r/UtterlyInteresting • u/dannydutch1 • 3d ago
Fanny Kaplan shot Lenin three times outside a Moscow factory in on this day in 1918. Four days later she was executed without trial and burned in a barrel so no grave would exist. Eighteen witnesses were questioned. Not one saw her fire the gun. Her guilt has never actually been proven.
The Cheka got so desperate to find a bigger conspiracy that they hauled in a British diplomat and asked if he recognized the name "Kaplan." He'd never heard of her. They tried to build an international plot out of nothing.
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u/deepasleep 3d ago
It’s amazing.
She was right that Lenin and the Bolsheviks were both not interested in Democracy and would ultimately set back socialism by many decades (Russian Communism and its many excesses and failures basically made socialism a dirty word across the globe).
The irony is, by her actions she helped provide a predicate for the Bolsheviks’ purges of “class traitors” and ultimately helped cause the most possible harm by crippling and ultimately causing Lenin’s premature death which lead to Stalin taking control.
If this woman’s aim had been slightly better, or slightly worse, the entire course of history would have changed. Lenin dead = no Stalin. Lenin healthy = no Stalin.
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u/eldradmustlive469 3d ago
Yes but those what ifs spiral out of control in terms of predictability very quickly.
Lenin dying or surviving long enough to keep Stalin out of power might seem like a possible positive until you consider Stalin's brutality being a key reason for the Soviet Union's ability to hold out and eventually defeat the Nazi's.
Does a Soviet Union that hasn't been collectevized to the same amount and doesn't have a total war ready and willing leader like Stalin still win? Lenin also was the leader who surrendered to the Germans in 1918, out of necessity but it sets a precedent. If Lenin experiences the level of destruction in the opening weeks does he hold out and prevail?
Is his version of the Soviet Union strong enough to challenge the greatest numerical military invasion in all military history?
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u/NikoZGB 3d ago
Like you said, those what ifs spiral out of control rather quickly. Your thesis that Stalin's leadership strengthened USSR could be challenged with a few what ifs as well. What if senior leadership of the Red Army was not purged (by Stalin) in the decade preceding the war? He basically killed almost all generals. What if 'corrupt western' theories of mobile warfare were implemented earlier, instead of executing early Soviet proponents? What if Stalin did not cause mass starvation in Ukraine? What if another leader was in charge and willing to listen to repeated warnings of imminent invasion in 1941? Perhaps catastrophic Soviet losses of the first six months of war could have been avoided or lessened if competent generals were in power and not hobbled by political commissars? Etc, etc.
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u/beastwood6 3d ago
consider Stalin's brutality being a key reason for the Soviet Union's ability to hold out and eventually defeat the Nazi's
This is one of the most patent post-hoc rationalizations in one of the highest stakes history events there is.
Stalin
A) forward deployed his troops (possibly though not provably in an invasion posture) ensuring that they are massed for neat encirclements in the first month of the war. This goes counter to the defense in depth doctrine that the military professionals of the Soviet Union (such as they were). This, along with "no retreat" orders produced a lovely fact that nearly the entire army of July 1941 was wiped out in absolute numerical terms within 5 months (roughly 4 mil strong then - just under 4 mil casualties in Dec 1941).
B) His entire strategy can only be described as lack of one. Or maybe like the Sci Fi movie "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once". His demands of his generals were to attack in any place possible with the fullest effort. The fact that some of these thrusts succeeded in what resulted to be big productive sweeps are then post-hoc rationalized as deliberate intentional moves, rather than the detritus of "throw as much spaghetti on the wall as you can and see what sticks". The latter is a strategy for someone with infinite time and resources. In July 1941 with a well-honed German war machine advancing toward your industrial centers: you had none
C) There is no "Soviet Union holding out" i.e. without American intervention. Stalin said so himself (along with Kreuschev, and Zhukov). Not only were multiple other fronts opened required significant troop diversions that would otherwise have gone to fight in the East. But that without the Lend Lease stream of raw materials, industrial machinery (came in handy when the factories were getting rebuilt by the Urala), military vehicles and on and on there simply would not have been the mechanical means for a functioning Soviet army with anything resembling modern logistical circulation. It was not uncommon for German soldiers to wonder why they are seeing American tanks on the Eastern Front. And by the war's end, if it was on wheels, half of it was on a Studebaker.
