The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.
This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Soviet Union, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Soviet UnionWikipedia:WikiProject Soviet UnionTemplate:WikiProject Soviet UnionSoviet Union articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Socialism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of socialism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SocialismWikipedia:WikiProject SocialismTemplate:WikiProject Socialismsocialism articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Russia, a WikiProject dedicated to coverage of Russia on Wikipedia. To participate: Feel free to edit the article attached to this page, join up at the project page, or contribute to the project discussion.RussiaWikipedia:WikiProject RussiaTemplate:WikiProject RussiaRussia articles
This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Atheism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of atheism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AtheismWikipedia:WikiProject AtheismTemplate:WikiProject AtheismAtheism articles
Add Atheism info box to all atheism related talk pages (use {{WikiProject Atheism}} or see info box)
Ensure atheism-related articles are members of Atheism by checking whether [[Category:Atheism]] has been added to atheism-related articles – and, where it hasn't, adding it.
Try to expand stubs. Ideas and theories about life, however, are prone to generating neologisms, so some stubs may be suitable for deletion (see deletion process).
State atheism needs a reassessment of its Importance level, as it has little to do with atheism and is instead an article about anti-theist/anti-religious actions of governments.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Jewish history, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Jewish history on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Jewish historyWikipedia:WikiProject Jewish historyTemplate:WikiProject Jewish historyJewish history-related articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Economics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Economics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EconomicsWikipedia:WikiProject EconomicsTemplate:WikiProject EconomicsEconomics articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy articles
Latest comment: 8 months ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Currently "death and funeral: 1923-1924" is a sub section under "Lenin's government". Does not seem logical. His death is really not a part of his government. PastaMonk11:13, 25 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Midnightblueowl:- A couple of months ago, I was reading a comment on Facebook that Lenin was assassinated on the orders of Stalin (this statement is seen very frequently on social media). I had a suspicion this is wrong information. I vaguely remember, he died of some illness. I came to this page to double check. I don't find this information. The average Wikipedia user does not have have the time or inclination to read the entire article, digest it, admire it's beauty etc. They need information they can look up quickly. That is what people expect from an encyclopedia. If the information cannot be found easily, it's not very neat. Agree ? PastaMonk09:50, 27 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Midnightblueowl:When viewed on Wikipedia mobile phone app the section "death and funeral: 1923-1924" is easy to find. For web users (on PC or laptop) it's not easy to find. The main sections appear collapsed. So, he won't know which one to expand to find the section on "death and funeral" PastaMonk11:53, 27 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
State in the first paragraph that Lenin was the "founder and leader of the Bolsheviks, which led the October Revolution that established the world's first socialist state". This is key information (as important as his leadership of the Soviet state), and should be included early.
Mention the Russian Civil War, the event which dominated his administration, in the first paragraph.
Add some detail on Leninism in the first paragraph, as it constitutes his political legacy beyond his leadership: "his developments of Marx's theories of party, imperialism, the state, and revolution are called Leninism." The use of wikilinks in this is up for debate.
Remove mentions of his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya and the location of his death (Gorki), as they are not comparatively important.
Add a mention of the April Theses, which was one of the most important political documents that Lenin wrote.
Add a mention of war communism (and its major expression in the requisitioning of grain from the peasantry), which is as important as the New Economic Policy, which is already mentioned. It needs to be mentioned to demonstrate what was "new" about the NEP.
Expand on "popular uprisings" by mentioning the two most significant by name: "revolts such as the Tambov and Kronstadt rebellions".
Rephrase this info: "His administration defeated right and left-wing anti-Bolshevik armies in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922 and oversaw the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921. [...] Several non-Russian nations had secured independence from Russia after 1917, but five were forcibly re-united into the new Soviet Union in 1922, while others repelled Soviet invasions." as such: "Some non-Russian nations of the former empire were re-united in the Soviet Union in 1922, while others (notably Poland) gained independence." This should be kept simple. The Whites should not uniformly be described as "right-wing", and the "left-wing" armies such as the Greens and Makhnovites played a comparatively small part; the intervention of the Allies and Central Powers were more important, but shouldn't be mentioned for concision. Regarding the separatists, much more than five breakaway nations were re-united in the Soviet Union (see Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War).
