What Lenin did was make Marxism more aware of the effects and relations of imperialism and geopolitics, adapting Marx's view that the wealthiest core would be the first to have a revolution to better fit the emerging realities of nationalism, fascism, WW1 and placing increased agency at the hands of the colonized nations of the world and the global proletariat as a whole.

This scares white comfortable chauvinists of all political stripes. Nothing is more threatening than The Other standing up and seizing power from you, especially when you have a throbbing guilty conscious about how you might deserve it. No! We enlightened rich imperialists will be the one to lead the charge! Stand down filthy foreign hordes, we are the true proletariat that are supposed to do the revolution peacefully!!