The Third World War

The Communist world has already begun celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the man who, born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov on April 22, 1870, entered history—not, as he would have said, by accident—-under his party pseudonym of Lenin. All the nations of the Communist world are joining unreservedly in the celebration. Revisionist and adventurist, Stalinist and Maoist, liberal and conservative, Titoist and Castroite, each hails Lenin and declares himself Lenin’s heir and faithful disciple. Such universal popularity must be deserved.

Lenin is our century’s greatest man, its foremost hero, if we strip the concept of “great man” and “hero” of all moral connotations and measure it only by effect on one’s time. Hypotheses contrary to historical fact are notoriously slippery, but the record seems to demonstrate conclusively that without Lenin the Russian Bolshevik revolution would not have succeeded. The Bolshevik revolution was unquestionably the decisive event of our age—perhaps, as Lenin believed, of all history.

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James Burnham

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The Communist world has already begun celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the man who, born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov on April 22, 1870, entered history—not, as he would have said, by accident—-under his party pseudonym of Lenin. All the nations of the Communist world are joining unreservedly in the celebration. Revisionist and adventurist, Stalinist and Maoist, liberal and conservative, Titoist and Castroite, each hails Lenin and declares himself Lenin’s heir and faithful disciple. Such universal popularity must be deserved.

Lenin is our century’s greatest man, its foremost hero, if we strip the concept of “great man” and “hero” of all moral connotations and measure it only by effect on one’s time. Hypotheses contrary to historical fact are notoriously slippery, but the record seems to demonstrate conclusively that without Lenin the Russian Bolshevik revolution would not have succeeded. The Bolshevik revolution was unquestionably the decisive event of our age—perhaps, as Lenin believed, of all history.