Lenin and the Russian Revolution - Professor Catherine Merridale FBA 

`they might be young, they might be male` - I`d like her to explain that comment.

A comprehensive insight into one of the most important political and revolutionary figures of the 20th century.

A truly superb lecture! The style somehow reminded me of Carlyle!

That's a nice lecture on the era and it seems really pleasant with all the pictures shown. It feels a bit biased though.

I never understood why the Social Revolutionaires and the Mensheviks walked away from the Soviet right after the October coup that actually made Soviet power a reality.. they should have known the Bolsheviks now had the opportunity to create a single-party state

The Soviet era has not been so completely forgotten in contemporary Russia as Professor Merridale says, A docu-drama on the life of Trotsky was shown on Russian TV around 2010, It showed both Trotsky and Lenin in a mostly favorable light, but also shows Stalin outmaneuvering them as he plotted a seizure of absolute power. Lenin and Trotsky issue harsh decrees establishing adictatorship, thinking they will be temporary, but Stalin, once he grabs supreme power, makes them permanent. Not the truth. But it does indicate that the Russian public remains eager to learn about the origins and history of the Soviet UNion.

A very good presentation for people eager to know the history of russian revolution and about Lenin.

Thank you! Wonderfully interesting.

I still say his best work was with McCartney

Great lecture, thank you for posting this, Gresham.

Great lecture. Definitely did share.😇✌🏻

There are some inaccuracies here but still fairly good.

(04:16) There would be no more dancing in that ballroom.

A man like Churchill was not present, thus the concept of 'Land Ships' never occurred unfortunately, whereas in the 2nd WW Tanks were central to the Soviet defense of Russian land and cities!

"There was no extra money to pay wages (why does this remind me of 'Brexit')". Wow: where did that come from!

‘Without the First World War, there would have been no Bolshevik Revolution.’ How far do you agree with this view?

“confusingly called...” perhaps by you not taking into consideration two different calendars as they taught us in school

(16.34) interesting interjection...not subliminal.

Every society needs an educated citizenry who can understand and question current events. When the voices that understand are silenced or ignored, then events could lead to anarchy. There are very few revolutions that end without bloodshed. Events in the U.S. in 2020 make me worry about our future because it seems that voices that disagree with popular thought are shunned instead of acknowledged. Political correctness is a form of exclusion, while responsible speech is about protecting social responsibility. The Russian Revolution leads to the idea, "Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it." History proves that Stalin's regime was more oppressive than the Czars ever were.

great lecture

Only an academic can view a history like this in such a fashion. Although the historical content is initially of high quality, the academic’s periodical injection of opinion exposes her gushing revisionist view of the glory of “Revolution”... I wonder if she realises she is the literal incarnation of the Bourgeoisie? If such a revolutionary fever gripped the people again, she wouldn’t be amongst them, bathing in proletarian glory, she would be ejected from the roof of her ivory tower. The phrase “Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind” comes to mind.

The claim that the Petrograd Soviet was some sort of popular institution or that it represented the common people is not quite correct. The Petrograd Soviet began as basically the creature of the Menshevik party leadership. It functioned less as a government than it did as a Menshviek controled opposition "party". It only became politically meaningful when Trotsky and others fully went over to supporting the Bolsheviks & splitting the Menshvieks. It then became a "shell" which was used to give the seizure of power a certain institutional legetamcy which it otherwise lacked. I would question the narrative that Trotsky only drew close to the Bolsheviks after the July days. He and others were flirting with them for a long time. Her overall thesis of the October Revolution as a grass-roots popular movement is very questionable. The "revolution" had the structure of a narrow "coup". The Kornilov Affiar had led to Kernesky arming the Bolsheviks and accepting them as as military force. They used that military force to seize the capital. She is also not correct about the nature of the Military-Revolutionary Committee (MRC). The MRC was created over the objections of other parties and its purpose was to allow a picked minority to exercise power in the name of the Soviets but unaccountable to the Soviets. The MRC was effectively an entirely Bolshevik institution specifically tasked with carrying out the coup. In the final stage of the coup, the Bolsheviks took control of the congress of soviets and used the congress of Soviets to dismantle the petrograd soviet in whose name they in theory took power. The provisional executive committee (Ispolkom) of the Petrograd Soviet was done away with and replaced it with a new creation under their control run by Kamenev. The mistake people often make (including the presenter) is seeing the October Revolution as simply a revolution against the Kerensky provisional government. The October Revolution was in fact a dual coup which overthrew both kernensky and the Petrograd soviet.

