Noam Chomsky on Vladimir Lenin

“Lenin was a right-wing deviation of the socialist movement and he was so regarded...by the mainstream Marxists. ... Bolshevism was a right-wing deviation.”

“There was nothing remotely like socialism in the Soviet Union. ... [Lenin] didn't believe that it was possible to have socialism in the Soviet Union. ... He kept the view that the Soviet revolution was a holding action, they just kind of hold things in place, until the real revolution took place in Germany... That, presumably, gave some sort of justification for eliminating the socialist institutions.”