Talk:Vladimir Lenin

The number of delegates at the First Congress of the Comintern
The current version of this article states that there were 34 delegates at the First Congress of the Comintern. However, having looked through different sources, i found that there are discrepancies regarding the number of people attended the meeting. For example: That being said, could someone here ascertain the exact number and correct the statement accordingly? - Billcipher123 (talk) 18:04, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Shub (1966, p.390) states that there were "thirty-five delegates and fifteen guests."
 * Service (2000, p.386) states that there were "thirty-four delegates."
 * Furthermore, The Comintern by McDermott & Agnew (1996, p.12), not cited in this article, states that "Only nine of the fifty-one cold guests arrived from abroad [to attend the meeting]."
 * An easy solution would be for the article to omit mentioning an exact number of delegates, since it isn't really required. That being said, one book specifically about the First Congress gives 34 delegates with a "decisive vote" and 18 with a "consultative vote," making for 52 in total (Riddell, Founding of the Communist International: Proceedings and Documents of the First Congress, p. 67.) Another book dealing specifically about the first and second congresses likewise states that 52 individuals "participated" in the first (Hulse, The Forming of the Communist International, p. 17.) --Ismail (talk) 15:08, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, as you said, i think omitting this bit of info makes the most sense since this articles doesn't have to go into that level of detail anyway. Billcipher123 (talk) 12:09, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 February 2024
Replace family name hatnote, and place family name footnote in the lead sentence. 103.119.55.216 (talk) 12:26, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template.  I think it is better to have the visibility at the top of the article. RudolfRed (talk) 02:54, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Propose moving sub section "death and funeral: 1923-1924" up as a top level section.
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. PastaMonk 11:13, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I think the status quo is preferable; it is generally neater. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:37, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * - 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 ? PastaMonk 09:50, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * 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" PastaMonk 11:53, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Proposed changes to lede
I propose the following changes to the lede section, which I added as of this revision (Special:Permalink/1224837838) and that were recently reverted by Midnightblueowl:
 * 1) 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.
 * 2) Mention the Russian Civil War, the event which dominated his administration, in the first paragraph.
 * 3) 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.
 * 4) Remove mentions of his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya and the location of his death (Gorki), as they are not comparatively important.
 * 5) Add a mention of the April Theses, which was one of the most important political documents that Lenin wrote.
 * 6) 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.
 * 7) Expand on "popular uprisings" by mentioning the two most significant by name: "revolts such as the Tambov and Kronstadt rebellions".
 * 8) Rephrase this info: " 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).
 * 9) 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.
 * 10) Add that it was under Stalin's leadership that he became the figurehead of Marxism–Leninism, and specify that it was the state ideology.
 * 11) Rephrase the summary of his legacy: "" 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.

I support all of these changes to the text, but they can be discussed point by point. Thoughts? — Goszei (talk) 22:18, 8 June 2024 (UTC)


 * 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)
 * 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)

Jewish
Does Lenin's Jewish heritage mean he deserves to be added to Jewish-related categories?MagicatthemovieS (talk) 03:04, 2 July 2024 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS


 * 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)