Ms. Merridale: Bourgeois Historian Extraordinare! Apparently unaware that the Russian Revolution, along with its Chinese sequel, has irreversibly destroyed Anglo-Saxon world hegemony. This is the first phase of the World Revolution, is it not?

Great lecture until Brexit was mentioned, then I had to switch off as I couldn't concentrate on the rest trying to think what Brexit had to do with Trotsky and the October Revolution.

"We don't want a revolution, I promise you." On the contrary, we do want a revolution -- one that is informed by the errors of Soviet Russia, one that avoids hierarchization, and one that eschews violence, but a revolution nonetheless. A tall order, but there is no Third Way. Excellent lecture.

30:03

1) “We must hate-hatred is the basis of communism. Children must be taught to hate their parents if they are not communists.” - Vladimir Lenin 2) “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” - Vladimir Lenin 3) “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” - Vladimir Lenin 4) "The way to crush the bourgeoisie [middle class] is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” - Vladimir Lenin 5) “Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism.” -Vladimir Lenin 6) “One man with a gun can control 100 without one.” - Vladimir Lenin 7) “It is necessary-secretly and urgently-to prepare the terror.” -Vladimir Lenin 8) “The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses.” - Vladimir Lenin 9) “Surely you do not imagine that we shall be victorious without applying the cruelest revolutionary terror?” - Vladimir LenIn

46:02 - freudian slip

When Dr Merridale says “there’s no doubt that Lenin took German gold”, she means “there’s no evidence that...”. She makes the claim, but has yet to provide anything but conjecture. That’s not historiography, it’s speculation. Other than that, not a bad presentation on the facts, even if the editorializing is a bit annoying.

Antony Sutton

Decent lecture, but Merridale's light tone lands awkwardly when watching this in March 2022.

100th Anniversary Next Year March 2021!✊

1917 while on the streets - "Down with the tyranny!" 1925 while in NKVD basement - "Wish we had the Tsar back"

Nice lecture, but a pretty despicable shot by this elitist at the working class people who supported Brexit at 16:40

I would love to read statements from Russians regarding accuracy, effects on their country, or anything relevant.

Lenin is young again! ✊

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...

Angloids be like

Pro communist lecture, pass.

💃🕵️🤔

As a socialist, I believe Lenin should be remembered the same way Robespierre is. They were (probably) sincere revolutionaries who helped overthrow unjust systems and gain power, then intense opposition lead to paranoia and the ultimate betrayal of their ideals in favor of stability, which still fell into the hands of more nakedly meglomaniacal autocrats.

Interesting but this is an oped not a lecture

The October Revolution was the single most democratic event in human history.

Interesting story I disagree with everything you said. But history is always written by the winners.

There successors took power in the USSA in 2020, establishing a one-party, bureaucratic socialist state under Total Dem Power (TDP).

No, the ruling class does not want revolution. They want to keep rich and powerful at the expense of the working class. Lenin was not wrong but right. We need a revolution and a society in which the wealth is owned by all, not by a minority of capitalist exploiters. It is easy to blame Lenin for Stalin since he gave the Red Czar the position of general secretary. But Stalin was only able to rise because of the civil war and the degeneration that followed. Stalinism was a product of a backward society, weakened by years of civil war. Despite what the ruling class and its supporters may claim, socialism has not failed. It is the only alternative!

Ленин Сталин.

She sounds like a Moscow propagandist. Probably is

tKronstad -

The smiling community quantitatively type because cocoa relatively nod an a judicious sweatshop. snobbish, educated russia

Make fool

Great lecture.. Shame about the highly unprofessional snipe about Brexit to get a cheap laugh in the arrogant assumption that it would ingratiate herself with the audience..

Completely unprofessional reference to Brexit

74 yrs of gulags, massmurder and oppression

All hail the great LENIN!

Her short reference to Brexit in comparison with the ver dire situation of summer 1917 in Russia seems veryy far far fetched and only shows her bias against Brexit. When I heardt her statement, I stopped watching the video.

Anti-Brexit and Pro-Globalist professor. Great info, but she does not present the horrors of Marxism.

I hope you arent paying money to go to this college.

For the rest of the world a Nazi victory would have been unspeakably tragic. However, a capitulation to Hitler by the Soviets might have saved many millions of lives east of The Iron Curtain, as grim as that prospect might seem. Romance for the 'glorious' early Bolshevik days is as misplaced and distasteful as it is for the 'noble' Left in the Spanish Civil War, who were marching thousands of the RC clergy with men and women of various religious orders, out into the streets to be executed.

I feel really bad for the Czar

100th Anniversary Next Year March 2021!✊