Leninist

Back in 1983, for example, the libertarian Cato Institute published an article by Stuart Butler and Peter Germanis calling for a “Leninist” strategy to “prepare the political ground” for privatizing Social Security on behalf of “the banks, insurance companies, and other institutions that will gain from providing such plans to the public.”

You’re unlikely to find another rigorously reported book this year that ends with its subjects advocating for movements to become more Leninist — in the sense of having a hard core ready to step into a power vacuum.

Or maybe it’s in the Leninist spirit of “the worse, the better.”

As one of Vladimir Lenin's most loyal lieutenants, Dzerzhinsky helped establish the revolutionary government using ruthless Leninist tactics: the brutal persecution of opponents - or anyone even suspected of being an opponent.

“For Vietnam, a communist state with a pretty rigid kind of Leninist hierarchy of diplomatic relations, this stuff actually matters,” he said.