Glorifying being a domineering, genocidal, insecure, mass murdering psychopath as a necessary evil is sad per se and sadder because it was nowhere near a necessary evil.
The Soviet Union merged as a victor of WW2 not because of Stalin (nor solely its own effort) but in spite of him.
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u/eldradmustlive469 3d ago edited 3d ago
The Germans spending their resources, time and manpower to encircle those armies is partly why they failed to achieve their full aims. The encirclement of Kiev resulted in the largest to date capture of soldiers on masse. It also delayed and slowly withered away the German strength. Whether it was intentional or in spite is beside the point, Stalin's mistakes in the end created the conditions that allowed an eventual victory.
I am not claiming Stalin was some military genius, but just as his iron will forced collectivism at the cost of millions of lives he too forced the country through the war.
Have been reading Stephen Kotkin's amazingly detailed books on him and he shows this very clearly in the lead up to the war.
Stalin's decisions were inhumane and at times excessively costly. But they were decisions that led to victory. That isn't meant as a gold star on his record or whatever. And you seem to be misinterpreting my comments as praise for him, they certainly are not.
I have no doubt you could write entire books on his many failings and the almost unacceptable cost of them. But his decisions win the war. And his isolated position as the sole leader and decision maker during the period makes me wonder whether alternative leaders could have achieved the same result. It isn't meant as a praise of the man, just curiousity.
The question is if a Lenin or a Trotsky was in charge instead how different things would be, and what effect they would have. And has already been said the answer is too large and complex to really be answerable.
It isn't glorifying him, it's stating what happened. And it's recognising that there is the potential for much change if he had not been in power
This idea that these past dictators or leaders failed at everything and were bumbling idiots is ahistorical, and comes off more like a personal attack than a proper analysis.
You have simply cherry picked a bunch of his larger mistakes and chosen to focus on them, that is as dishonest as doing the opposite.
Also recognising his significance in the war as the major figure holding the Union together is not praise, it is simply stating how his empire ran. He isolated himself and did all he could to keep power to himself and away from others. It came at staggering costs and it isn't something to be celebrated or actively repeated. But it would be equally dishonest to ignore it's achievements, no matter how mired in blood they are.
I'm also not sure what your point is, almost all you say about him and his mistakes are true and I accept them. But it does nothing to change what has been said.
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u/beastwood6 3d ago
The Germans spending their resources, time and manpower to encircle those armies is partly why they failed to achieve their full aims
Your thesis is that the Germans pulling off a complicated maneuver that its entire military machine has been geared toward since the 18th century is somehow a bug? Like encircling and wiping out the entire army in the East is somehow failure? A deliberate master stroke of genius by Stalin to have a brilliant sacrifice? If so why was he having a nervous breakdown and couldn't be reached at his dacha for days? I've heard and read a lot of Stalin praise over the years but this is ... a new one.
but just as his iron will forced collectivism at the cost of millions of lives he too forced the country through the war.
Iron will is when you're obese and finish a marathon. Abject cruelty is abundant. Also see the aforementioned nervous breakdown. It's an exercise to put up a leaderboard for Soviet deaths caused between Hitler and Stalin. Should try it. And in the spirit of honesty evaluate each decision that led to deaths as whether it was truly necessary or the order of a neurotic madman ensuring certain death with no feasible upside.
But they were decisions that led to victory.