Expand on "his health failing" by including that he "suffered three debilitating strokes in 1922 and 1923 and died the following year", which is important because it hints at the power vacuum and struggle which began in 1922, and contextualizes the leadership transition to Stalin.
Add that it was under Stalin's leadership that he became the figurehead of Marxism–Leninism, and specify that it was the state ideology.
Rephrase the summary of his legacy: "Lenin is viewed by his supporters as a champion of socialism, communism, anti-imperialism and the working class, while his critics accuse him of establishing a totalitarian dictatorship that oversaw mass killings and political repression of dissidents." as such: "Lenin is praised by his supporters for establishing soviet democracy and a "dictatorship of the proletariat" which took steps towards socialism, while critics accuse him of overseeing mass killings and political repression of dissidents and either leading or preparing the way for a totalitarian dictatorship." The current text says the same thing in several ways, while the proposed adds detail on what Lenin and his supporters believed that he was establishing from his Marxist perspective. Also, as elaborated within the article, not all scholars and critics characterize Lenin's government as a totalitarian dictatorship, though almost everyone acknowledges that he laid the groundwork for Stalin's.
This article is FA-rated, so it has already been scrutinised extensively by a wide number of editors. For this reason, we should be very cautious about alterations, because these could easily result in a decline in quality, at which its FA status would have to be removed. My concerns about the proposed changes are principally to do with length. This article is already very long; indeed, it is actually too long according to WP:Article size. Expanding it further in order to add further detail is not a good idea in that scenario. The lead needs to be kept as clean and concise as possible, and in its present, largely stable form it does that. Midnightblueowl (talk) 13:05, 3 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Not all of these points add length (though most do). It's been FA since 2017 (was it) & a touch-up may be in order. It would be nice to lose "His health failing, Lenin died in Gorki,..."! On the overall length, there are tons of sub-articles, and trimming the detail lower down should be tedious but straightforward. Maybe Goszei could start there? Johnbod (talk) 13:29, 3 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I have just implemented what I hope is a lasting compromise for the lead along the general lines of what I pointed out above. My edit reduced the size of the text, which should assuage any concerns about length and concision. — Goszei (talk) 21:43, 21 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
No. Lenin had distant Jewish ancestry, but no "Jewish heritage" unless you consider this to be an undefinable quality acquired by birth. He had absolutely no Jewish upbringing, and didn't even know that one of his ancestors was a convert. This "Jew-tagging" of unrelated articles serves no encyclopaedic purpose; we should reserve these categories for those individuals where their Jewish background is/was relevant to their life and work. This does not apply in Lenin's case. RolandR (talk)09:40, 7 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
The issue of Lenin's supposed 'Jewishness' also feeds into bigoted ideas of Judeo-Bolshevism, fuelling antisemitism and tainting rational assessments of Lenin, as well as his role in the revolution and the state it producted. 2A0A:EF40:35B:101:2D23:12FF:BC27:6B65 (talk) 13:27, 13 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
The lead says: Several non-Russian nations had secured independence from Russia after 1917, but five were forcibly re-united into the new Soviet Union in 1922, while others repelled Soviet invasions.
The five nations mentioned are presumably Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, and Ukraine, as mentioned in the body under Vladimir Lenin § Civil War and the Polish–Soviet War: 1918–1920, although there were only four republics (including Russia) that signed the Treaty on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. There were also many more 'nations' and other state formations that were created (that later became part of the USSR), so I am not sure why only these states are mentioned in particular.
For example, the Belarusian Democratic Republic (BDR) is linked when referring to the 1921 treaty with Poland and as having "secured independence", which was created under German occupation, although it lost control after German troops left those territories and Soviet power was established with the Socialist Soviet Republic of Belarus in December 1918, so why is the BDR linked here instead? This gives the false impression that there were not various factions fighting for control and only one legitimate entity in each of those territories, in this case the BDR for Belarus (which pushes the POV that this was purely nations fighting for their independence versus Russian Bolsheviks). Mellk (talk) 03:13, 25 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
level-4 vital article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
.svg){kind=small}
Not done: I don't think it's necessary. PianoDan (talk) 17:06, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the