Vladimir Lenin

January 21, 2022

Lenin’s ugly legacy of identity politics

“I broke sharply with all questions of religion,” said Vladimir Lenin, with typical vituperation. “I took off my cross and threw it in the rubbish bin.” Such was a metaphor for the dark turn made by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, who came to be known by an alias, “Lenin.” Continue Reading...

November 08, 2021

How China’s communist regime will outlast the USSR’s

The collapse of the Soviet Union 74 years after the Bolshevik revolution was supposed to herald the end of communism. Yet the People’s Republic of China lives on, 72 years after Mao Zedong famously proclaimed the founding of the PRC in Beijing. Continue Reading...

April 28, 2020

J.D. Vance and the politics of resentment

Resentment is a complicated emotion, a curious mix of disappointment, disgust, anger, and fear. The villainous court composer Antonio Salieri in Miloš Forman’s Academy Award-winning film Amadeus is a study in resentment. Continue Reading...

October 24, 2017

The inhumanity of Communism 100 years after the Bolshevik Revolution

One hundred years ago on October 25, the Bolsheviks seized Russia’s Provisional Government under the guidance of Vladimir Lenin. As a result of Lenin’s Marxism, up to 100 million people were killed in the 20th century. Continue Reading...

July 13, 2017

Lenin’s Trip to Infamy

One hundred years ago, the man Winston Churchill dubbed a “plague bacillus” journeyed back from his exile in Europe to eventually seize the reins of power in his native Russia. Vladimir Lenin’s itinerary could not have been more fraught with peril and subterfuge, which makes it an ideal framing story for a recap of the rise of 20th century totalitarianism. Continue Reading...

March 23, 2017

Why it’s high time to bury Lenin

In an article published today at The American Spectator, Acton Senior Editor Rev. Ben Johnson comments on the solemn centenary of the Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin’s ascendancy to power. Continue Reading...

March 20, 2015

Putin’s Kleptocracy and Family Values

There will be some twists and turns here, so hold on. Earlier this month, the BBC highlighted what it called “YouTube sensation ‘I, Russian Occupier'” the hit propaganda film that “feels more like the opening sequence of a big budget Hollywood movie than a homemade political message.” Continue Reading...