Libertarian Lenin?

I had the same -- arguably silly -- idea myself, of a libertarian Soviet Union.

But, I think an anarchistic, Bakuninist Soviet Union would be a bit more plausible. But maybe more minarchist, rather than anarchist?

With the level of economic development Russia had, socialism would be full on anarchist or OTL-alike.

Edit: And it might be Kropotkinist instead, who was alive at the time.
 

Hendryk

Banned
The irony is that, even if one were to handwave the anachronism of Libertarianism existing in Lenin's lifetime and the obvious fact that if he had joined the Kadets instead, he'd have had no noticeable impact on Russian history, imposing such an ideology on Russia could only have been done with the same methods used by the Bolsheviks in OTL. What did the Russian people want? The peasants wanted land reform and the workers wanted decent wages and workplace conditions. Libertarianism would be implemented against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the population, by government fiat.

"We want to abolish the government but we first need to use government power to set up our perfect utopia." Isn't that what the Bolsheviks said in OTL?
 
Libertarianism is impossible in Russian context. First, we should remember that Russia is a largely a agrarian nation and not industrialized. There is no socialism in Russia at that time to trigger Libertarianism. Libertarianism is a reaction of increasing government intervention to people's lives in America. That ideology is largely American and if we bring it to Russia, it will be a dystopia worse than communism in OTL. Communism itselt can't be implemented because humans are greedy in nature and committing oneself to community is against the individual's will, how much more Libertarianism?
 
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