Why isn’t Lenin as reviled as Hitler?

Around the corner from me is a barber’s shop decorated with black-and-white photographs of icons of the 20th century. James Dean is there with the usual cigarette hanging out of his mouth; Marilyn Monroe is perching on the edge of a pool table. A poster for the film Taxi Driver is alongside a photo of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack – and also a photo of Lenin.

I guess the aim is to appear edgy, alternative and rebellious. But obviously there is no image of Hitler. That would be unacceptable: Hitler was a fascist who invaded countries and killed millions of people. It would be tasteless to display an image of him. But Lenin is apparently OK.

This Saturday is the centenary of the death of Lenin and I asked Whitestone Insight to do an opinion poll to discover what people think of him. It emerges from this poll (of more than 2,000 people) that of those aged 18 to 24 who have heard of Lenin and have a view one way or the other, the proportion who have a ‘favourable or very favourable’ view of him is a terrifying 43 per cent. If you include all the young people polled, the proportion who approve of Lenin falls to 15 per cent, but that includes those who haven’t a clue who Lenin was and therefore couldn’t approve or disapprove.

The lie Lenin fans choose to believe is that if only he had lived, communist rule would have succeeded

Our poll tallies with those done in America, where many young people are also overtly keen on communism. The polls there reveal that 28 per cent of Gen Z and 22 per cent of millennials have a favourable view of ‘communism’ and that the percentage is rising every year.

This chimes with what we discovered a few weeks ago, talking to students and their teachers outside the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.