Question

Compare and Contrast Lenin’s idealistic vision of a socialist state with the reality of communism in the new Soviet Union

Answer 1

Lenin had an idealistic vision about a socialist state that had nothing to do with the reality of what happened later on in the Soviet Union. The vision of Lenin was to create a society where all the people will be equal, thus there would be a horizontal hierarchy. Also, all the people should have earned the same amount of money, and all of them would have had enough for a decent living. The country should have been stable, and the economy self-sustaining.

In reality, the Soviet Union turned to be a society where there was lot of discrimination. The people were terrorized, and millions died because of their opinion, ethnicity, or religion. The society was ruled by the oligarchy, and the rest of the people were living in relatively poor conditions. Because of bad economic planning there were multiple years in which there was not enough food.