Was Lenin a deceiver or an insightful philosopher?

[Meticulous Man]

I just mostly read The State and Revolution and thought it was a good book. Lenin's ideas, though, were official ideology in the Soviet Union which was not exactly a paradise on Earth. According to Lenin, the final goal of the revolutionaries was to make the state go away but this never happened and the dictatorship of the proletariat phase seems to have gone on and on.

Are we right to now be removing statues of Lenin and renaming places named after him or is it all just reactionary BS?

[BeBMan]

I asked that question to google and the AI did not give an answer, so we're left pretty clueless.

But if his theory of imperialism is worth anything Russia must have been a prime example for the highest stage of capitalism after Putin came to power

[Meticulous Man]

A couple of my favourite thoughts from Lenin:

-The state is an organization consisting of parasites and its purpose is to keep the proletariat in check.
-During election time, we only get to choose which members of the ruling class we want to oppress us for the next period of a few years.

[BeBMan]

He kept the state but at least soon did away with meaningful elections.

[SlowwHand]

Both

[N35t0r]

I'll have to agree with slowwhand here.