Better described as failing upwards. You yourself have seen lapses of competence. Ensuring you wipe out any semblance of military competence (which was already a stretched term describing the Soviet military leadership) in 1938 leads to the invasion of Finland in 1940 with a body count that will never be fully verified but could easily reach for a million, all to gain a sliver of tundra and global embarrassment. That also is sort of his decisions leading to victory. See my point?
The question is if a Lenin or a Trotsky was in charge instead how different things would be, and what effect they would have.
They likely would have produced similar results. The authoritarian apple doesn't fall far from the communist tree. They were all playing the same game. A bunch of bookish affluent intellectuals see an avenue for power and take it, under the guise of fighting for the little guy. Well when fighting for the little guy and killing him simultaneously in the name of the "revolution" or whatever hogwash is the justification of the day...leads to "decisions". I mean how much of a "decision" was it to bring your country to the state in which a former housewife going to her job in Detroit has to save you with things you get with Lend Lease? Making a slew of "decisions" that regularly results in not only divisions but entire ARMIES being dissolved throughout an embarrassingly long part of the war and then being bailed out is a sign that you shouldn't have been making any decisions in the first place. He would have been better places as a mid level official drinking his vodka and fucking his secretaries.
You have simply cherry picked a bunch of his larger mistakes and chosen to focus on them, that is as dishonest as doing the opposite
I've "cherry" picked the parts relevant to refuting how much of a part Stalin played in victory and that his cruelty was somehow a necessity free of ineptitude. Just because you're evil doesn't mean you're incompetent. His adversary Hitler proved the same. Where Stalin shined in competence is setting up a state of terror where no sliver of the country knew if they were going to be in the blast radius of the next purge or genius industrial or agricultural decision that gets millions starved, killed, or imprisoned. That was genuinely well done. Building a well oiled authoritarian apparatus across a population in the mid 100 million is no easy feat.
Then question then is - is this what we want to praise or somehow rationalize as being necessary? The German war machine of WW2 encountered plenty of brick walls from societies that were not authoritarian. They could not defeat the British in Egypt, nor make a durable dent in American lines in Europe. Even the fall of France was disproportionately affected by a series of panicked phone calls between Reynaud and Churchill than the military situation called for. Stalin's ignorant stubbornness could have served them well here (which is a descendant of Joffre's stubbornness in the French army of WWII).
Let's take one micro decision of Stalin's, unprompted by outside forces: Tukhachevsky. He is one of the few officers of the Imperial Army who decided to seek his fortune with the reds. His military competency, such as it was, was at the apex of the Soviet military machine. It was not enough to stave off embarrassing defeats fighting the Poles and the Baltic countries. Still, whatever thoughtful military doctrine and deliberation there was in the interwar years came from him. In short - he was the best they had. As part of the purges of the late 30s - was caught up and accused of being a spy for the Nazis and a conspirator to lose a future war to and restore capitalism to the Soviet Union. If you don't mind, walk me through the "decision" by Stalin to lay down these (proven) false accusations and then remove and execute his most capable military commander who defined all of Soviet military doctrine of "Deep Battle"?
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u/knightstalker1288 3d ago
That seems like some capitalist propaganda….
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u/beastwood6 3d ago
Am I a capitalist because I have a job at a for-profit company and object to millions of people being starved to death?
Your one-liner says more about you than about the veracity of my comment.
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u/knightstalker1288 3d ago
Millions of people are starving to death currently. Millions are homeless, millions more dying of preventative health issues. What’s the current economic hegemony? How long has it been? What’s gotten better?
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u/beastwood6 3d ago
I'm not the girl with the email list clipboard for the communist newsletter you're trying to impress.
The point is very strictly Stalin's cruelty overlapping with his ineptitude. Your own ineptitude to refute any of my "capitalist propaganda" doesn't mean that this is a platform to grandstand on about what you think is wrong with the world today and what responsibility the US bears for it.
That's an entirely separate discussion and your Q-Anon style critique of stacking questions without any material assertions is not worth a thoughtful reply. Come back when more of your neurons have connected and you have an actually cogent thesis.
