[If Lenin had lived after 1924] there is no strong reason for thinking that the main lines of development would have been very different. Well before 1923 the seeds of a totalitarian society were quite plainly there. Lenin, indeed, is one of those politicians who win an undeserved reputation by dying prematurely. Had he lived, it is probable that he would either have been thrown out, like Trotsky, or would have kept himself in power by methods as barbarous, or nearly as barbarous, as those of Stalin.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "[If Lenin had lived after 1924] there is no strong reason for thinking that the main lines of development would have been very different. Well before 1923 the seeds of a totalitarian society were quite plainly there. Lenin, indeed, is one of those politicians who win an undeserved reputation by dying prematurely. Had he lived, it is probable that he would either have been thrown out, like Trotsky, or would have kept himself in power by methods as barbarous, or nearly as barbarous, as those of Stalin." in the context of "George Orwell, ‘Second Thoughts on James Burnham’, Polemic, No. 3 (May 1946), quoted in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (eds.), The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell. Volume IV: In Front of Your Nose, 1945–1950 (1968), p. 168" to mean that wisdom is timeless.