Why is Lenin a personality who divides historians?

It is thus considered, that no matter what political or historical background you approach Lenin from it is clear that he was an exceptional human being, even if you don¡¦t like the policies or ideology he stood for. This however is the first point of contention, namely the fact that Lenin did not have a firm ideological viewpoint in the traditional sense. Instead it has been argued that Lenin was in fact operating from a personally adapted form of Marxism. This is essentially where Leninism come from, not being a totally new way of thinking but actually applying Marx¡¦s thoughts in a practical context. For this reason Lenin was know to have disagreed with Marx over the actual timing of any revolution. Marx had stated that any revolution by the proletariat would occur within a capitalist system and that a period of communism could only be supported by the infrast

Lastly it is important to view Lenin¡¦s actual policies to determine what resulted from their implementation as this area of Russian history. This is mainly because a large portion of the argument regarding Lenin comes down to the interpretation of the Bolshevik regime. It is for example argued that the Bolshevik regime intended to extend governmental control over most aspects of economic life in accordance to Lenin¡¦s theories but it was been disputed as to whether this was just another failed policy or whether Lenin was able to sustain enough public support to carry though his notions. It has been shown then that at local level the party did make compromises with factory workers. Lenin is also accredited with initialising moves to bring all forms of communication under state control. While this was successful in terms of political broadcasts it is contested that the Bolsheviks failed to implement a coherent cultural policy with writers and artists being freely allowed to conduct their work in many cases.

It is clear then that there are indeed divisions between historians as to the study of Lenin. This has mainly been due to changing times and situations with breakthroughs in research and the increased accessibility to evidence. However it must still be stated that for every school of history or historical analysis of Lenin there are still supporters. For this reason it would be foolish to claim that any division between Historians is purely due to the time in which they were written. It is clear however that the ways in which historians have viewed the role of Lenin and the Bolsheviks has changed substantially since the revolution. It could then be argued that the emphasis on Lenin as the all-powerful leader has been effectively shelved in response to the works of the Revisionists. In this way the focus of historians has essentially been broadened to look instead not at Lenin himself but at the way in which he worked under the conditions he did. The resulting conclusions tend to point to the fact that individually Lenin was less important than previously thought. It has thus become evident and a picture has emerged of Lenin not as a superman but instead a skilful politician and motivator working under circumstances which were not as favourable as were once perceived.

Further groups who take a similar line to most other Soviet writers were Marxists and communist outside of Russia. These accounts tend however to be overly favourable of Lenin¡¦s policies and tend to gloss over mistakes and failures in his ideas. These ideas can be attributed to several factors such as, in some cases, the time of publication, with some workings coming directly after WWII and in what can only de described as a rose tinted view of the regime.

A further group, which has arisen in response to the growing divisions between historical opinion about Lenin, are the revisionists. This group were essentially those historians who were dissatisfied with the Liberal and Libertarian views and who failed to trust the traditional soviet standpoint. The ideas of revisionism were also born out of an era free from the constraints of the Cold war and therefore tended to concentrate more on social history rather than individuals. The main ideas then are that of revolution from below which sees the role of the workers and peasants as instrumental in the revolution. Lenin and the Bolsheviks are thus seen as a much more insignificant feature of the revolution and this is why Revisionists tend to separate themselves from Liberal historians. The structuralism school however does place a great deal of importance on the structure of the Bolshevik party and was mainly a reaction to the increasing amount of information available following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The next point of contention is a much larger and more complicated issue. These are mainly the divisions between the many schools of History, which have emerged since Lenin¡¦s death. The

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