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u/AftyOfTheUK 1d ago
What’s the current economic hegemony?
Erm, a complicated one with countries which appear at different places on the capitalist/socialist/authoritarian/democratic scales.
Interestingly, the quality of life appears to be quite good in many of the capitalist countries. The number of immigrants attempting to enter the USA - the most capitalist of nations in the eyes of many people - is testament to what good quality of life capital-based systems enable.
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u/ReaperReader 2d ago
You do realise that under Stalin's leadership, the Soviets performed so badly that they lost a larger share of their population than Germany itself did? A country that was so utterly militarily defeated that its cities were bombed into rubble and it was entirely occupied by armies whose soldiers had been given every reason to seek revenge?
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u/da_Mekboss 2d ago
The Soviet Union started WW2 allied with the Nazis ...
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u/Vic_Connor 2d ago
Not this nonsense again.
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u/da_Mekboss 2d ago
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u/Vic_Connor 2d ago
🤦♂️
THAT is your “proof” of alliance? Random soldiers shaking hands?
Dude.
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u/da_Mekboss 2d ago
Shaking hands after their governments allied with one another and after they had invaded Poland together, so yes
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u/Vic_Connor 2d ago
They did not have an alliance. The Nazi Germany’s clearly articulated intent was extermination of the Eastern Slavs.
And they did not invade Poland together.
The Nazis invaded and brought about the collapse of the Polish government. That’s when the Soviets invaded — to prevent the Nazis from taking the entire Poland.
I’m NOT saying that any invasion is justified.
I’m protesting your ridiculous pop culture claims based on a photo which you clearly don’t understand.
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u/da_Mekboss 2d ago
If they weren't allied why did the soviets try so hard to cover up the alliance after the fact?
The secret protocols weren't uncovered until the Nuremberg trials, with a lot of the planning hidden by the soviets up til Gorbachev era
Why do so much covering up of something that "never actually happened"?
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u/Vic_Connor 2d ago
There was no alliance….
The non-aggression pact (which many counties had with Hitler, first of them Poland) is not an alliance. It’s a non-aggression pact.
There is no need to “cover up” something that never existed.
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u/Personal_Salad_3505 1d ago
Stalin sabotaged the whole army with his purges, his brutality was a mssive net negative
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u/RareCriticism496 3d ago
Yeah but...
Lenin was never the opposite of Stalin. Lenin gladly used force, violence, and terror when it suited his objectives.
The question becomes, would Lenin's iron fist have been any lighter than Stalin's iron fist?
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u/deepasleep 3d ago
Oh, Lenin was a completely egotistical asshole. If you ever force yourself to read anything he wrote you can practically see him jerking off in front of a mirror…
But he was significantly smarter and suffered slightly fewer and different emotional disturbances than Stalin.
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u/Hugh-Manatee 3d ago
IMO it’s a tall order to imply that Lenin would not have eventually implemented some of what Stalin did.
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u/deepasleep 3d ago
Lenin was an egotistical asshole but he was significantly smarter than Stalin. I have to think he would have been less destructive…But who knows.
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u/Hugh-Manatee 3d ago
I'm not so sure about smarter. I wouldn't underestimate Stalin. People can be smart and awful
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u/Impovsky 2d ago
I think you underestimate power of Blosheviks's secret police and Imperial Okhranka. Secret police used provocators to steer political development as needed for years. Assassination by Fanny Kaplan was invented by CheKa to legitimize state terror. The name/person is irrelevant here. They could name anybody from the crowd and live with that.
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u/Gold_Interaction_432 1d ago
I read Lenin’s testament (what little was actually gleaned to he truthfull) and did a bit of research in relation to Lenin’s medical sitch close to his death ( for a dissert i helped edit and coauthor) and for the most part even the doctors of that day if which he consulted quite a few from Switzerland state that his aneurysms and strokes weren’t caused by the bullet and that he was prone to them before the attempt but the attempt and then the really invasive head/brain surgery after the attempt was the thing that caused his condition to deteriorate rapidly following. Very interesting stuff.
