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Lenin is thought by some historians to have been the
man of the 20th Century. A true fanatic, a genuine idealist,
and a tough practitioner of realpolitik who advocated
cheating, lying on a zigzag trail toward worthy ends -- any
means to his ends. Sometimes he is described as Hitler with
a purpose.

You'll remember that in 1917 Russia was still in World
War I in opposition to Germany, a revolution had taken place,
the Mensheviks were in power and their leader was Alexander
Kerenski. (Kerenski was director of the Hoover Library
when I studied there in the early 1960's). Kerenski was
sort of a socialist under the banner of "all power to the
Soviets." Lenin arrived in an armored train from Germany and
within a month had overthrown him as a leader of the Bolshevik
party under the more practical slogan of bread, peace and
land. He recalled Trotsky from New York, as the greatest Jew
since Jesus Christ. But as you remember they later fell out
over the issue of world revolution versus socialism in one
country. Lenin died in 1962 24?; Stalin succeeded him in 1926.
Lenin was a poor Marxist and Stalin might have been a poor
Leninist. But it was Lenin who gave the modern ideology its
name. He was tough, ruthless, and like many of the old
ideologues, had a certain legitimacy that gave him a con-
stituancy through which he could operate. At the recent IISS
Conference one of the hardnosed Scottish anti-communists
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