“During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.”
Lenin was also referring to Marx specifically. Marx's name would ironically be dragged through the mud in the Cold War, to the point that many Western Social Democratic parties would drop the pretense of being "Marxist" entirely to become presentable (SPD being the most notable). Nowadays, when Marx is referred to positively, there's always the forced disclaimer saying that Marx's message was somehow "perverted" by AES states.
“During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.”
― Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, The State and Revolution
Ironically this hasn't happened much with Lenin as far as I can tell, unless you count that time Trump quoted "Lenín" recently.
It is ironic.
Lenin was also referring to Marx specifically. Marx's name would ironically be dragged through the mud in the Cold War, to the point that many Western Social Democratic parties would drop the pretense of being "Marxist" entirely to become presentable (SPD being the most notable). Nowadays, when Marx is referred to positively, there's always the forced disclaimer saying that Marx's message was somehow "perverted" by AES states.