# Quote — Richard Pipes, Three "Whys" of the Russian Revolution

> Because he did not care about his country, Lenin was prepared to promise everybody whatever they wanted without giving much thought to the future. The peasants wanted private land for their communes? Let them take it: eventually all the land will be confiscated and collectivized anyway. Until then, ‘looting the loot’ will win over, or at least neutralize, the peasantry. The workers demand to run the factories? Even though ‘workers’ control is a detestable syndico-anarchist slogan, there is no harm in granting their desires—for the time being. Once industries have been nationalized and subjected to general economic plan of production, ‘workers’ control’ will vanish of itself.

- Author: [Richard Pipes](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-pipes.md)
- Book: [Three "Whys" of the Russian Revolution](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-pipes/three-whys-of-the-russian-revolution.md)
- Page: 44
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Pipes#Three_%E2%80%9CWhys%E2%80%9D_of_the_Russian_Revolution_(1995)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-pipes/three-whys-of-the-russian-revolution/because-he-did

## More from this book

> The Empire was traditionally run by a bureaucracy and a gentry, after 1880 reinforced by a political-police organization. This political policing was a Russian invention; Russia was the first country to have two police systems, one to protect the state from its citizens, and the other to protect the citizens from each other. Subsequently, this dual structure became a fundamental feature of totalitarian states.

p. 17 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-pipes/three-whys-of-the-russian-revolution/the-empire-was.md)

> According to Marx, the evolution of capitalism would inevitably lead to the pauperization of the proletariat and then, just as inevitably, to its radicalization. It is interesting that Bento Mussolini arrived at an identical judgment ten years later. Before the outbreak of the first World War, Mussolini had been the closest analogue to Lenin in the European socialist movement, being equally revolutionary and anti-reformist. He was the Lenin of the Italian Socialist Party with the difference that, whereas Mussolini managed to rally behind him a revolutionary majority and expel the reformers, in Russia, Lenin found himself leading a minority and forced to break away from the Social-Democratic Establishment.

p. 36 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-pipes/three-whys-of-the-russian-revolution/according-to-marx.md)

> We cannot determine whether or not he had met Lenin during their common exile in Switzerland; Mussolini once cryptically remarked: ‘Lenin knew me better than I knew him.’

p. 37 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-pipes/three-whys-of-the-russian-revolution/we-cannot-determine.md)