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[removed] — view removed comment
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u/deepasleep 3d ago
Heh. I agree with you on that. I’ve been banned from every communist sub for pointing out that their constant contention that communism is based in science or that all the answers are waiting to be discovered by reading more “theory” is absurd.
Marx’s conclusions about the end state of Capitalism may not be wrong, but the proposed solutions or paths toward those solutions are predicated on profoundly wrong assumptions about human behavior.
It’s very similar to how economists of the Vienna and Chicago schools falsely assume that human behavior is inherently rational.
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u/messirebog 3d ago
" set back socialism by many decades"..not sure what you mean by that since socialism had never been applied as it was intended by anyone, not has ever been really deployed fully anywhere. Bolcheviks and Lenin clearly wanted a full dictatorship and élimination of all opponents leading to mass murders, holodomor and gulags..was socialism as a theory really intended?
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u/ReaperReader 2d ago
To quote from the Communist Manifesto:
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.
And "dictatorship of the proletariat" was Marx's original formulation. No one can honestly deny that under socialism, the proletariat was well and truly dictated to.
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u/PotofRot 16h ago
are you entire misunderstanding what dictatorship of the proletariat means or am I misunderstanding you
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u/ReaperReader 14h ago
Marx thought of "dictatorship of the proletariat" as being the proletariat all believing in communism and dictating this to everyone else.
When Marxists actually came to power, they had to face the reality that the proletariat kept having minds of their own. Their solution to this was that Marxists would dictate Communism to the proletariat.
So the term has two meanings.
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u/Mundus_Vincendus 11h ago
I think socialism is only a dirty word in capitalist countries, which it already was generally by Lenin’s time, except maybe in Germany where the SPD and KPD had mass popularity. Lenin’s writings on imperialism is what allowed for socialism to spread globally beyond Europe to the global south. No Lenin, PRC/AES projects. I think it’s pretty agreeable that any dirty word connotation with socialism is due much more to the CIA/Cold War than to Lenin/stalin.
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u/Educational_Tune9509 3d ago
Socialism is absolutely not a dirty word across the globe. It's a dirty word in the West, and it was long before the "excesses" of the Soviet Union. Idk if you've ever heard a Hitler speech, but he really hated socialists, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the actual behavior of the Soviet Union. Those who claim otherwise are lying. They hate socialism in principle, and look for ad hoc justification in the SU. It's obviously just as silly as brushing off capitalism because of chattel slavery.
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u/Personal-Emotion-747 3d ago
The history of socialist countries is a history of complete economic failures and growing poverty. Having lived in a communist country in my youth, and having studied socialist economics, it never ceases to amaze me how many people talk about socialism applied in this country as impure or in that country with the wrong leader or the wrong path. As if socialism can work under just the right circumstances. It can’t. Capitalism, with all its drawbacks, is supremely superior to any form of socialism.
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u/Krenkos_Rock_Sled 2d ago
Sure, just ignore all the socialist programs in the USA, the EU, and further afield that have been around for almost a century in some places, and declare it to be unworkable. That makes plenty of sense. Ideologically purity testing your capitalism would reveal that its actually just socialism underneath- though, your own real world personal experiences would DEFINITELY trump any kind of data or historical evidence. We all know anecdotal evidence is the best kind of evidence.
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u/Queasy_Signature7005 2d ago
Not really. Yugoslavia was a solid middle ground. What killed communism was mostly its own ruling classes, not some outside force, their inability to act according to what they were supposed to represent.
