back the tune of the Soviet anthem and still allowing Russian people to celebrate and feel nostalgic for their Soviet past.
I visited Leningrad during workers day in May, and saw a huge parade of people waving Soviet flags and holding portraits of Stalin ect. It was really cool to see.
However I agree Putin is nowhere near the leader that Lenin was in terms of their individual personalities and values. Putin probably only ‘supports’ his people’s nostalgia for the Soviet period to stay on their good side, as on my trip most of the locals I spoke to were very against Putin and his leadership in general.
David A. Simon True. One Woman I spoke to in Russia called Putin ‘the creepy guy’. A lot of nostalgia for the Soviet past also comes from Putin’s failures to create a fair Government that everybody is happy with.
@@mysteriousmuffin6017 Was bound to happen when you had the US and EU cashing in on the privatization orgy along with structuring the Russian economy in a way that keeps it subservient to both powers as well. Nothing bad enough could ever be done to Gorbechev and Yeltsin that would come anywhere close to providing justice to the Russian people.
Lenin was not panicking because the revolution started without him. He and most of bolchevik leaders agreed that they had to be in exile to avoid been killed by the tzar.
It's a shame that train didn't derail off the tracks into a steep ravine.
"He had absolutely no patience for people who did not agree with him %100"
Sounds familiar.
Hahaha Trump 🙈
@@ThomasHarding1990 he made fun of the orange man guys look how funny he is
@@ThomasHarding1990
Not really. Trump may not be a good guy, but you can't say that he is intolerant to any other opinions because he puts up with the media when a man like Lenin (or Hitler) would have had them all killed or enslaved.
@@warrioroflight6872 puts up. Firstly Lenin wouldn't have had them all killed but Trump definitely does not put up with the media
Must be looking in the mirror
To anyone who actually wanted a better take on lenin, watch "History vs Lenin" on Ted-Ed TH-cam channel..
In 4 minutes, that video gives a better view.
I'm usually never disappointed by this channel. But this time, you definitely failed.
really sore knee The thing is this video is exclusively bad about Lenin. Not once is one of his many achievements mentioned or credited. Not to mention the many examples of blatantly wrong facts.
@@mysteriousmuffin6017 Ya even the bad things abt him were completely made up.
@Lobo nonsense.Both stalin and marx are grt ppl.
@@Justme-fz1ng Marx is fine, but Stalin is comparable to Hitler.
@Lobo You do know that a lot of our current economic system comes from Marx's theories right?
Also the fact that Marx and Lenin were "rich" (which is false, Marx had to live under a small allowance that his friend Engels gave him) only makes their ideals more credible, like, it's a rich person advocating for economic equality and whatnot, they just sound more believable.
You kind of simplified things too much and got quite a few things wrong. Serfdom wasn't abolished by Nicholas II but by his grandfather Alexander II. It is also unclear as to who actually ordered the firing upon demonstrators on Bloody Sunday, yet there isn't evidence to demonstrate that Nicholas II gave the order, and if we look at his personality as a ruler, this conclusion does not fit.
**international intensifies**
Im a socialist and I like how the last part of your name is in Arabic
@@SnorlaxFriend M'aiq is from a game called Skyrim and has nothing to do with Arabic...
Oh my god, so sorry, I speak Arabic but I don't know all the words. I got it confused with another word from Arabic
@@SnorlaxFriend aight pal
HELL MARCH INTENSIFIES
"Lenin did nothing about this."
Lenin didn't prevent a large-scale famine by himself, what a monster.
Hey a communist
Because he caused it.
@@johnhatchel9681 … he wasn’t in charge of anything then. Most intelligent anti-communist.
@Chris Oh so sorry. That was Stalins collectivist nonsense. I do apologize. Lenin was still an evil person. Anyone that defends either of these two people are either ignorant or evil themselves.
Way too westernized version of a biography
Dimitris Metalleidis then you make one
Dimitris Metalleidis yer mum
Why? Just because it's based on facts - his letters, orders etc? And not on Soviet fairy tales of writing in milk in jail, sharing soap between children and other crap?
