Leninism on the 12 Axes

Lenin adapted Marxism to Tsarist Russia, a largely rural empire with a small working class. In What Is to Be Done? (1902) he argued that workers left on their own develop only trade-union consciousness, so a party of professional revolutionaries must lead them. His Bolsheviks took power in October 1917, and the state they built rested on democratic centralism: open debate before a decision, strict unity after it. Lenin also wrote that imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, which linked socialism to anti-colonial struggles. Leninism is the parent of Stalinism, Trotskyism and Maoism. It is more internationalist than Stalinism and less centered on the peasantry than Maoism, while its reliance on a single ruling party separates it from democratic socialism and anarchism.

• Maoism 78%Maoism is the version of Marxism-Leninism developed by Mao Zedong, which places the peasantry at the center of revolution and relies on protracted people's war and constant mass mobilization.
• State Socialism 77%State socialism holds that the government should own the main industries and plan the economy, using a strong central state as the main tool for reaching social equality.
• Trotskyism 73%Trotskyism is the Marxist current founded by Leon Trotsky, centered on permanent world revolution, workers' democracy within a planned economy, and opposition to the Stalinist bureaucracy.
• State Capitalism 69%State capitalism is an economic system in which the state owns or controls major companies and directs markets toward national goals, often under a single-party or strongly centralized government.