The Origins of Communism (Part Two): Marxism-Leninism, and Stalin

In April 1917, the German government put Vladimir Lenin on a train and sent him into the collapsing Russian Empire, calculating that a revolutionary might take Russia out of the war. Within five years there was a new kind of state on the map. Among the many colonised people watching from afar was a young Vietnamese man working in Paris under the name Nguyen Ai Quoc.

Time Period Covered: 1917 – 1939

How do you build a society out of the theories of Marx and Engels? Who was Lenin and why is he such an important communist figure? How did communism come to Indochina?

Beginning with Lenin's arrival in 1917, this episode is a discussion of the evolution of Marxism from theory to practice, and the new version of the doctrine this creates: Marxism-Leninism. The Russian Revolution represents the entrance of a new civilisation onto the globe, one fuelled by the energy of communism, and a young Ho Chi Minh sees in it a way for his country to be freed from colonialism. The reign of Lenin gives way to Stalin, and terror, as we expand our vocabulary of communism in order to better understand the actions of the Khmer Rouge.