@@eugeneperstube We know that the U.S government deliberately spread lies and anti communist propaganda during the Cold War of course the Soviets did the same to the west, but you'd be a damn fool to believe every western account of the USSR
@@ryanoverstreet7721 So use eastern accounts. All in this video is common knowledge and wildly accessible.
"He told tenants to kill their landlords and encouraged violence toward the upper classes"
What is the problem?
killing innocent people ! , the upper class has just as much of a right to live as any other social class , if you think otherwise , than your an insane braindead communist
@@dragoncrown2029 People who take 90% of the profit of their workers and cause workers to live in poverty are not innocent. There no different then feudal lords.
@@kittenmastermind660 Lenin was the leader of the Bolshevik regime , Bolshevik soldiers killed 100 000 people , they spread their Red terror among the Russian people , so that everyone would understand that , resistance against the Bolshevik party would lead to death , the Bolsheviks were Brutal dictators ! ( much worse than Tzar Nicholas ever was ) , and btw the Bolsheviks killed Tzar Nicholas and his family in a basement ! , they murdered his wife , son and daughters ( you support disgusting cowardly men who murdered innocent women and children to gain / secure power for their Bolshevik party ) , only the worst kind of human would support the Bolsheviks , i seems to me that you are one of the worst !
@@dragoncrown2029 Do research on communism. If you did you would find out that many communists hate the USSR and China. The TH-camr Vaush is a good entry point for people to learn about socialism.
Socialism is when the workers control the business where they work. Socialism can be a market economy, a command economy, or a mixed economy. Communist is a stateless classless and moneyless society. If you did research before opening your mouth you would know this.
Also don't complain about dicators if you think the Russian royal family or any nobility is innocent. Nobility can only maintain there power by the use of violence and exploiting others this is true for all members of all ruling classes. Form Stalin to Obama. Communism is anti dictator and this is why many people do not think the USSR and China are communist.
Not that my saying any of this will process with you, it just going to go right over your head.
@@kittenmastermind660 So you think that murdering the Tsar's innocent children was ok. You have a heart of stone. Children Children. Shame on you, you devil.
The craziest thing about this video is when he essentially said “ this is history and it is, however TH-cam doesn’t like it because children. So they don’t pay you.”
Wait a second.... Vladimir Lenin looks like a white Jamie Foxx!
i m deaaaaad HHHHHHHHHH
@@charlesscott27 hh
What has been seen, ca not be unseen.
6:38 I like how he didn’t even attempt to say Lenin’s girlfriend’s name 😂
Philosopher: "Can one man change the world forever?"
Lenin: "Da, comrade."
Lenin’s brother, Alexander, never tried to assassinate Nicholas the 2nd
So many mistakes...
Command_Unit let’s see your work if you can do better
@@rsears78 I do not have to be a cow to say that milk is rotten
@@ЕгорКравец-т3е then point out where the milk is rotten.
drunkensailor112 There are many. But, you know, it does not really matter for foreigners
Can you please explain where the mistakes are? At least mention one.
Thanks for creating a biography about me.
I have communist propaganda on my wall
@@dylantrashmint8379 The only thing that can stop a bad communist is a good communist
Yes comrade
He could do another one about you, Stalin, and Hitler, and call it "Three Disgusting Murderers".
@@SymphonyBrahms 🙁 not quite the name I was looking for.
Lenin’s statues were absolutely not all torn down in Russia.
Serfdom was abolished in 1861 by Alexander II the grandfather of Nicolas 2
In Moscow I went to the Lenin Mausoleum where his body lies embalsed. Statues of Lenin are still around in the former Soviet Union. In East Ukraine, as well as the unregignized state of Transnistria Lenin statues are all over the place!
So Lenin was a pampered rich kid lecturing the working man on how to live his life?
