LENIN outlived Leninism. Most alone among revolutionists he was able to put into practice political theories that he had himself thought out. He was in a sense Russia’s Rousseau and her Robespierre. So long ago as 1903 he was advocating “the dictatorship of the proletariat”, which means in practice the dictatorship of the compact minority of convinced Communists determined to compel the majority to accept a social order that they detest. Bolshevism, which Lenin invented, is the negation of democracy. But Bolshevism would not work; and nearly three years ago Lenin, who was always a realist, patched up a sort of compromise between Communism and Capitalism, which left political power in the hands of the Bolshevists. Lenin himself was a ruthless doctrinaire, caring nothing for luxury or even comfort, immensely intelligent, a man of dominating will and personality. Whether or not his associates will be able to maintain their political ascendancy without the prestige that attached to his name remains to be seen. For the infamies of the Terror and for the blasphemies that have disgraced Moscow Lenin had personal if sometimes indirect responsibility. The years of his rule will stand in history as a warning to all nations. There can be no real progress without religion. There can be no enduring happiness for the common people if they are robbed of their Faith.
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