“Leninthink: On the Practice behind the Theory of Marxism-Leninism”, Gary Saul Morson2019-10 (, ; backlinks; similar)⁠:

[This re-appraisal of Lenin is just about as damning as any re-appraisal of anybody could possibly be.

“He invented a form of government we have come to call totalitarian, which rejected in principle the idea of any private sphere outside of state control.

He invented the one-party state, a term that would previously have seemed self-contradictory since a party was, by definition, a part.

He believed that state power had to be based on sheer terror, and so he created the terrorist state. Violence was a goal in itself.”]