This is easily the most infuriatingly inaccurate video I’ve seen on this channel. Loved every video on this channel I saw before this one but the falsehoods present here are so egregious it’s basically historical revisionism
Seethe more leftoid
@@elemperadordemexico good one
Lenin calling people his enemy for not agreeing with him sounds very familiar today.
This video tries to paint Lenin as a joke. He wasn't.
Can you do Abraham Lincoln please , I love your videos
This, is a very untrue depiction. He says that no one liked his ideas but yet he had an approval rating of 80%.
wrong ! , in november 1917 Lenin's Bolshevik pary had 24% of the votes , the socialist revolutionary party had 40%
This guy's outwardly biased lecture makes me think Lenin did practically everything right except execute Kaplan.
Lenin's Bolshevik regime killed 100 000 people , he did most things wrong
RIP Comrade
'You're out of your element Donny!'
Fun fact; Vladimir Illaynovich Lenin was the real name of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Flat out wrong. I assume this is an attempt at spitting on his name? Well you didnt even write it correctly. Not Илаинович, Ильич.
I normally love your videos but I personally found this video to needlessly polemic and biased against Lenin. Please read more around the subject and reconsider his legacy.
He was responsible for the needless deaths of millions of people, what more needs to be said?
@@kodyeldridge5847 no, he wasn't, read some history.
@@modigrey Maybe not directly but his ideas and the forcing of said ideas down the throats of the Russian poor and working class put Russia on a collision course for mass genocide.
His legacy was the murder of many people. Only a Lenin apologist won't accept that fact.
Adios ..
Do one on Benito Juarez from Mexico
Actually I been to Russia and there are statues of Lenin everywhere. But no statues of Stalin
Our leader Vladimir Lenin
so upsetting to see Simon have such a negative slant against Lenin, clearly forming an opinion without reading any of his or other communist leaders writings from the time. Lenin was a great hero to many in the working class and the USSR, although it had it's faults and shortcomings as any other country, was a beacon of hope to workers who dream to be freed from the toils of capitalism. Love from the USA.
When Lenin first met Stalin, he was not interested, but Stalin managed to get Lenin on his good side by robbing banks to raise money for the cause. Lenin saw Stalin very useful, and made Stalin an enforcer to the Bolsheviks.
Lenin and Stalin were fellow murderers as well.
@@SymphonyBrahms but Stalin was the worst of the bunch.
Lenin killed during a time of war. Stalin killed during peace. That is what separates them, and why I admire Lenin, and despise Stalin.
Ben Sagal-Morris wtf? Lenin threw away most of his ideals when he got to power, no need to admire a man who killed those who opposed him.
Moses Ramirez Who in his inner circle did he kill? He killed opposition that was in open rebellion. By that logic, Lincoln deserves to also be called a mass murderer because after all he killed those who opposed him. See, part of the reason Lenin gets criticized is that we know what came afterward. Lenin was a man with faults. Yet, unlike Stalin, did not seek total control, and held no official position. He was an idealist who believed what he believed. But, he was also willing to change to adapt to the situation, ala NEP.
@@bensagal-morris8072 It sounds like you have wholly swallowed all the "pro Lenin" revised history that the Soviet Union pushed after his death...Hitler only killed during war too so i guess by your logic he was a decent man with only a few faults too and you admire him too??
Lenin murdered innocent children. Do you like that?
Fun fact: Lenin was a hero because the way he treated his people, he supported the LGBT rights, and defended Judaism for his country, although it's not know whether he did order the execution of the Romanov family, after his death he wishes to be buried next to his mother, before his death he never wanted Stalin to succeed him.
Yes. True fact.
The only good thing about Lenin is that he gave independence to Finland and Baltic countries
Tsar Nicoluas II Did NOT order the shootings on Bloody Sunday. He wasn't at home and an officer did that on his own and the Tsar actually got angry about what he had done.
your take on Lenin and Kerensky isn't backed by fact. an unpopular and fringe group isn't going to win a civil war against a united liberal front of supposedly popularly backed mensheviks and a half dozen other countries. They were heavily popular because of their stance on the war, which Russians were sick of, not anxious to fight.
