Lenin was a Radlib
Lenin the Liberal Before we can consider the question of whether Lenin was a liberal, we must address the question of what we mean by liberalism. Some people, when asked for a definition of liberalism, will start talking about things like free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and expression and so on. Others emphasize democracy. Still others see free trade as the sine qua non of liberalism. Still others will start babbling about "reformism," and claiming that liberals seek to change their society and their world peacefully, whereas radicals can be defined as those who "use violence" to achieve their ends - an obvious absurdity, since liberals have used violence anywhere and everywhere, from the French Revolution to the United States periodically bombing the Middle East. In point of fact, none of these mushy "definitions" of liberalism are adequate to our task here, for obvious reason: Karl Marx was a c...