Leninism — communist ideology and state ideology of socialist states, as developed by Vladimir Lenin
Leninism defined the ideological framework for vanguard-party revolution and became the governing doctrine of the Soviet Union and numerous socialist states.
Key Facts
- Developer
- Vladimir Lenin, Russian Marxist revolutionary
- Term entered common usage
- 1924, at the fifth Comintern congress
- Term coined by
- Grigory Zinoviev, to denote vanguard-party revolution
- Accepted in CPSU doctrine
- Around 1922; public vocabulary from January 1923
- Core institution
- Revolutionary vanguard party leading the proletariat
- Foundational text referenced
- The Communist Manifesto (1848)
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Orthodox Marxism offered no precise blueprint for revolution in agrarian, post-emancipation Imperial Russia. Lenin sought a pragmatic adaptation of Marxist theory to Russian political and social conditions, developing theories of the vanguard party, imperialism, the state, and revolution to address the specific challenges of overthrowing tsarist capitalism.
Lenin systematized a body of political thought holding that a disciplined vanguard party must lead the working class to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat as a transitional stage toward communism. Following the October Revolution of 1917, this ideology guided Bolshevik governance, including the Decree on Land, war communism, and the New Economic Policy, while suppressing rival socialist and anarchist opposition.
Leninism became the dominant form of Marxism in Russia and the ideological foundation of the Soviet state. After Lenin's death, it was formally codified within Communist Party doctrine and spread internationally through the Communist International, shaping the governance of numerous socialist states throughout the 20th century.