When are you going to make a video about Hitler?
When he can get sponsored for it, It wouldn't be monetised on TH-cam
@@yodaslovetoy and banned in germany
He should cover the rest of the Nazi leadership. And then cover the main man.
@@matthewmckenna248 still be demonised and banned in Germany
Either when he won't be demonized, or on Hitler's birthday in April
20:59 not true at all, in Russia there are still plenty of Lenin statues, many in the main squares of major cities.
There is a statue of Lenin also in Italy, in Cavriago, a small town in Emilia Romagna. The inhabitants of the village after the October Revolution sent money to Russia to help the new government. After the Second World War the Soviet Union thanked them by sending the statue, which since then is in the main square, called "piazza Lenin".
The condensed biography I have been searching for.
*I think that most of Simon Whistler's videos are excellent--as far as videos go--but this one "misses the train" on several counts. If you are really interested in Lenin and what happened to the Russian Empire/Soviet Union in the 19th and 20th centuries, please read a book about it. There are dozens of them, even among those written in English alone, that give a much more interesting and accurate account of Lenin and what formed his life's course. Mr. Whistler's video is riddled with inaccuracies, as has been pointed out by many of those who contributed comments to this particular video.*
What are these books?
This kind of lies you call "inaccuracies"?
And the man who has the best dorrito mustache.
Most Lenin statues in Russia have not been destroyed; they still stand in Moscow and every city and town across the country. In fact, I have a personal photo collection of Lenin statues from all around the Russian Far East.
There is a statue of Lenin also in Italy, in Cavriago, a small town in Emilia Romagna. The inhabitants of the village after the October Revolution sent money to Russia to help the new government. After the Second World War the Soviet Union thanked them by sending the statue, which since then is in the main square, called "piazza Lenin".
Because Lenin was genius 😊
Russian populace: 'You're too bloodthirsty! The nobility isn't that bad!'
Narrator: 'They would later come to realize that maybe Vladimir had a point.'
Vlad the Murderer. He was worse than the nobility.
Correction right off the bat:
0:30 "He pushed his version of communism." That is incorrect. The label "communist" was not an indication of the system he or anyone else claimed to be creating or upholding, but a label to differentiate the Bolsheviks from others who claimed to be socialist (the Bolsheviks used to be part of the "Social Democratic" party, like Marx), but were far more moderate in that they sought to preserve the bourgeoisie in order to have capitalism take over and run its course until the people were "ready" for socialism. "Communists," then, were not people who had created communism or were part of a communist system, but were people who wanted to make it clear that they wanted to fight for a communist future *now* instead of *later.* That meant "democracy from below" (an oft-repeated slogan of Lenin), "all power to the soviets" (another slogan), and other bottom-up policies that would be necessary for the people to rule themselves through economic, social, and political democracy. "War Communism," the term used to identify what went on during their civil war, was not "communism," but just a label to describe it in a "patriotic" (?) way.
3:15 Statements made by his teachers and other staff, as well as looking at the records, Lenin had an immaculate record of behavior. People like to suggest that he was rebellious etc growing up, but that was very far from the truth. If you want to know about Lenin's life and politics, then "Lenin's Political Thought" by Neil Harding is a solid source. More than just saying stuff happened "because believe me," Harding references diary entries, pamphlets, testimonies, etc, some of which are really hard to find without knowing where to look (in other words, Harding did a LOT of work getting the best picture of Lenin that he could).
3:25 This action led to a lot of problems. Look up the 1861 Emancipation. Land was taken from the wealthy landowners and leased to the peasants, but the landowners got to choose which land they would keep and give up, meaning that they kept the best land for themselves. The peasants largely were unable to support themselves on what land they were given. The wealthy landowners were promised bonds that for giving up their land, which would pay out because of the new productivity, but because the productivity was low, the peasants couldn't pay their leases, and the landowners didn't get the money promised. Peasants were also not able to get rid of their land obligations, driving obscene numbers to move to cities (many dying along the way) to find work that would pay their debts. This, along with other things, was the start of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. It is something Lenin wrote about, providing hard statistics and verified facts so that nobody could claim it wasn't so.