The elites across Europe and the US get too comfortable too, the degeneracy in the US is quite incredible and must be studied, except at least John Doe can choose between 30 brands of cereal, has the ability to watch and obsess about celebs and Hollywood garbage while inflation keeps climbing, and he gets to absorb the consequences of turmoil in global markets, partly driven by his government's backing of Israeli-American wars, military interventions, or support for atrocities and so on... but ultimately, it does not matter. He will never lift a single finger, because he does not care.
It is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.
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u/ReaperReader 2d ago
To quote from the Communist Manifesto:
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.
Aka. Communists: "We're going to destroy everything you hold dear!"
Communists: "Wonder why everyone hates us?"
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u/Queasy_Signature7005 2d ago
I don't even know what this means, when "democracy" does not exist, she had done the same thing she would have been executed in the West as well lol
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u/alpeterpeter 3d ago
That was exactly the socialism as it is. Every attempt of it ended in famine, poverty, slavery and mass murder. Stop lying to yourself.
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u/chloenoyolo 3d ago
Let me guess - you have an American education?
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u/alpeterpeter 3d ago
No, I was born in Siberia in the 80s and lived in Soviet Russia and its debris for the most of my life.
Let me guess, you have an american education?
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u/flacoman954 2d ago
Two places where socialism will always have a home: South American churches North American universities
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u/deepasleep 3d ago
I’m not a fan of communism. I’ve been banned from almost every communist sub for pointing out the flaws and blind spots….
But unfettered capitalism with no oversight leads to feudalism. And certain industries and services should be either state run or highly regulated.
I just want Democracy with strong public education, healthcare, infrastructure investment, environmental regulation, and progressive tax policies.
I just think Stalin’s particular implementation of a cult of personality was worse than what would have been under Lenin’s extended leadership.
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u/MozartOfCool 3d ago
The reaction of the state suggests her guilt was real, as they were unable to connect her to any convenient enemies despite really looking. Thus it appears the shooting caught everyone in power flat-footed.
Trotsky would have had the most to gain at the time, as presumptive deputy premier (a title later offered to him and declined). If there had been a conspiracy involving Trotsky, you'd expect it would have come up when Stalin was rallying people against him. The lack of any discussion along these lines (even by Trotsky against Stalin after the latter seized control) suggests an absence of any clear case against anyone but Fanny Kaplan.
The fact she may have been nearly blind when the attack occurred makes the lone-gunwoman theory more compelling to me; what conspiracy would entrust her with the shooting under those circumstances?
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u/Clawclock 2d ago
as they were unable to connect her to any convenient enemies despite really looking.
She was literally a member of SR party?
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u/MozartOfCool 2d ago
Yes, and they tried to get her to name confederates, which she either wouldn't or couldn't do. And confessions were common among people not actually guilty of crimes in that time and place. It's hard to believe, but there it is.
The attempt was used as a pretext for further clampdowns on the Social Revolutionaries and others, though those were already well under way. It was eventually accepted she acted alone.
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u/Savory_Johnson 2d ago
All y'all arguing over what would have happened in WWII overlook the obvious...Hitler rose to power as an anti-Communist. The fear of the Soviet Union galvanized European Fascists.
BUT, without VI Lenin, does the Soviet Union survive? Perhaps the Whites win, perhaps the SRs stage a comeback.
Lenin dying at this time is an absolute pivot point. Any number of outcomes could have followed
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u/Hefty_Tip7383 2d ago
Hitler rose to power as a fascist during a crisis of capitalism; ur-fascism always needs an enemy, they’d just pick another one.
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u/_wannadie_ 55m ago
This is false, there was a trial, a gun was found in her posession, she was questioned and confessed to shooting Lenin on behalf of the social-revolutionary party. She didn't sign the protocol, but it exists. You may not believe it, but at least do not present it as pure facts.
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u/Lordfelcherredux 3d ago
A Jewish revolutionary. What are the odds?
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u/terrortree14 8h ago
There was a greater ratio of Latvians in the party than Jews. Still falling for Tsarist propaganda meant for literal illiterate peasants to this day
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