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Essay / Similarities and differences between Lenin and Stalin
Isaac MurrinM. J. PharionFreshman EnglishFebruary 20, 2013The Similarities and Differences Between Lenin and StalinVladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin were similar in who they claimed to be, but in reality they were very different people. Although Stalin claimed to follow Leninism, the philosophy that Lenin developed from Marxism, he often distorted it to follow what he wanted to do. While Lenin wanted to create a unified classless society, with production in the hands of the people, Stalin wanted to make Russia a modern industrial power by using the government to control production. Lenin achieved his goals through violence, because he believed that achieving the communist revolution was worth resorting to violence, with a mentality that "the ends justify the means." Stalin also used violence to achieve his goals, but Stalin used far more violence than was often necessary to achieve his goals. Stalin continued even after he succeeded in achieving these goals, because he did not stop hurting people, but rather it gave him more power to hurt people even more. But ultimately, even though Lenin only ruled for a very short time, he did raise living standards, even though he maintained many hardships. Stalin, however, transformed the USSR from a peasantry to an industrialized nation in less than a decade; he did so on the backs of his millions of victims, who died because of his harsh policies and his numerous purges. Lenin implemented a series of policies throughout his politics. at the beginning of the Revolution and during his short period in public office which became collectively known as "Leninism". Many things influenced Leninism, such as Karl Marx. Lenin had read Karl Marx and his... middle of paper ...... his goals, but the results in no way justify the horrific number of deaths and suffering caused by Stalin's regime. Lenin and Stalin represented much the same thing, but ended up having quite different approaches to how to implement theoretical ideas in the real world. However, while neither man was particularly moral, Stalin was particularly evil. But both caused famines and wars that left millions dead, not to mention the horrific lives of those who survived. I do not believe that Lenin, and especially not Stalin, achieved the goal of the Revolution as they had promised, and I think that the Russian people would have been better off if neither Lenin nor Stalin had come to power and s 'they continued to live. under the Tsar. “One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic” - Joseph Stalin