5:10 This is not accurate, but one of the common misconceptions people have based on what other people said about what Lenin wrote. If you read Lenin's works for yourself (I have, footnotes and all, without relying on another text to explain why he meant X instead of Y), and then compare it what Marx wrote (again, read it for yourself), you'll have a tough time differentiating between them. There are two main differences: 1) Lenin was writing about Russia specifically, whereas Marx was more proliferate and international, and 2) their writing styles are very different. Beyond that, they're almost identical. Lenin quoted Marx/Engels A LOT, and explained (to the approval of prominent Marxists, including Plekhanov and Kautsky) what a lot of it meant in simpler terms.
Lenin was explicit about the role of the intelligentsia. It was to advise the people who would actually lead the revolution: the advanced workers. The advanced workers were nothing more than those workers who worked in factories and other jobs, crammed together in large numbers that allowed them to be more socially connected than others. The less connected the workers were to each other by proximity, the less advanced. Again, this is all stuff you can get from actually reading Lenin for yourself.
9:20 It was a long process, but "slithering" and the rest shows bias perpetrated by a lot of Menshevik propaganda from after the split (and right wing authors who came later, like Richard Pipes). The split between Bolshevik and Menshevik started small, but the ideological shift didn't happen until some time around 1914 (if I recall), when the Mensheviks became more blatantly in favor of more moderate reformism and other not-so-socialist things. Lenin did tend to make things black-and-white "you're either with us, or you're not," but this part of the video is pretty inaccurate. The rest after this also appears to be dripping with bias and full of inaccuracies based on biases and propaganda.
What a weird looking dude. Beard says mid-30s, face says 18 months, hairline says late 60s.
My favorite was the time he teamed up with Paul McCartney.
Alright, but why did you not point out how Winston Churchill used British Indians in World War 2 for his own gain? And how the British promised India independence if they took part in the second World War as soldiers but the British did not fulfill this promise.
Overall, a good video. However, you have a tendency to immortalize Western heroes and denounce non-Western ones.
The Soviet Union didn't come into existence until December 1922, when the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Republic came together and signed the Treaty on the creation of the USSR. At that point the USSR was born. Just wanted to point that out. Also for those wondering, the central asian Soviet Socialist Republics didn't exist yet. They were still Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (ASSR) within the RSFR, and didn't gain Union Republic status till later.
Who freed the serfs? Is this a joke?
Lenin actually wasn't too bad looking considering the fact that he........let the hair on the sides and back of his head grow instead of cutting ALL the hair off!
Lenin is also noteworthy for being the only person in human history that looked great in the old man cut.
I’d. love to see you do a Ho Chi Minh biographic. Most of the info/bios/history in your videos I’m already familiar with but I enjoy the way you present it.
Hey man it's not true that they took down all of Lenin's statues in the former soviet union.....I lived in Almaty in Kazakhstan there's a park I'd go to daily that had a huge statue of the man.
It is true but only partially. There were 15 states (republics) that formed USSR. When USSR collapsed in many of them such as 3 Baltic countries, that were at the forefront of USSR break up by the way, they were taken down and communist party was outlawed. They are, however, still standing in Russia, Kazakhstan and few other places possibly. Hes statement was not a lie but it was not accurate enough, I agree.
In Russia, and in most countries of the former USSR, Lenin is not hated. When will you learn to speak the truth and not propaganda?
I miss the soviet times. Everything was so much better. Now my family issues. I love my country.
This video is greatly biased. Lenin was a great genius who brought about the Soviet Union which proved to the world that socialism is a greatly preferable to capitalism. The Soviet Union fell only because of the corruption of the politicians who took over the government after Lenin died. Lenin did bring Russia and the Soviet Union into the modern world.
It was more the introduction of privately own businesses into Russia because Gorbachev freaks out because Russia's GDP didn't grow even though GDP is a crap measurement of the economy.
