LXXXIII.

"Lenin was organized and he was determined. Lenin was not what the French would call rigolo. He was not a barrel of laughs. He was sure of himself. He had very little sense of humor. He had biting sarcasm. I guess I quote once in there, when he would argue with somebody he said, "He who does not understand that understands nothing." He was very, very sure of himself, a very difficult man to get along with. I'll leave it to you to think was Stalinism inevitable in Leninism? I'm not so sure it was."

© John Merriman
Yale Lectures on European Civilization, 1648-1945 (2008)
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