Happy Earth Day! Happy birthday also to V.I. Lenin. Lenin was leader of the world historic Russian Revolution, and since then has been the continuous object of nightmares for the agents imperialist white power and parasitic capitalism nightmares!

Lenin, like any other human being, was not perfect. And neither was the revolution he lead. He made mistakes, that is for sure, but he also gave us many valuable insights: the model of the vanguard party, on the nature and role of the revolutionary state, the analysis of imperialism as the rule of monopoly capital etc. All revolutionaries today have much to gain by learning from both his mistakes and contributions!

Here is something short on the significance of Lenin and Leninism from Aguila y Condor, a website site created by the indigenous-raza revolutionary nationalist organization Unión del Barrio for introductory political education and ideological formation:

Lenin, Vladimir Ilych – Born 1870, died 1924. Founder and chairperson of the Communist Party of Russia, also known as the “Bolshevik” party. Russian revolutionary writer, thinker, and revolutionary who led the Russian Revolution that brought the Bolsheviks to power in November in 1917. Led the Russian Revolution, which established the first socialist society in human history. Leninism is the political theory and practice that advances the need for an advanced political party of the working class – a vanguard. This is a highly organized and disciplined party, that is needed in the process/struggle to bring about a socialist society, and help move it closer to its final stage, communism.

Finally, here are some choice quotes from Lenin to remember today as we go about continuing to organize for the final victory of communism over capitalist exploitation!

We say: our aim is to achieve a socialist system of society, which, by eliminating the division of mankind into classes, by eliminating all exploitation of man by man and nation by nation, will inevitably eliminate the very possibility of war. – War and Revolution (1917) So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state. – The State and Revolution (1917) Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. – What Is To Be Done?, “Dogmatism And ‘Freedom of Criticism’” (1902) Any army which does not train to use all the weapons, all the means and methods of warfare that the enemy possesses, or may possess, is behaving in an unwise or even criminal manner. This applies to politics even more than it does to the art of war. – Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920) Modern monopolist capitalism on a world-wide scale — imperialist wars are absolutely inevitable under such an economic system, as long as private property in the means of production exists. – Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1920)

