“In these lean years, the Bolsheviks turned to crime to raise the funds they needed to stay alive as a movement, and the man who emerged as the John Dillinger of the Leninist faction was Stalin. “Sometimes a scoundrel is useful to our party,” Lenin wrote, “precisely because he is a scoundrel.”

“In these lean years, the Bolsheviks turned to crime to raise the funds they needed to stay alive as a movement, and the man who emerged as the John Dillinger of the Leninist faction was Stalin. “Sometimes a scoundrel is useful to our party,” Lenin wrote, “precisely because he is a scoundrel.”

— Arthur Herman