Lenin was a ruthless murderer.
It was Alexander II who liberated peasants, not Nicolas II
"The goal of socialism is communism"
Vladimir Lenin
based
Socialism is the father of Communism, not the other way around.
In National Socialism, the Communism will never be realized
@@arieldalton357 can u make yourself more clear plz
The goal of communism is to suppress the people and make them fucking miserable
Chaim Goldman was his lenin name
I’m from Latvia I lived in Līgatne and I used to do cadets in this old Russian built bunker full of scythes and sickles and at the very bottom a cast statue of the main man him self Lenin. So even in Latvia a country that was pressured by Russia Lenin was not a villain
Hey
Ленин был гений а царь злодей
Rest in peace Ilja, you'll always be my hero.
Damn...
wow welcome back to realm of the living
serfdome was ended in 1861 by Alexander the 2nd
I'm waiting to see a comment by the man himself. He's going to show up someday
From where did Lenin got those 200,000 red army troops?
Lenin I like but Stalin screwed everything
The "good Lenin bad Stalin" idea was what I thought as a teen, but it's been regarded as a joke for some decade now. Stalin took the apparatus of terror Lenin started, and amped it up for his own purposes, killing most of Lenin's comrades in the process. And a lot of other people
Is this guy for real it was Alexander the second who freed the serfs and Lenin's brother did not try to kill NICHOLAS the second as he was dead before NICHOLAS became Czar
Nooo Lenin’s brother tried to assassinate Alexander III and Nicholas watched him die which was why he was so afraid of revolutionary forces!! Aah!
You are confused Alexander II with Alexander III, and Alexander III with Nicholas.
It was Alex II who was killed by terrorists.
Video is absolutely terrible and full of biases; there are tons of areas where the full context isn't given, certain real events are worded in a way that slanders Lenin, some things are overestimated while others are underestimated, logical contradictions (for example, apparently everyone hated Lenin even in his own party but his army grew), outright lies, etc.
Lenin wasn't some cartoon villain caricature. He was a real person who did both good things and bad things, but one thing almost every historian and his contemporaries agree on is that he wasn't some kind of power hungry dictator like you portray him to be, and that he was actually an idealist, a workaholic, and a sincere believer of his ideology and that it would help the people. No matter what he did, he did them not for his own personal gain but because he believed he was doing the right thing; this obviously doesnt absolve him of the negative things he did, but this is the historical consensus regarding him as a person, and contrasts greatly with the lie you present as a fact in this trash tier video.
I agree, Lenin wasn't Stalin and people seem to confuse him to be some violent hungry person. Stalin was way worse and real historians realize that.
Despite the fact that Lenin had long planned for the establishment of the Constituent Assembly and had even postponed many decisions for them to be later undertaken by it, he quickly deemed it counterrevolutionary and dissolved it as soon as the results came out against his party's favour. Instead, he overthrew the more moderate government and quickly initiated a rule dominated by his own party, favoring members of exactly this party at all levels of governance. More moderate socialists and Anarchists quickly became targets of prosecution and subjects of summary execution, sometimes ordered by Lenin directly.
Even simple protests of the peasantry, many of whom were literally starving during times of shortage, were often answered with violence.
Freedom of press was quickly eliminated and all other parties were either outlawed or freed of any serious chance of political representation.
The Kronstadt rebellion, a rebellion of fellow socialists, even demanded this to change, acknowledging that elections to worker's councils were not free. Further, they implied in their demands that Bolsheviks were even favoured in matter like food rationing.
The result was that 2000 rebels were, again, executed on the spot.
Other rebellions were answered with leftovers of chemical weapons from World War 1.
These disgusting pseudo-historical portrayals of Lenin as a defender of the people makes my blood boil. Learn history or atleast shut your mouth if you cannot bother to.
St. Petersburg is literally German for "Saint Peter's City", whereas Petrograd means "Peter's City" in Russian, so, sounds is a bit of understatement.