Lenin or Lennon? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Vladimir Lenin

In 1895, Lenin was arrested in Saint Petersburg for printing and distributing illegal literature. While in jail, he would knead his bread into little inkpots and fill them with milk. Lenin would write seemingly harmless letters to his friends, but they actually contained secret messages to his comrades.

When held over a candle's flame, words written with milk would appear. He would have to eat his milky ink pots, frequently when guards appeared. This information comes from Robert Payne's "The Life and Death of Lenin".

Answer: John Lennon

This certainly sounds like something that could've come out of Lenin's mouth, but it was John Lennon who said it in a 1971 interview with Robin Blackburn and Tariq Ali, published in the socialist newspaper "The Red Mole". Lennon explained that he was brought up in a way that made him see the police and the army as enemies, but it started to wear off with age.

Answer: Vladimir Lenin

This quote is from Vladimir Lenin's novel "What Is To Be Done?", written in 1901 and published in 1902. Specifically, it comes from the chapter entitled "Dogmatism And 'Freedom of Criticism'". The full quote is: "If democracy, in essence, means the abolition of class domination, then why should not a socialist minister charm the whole bourgeois world by orations on class collaboration?" Lenin described the novel as a plan for what would come next.

Answer: Vladimir Lenin

While it is not unreasonable to think this could have been John writing a nasty letter to Paul McCartney about an abusive phone conversation with Yoko, this quote comes from a letter that Lenin wrote to Joseph Stalin. The letter was Lenin's reaction to Stalin's conversation with Lenin's wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and was good evidence of Stalin's dictatorial and authoritarian tendencies. Part of this information comes from "Lenin and the Russian Revolution" by Christopher Hill.

Answer: John Lennon

This was John Lennon justifying his existence to Jann S. Wenner of "Rolling Stone" magazine in an interview published on January 21, 1971. Among many other topics touched upon, Lennon talked about Liverpool's history, his travels with The Beatles, and his relationship with Yoko Ono.

Answer: John Lennon

These words are the opening lyrics to the song "Revolution" by The Beatles. John Lennon wrote this song to express his dissatisfaction with the methods that certain protestors were using in the late 1960s. Particularly, Lennon was concerned with violence and radicalism. "Revolution" was released as a single in August 1968.

Answer: Vladimir Lenin

There are several translations of what Lenin wrote in the original Russian, but this one is close enough. It comes from his 1904 book "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back", in which he describes the two emerging factions that were building inside his party: the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.

Answer: John Lennon

This is another one of those quotes that may have made you think twice about who said it. However, this is a direct quote from John Lennon from his 1971 interview with "The Red Mole". Lennon was addressing his song "Revolution" and how he feared being killed in a protest because of how increasingly violent these protests were getting.

He described himself as someone from the working class who was always interested in Russia and China despite living in a capitalist society.

Answer: Vladimir Lenin

This quote comes from one of Lenin's later publications, "Socialism and War". Published in 1915, this book was a collection of essays written by Vladimir Lenin in which he gave his opinions about war and how socialists tend to side with the oppressed regardless of who has begun an attack.

For example, he said that if Morocco were to attack a colonial power like France or England, socialists would side with the oppressed even if Morocco was the one that started the offensive.

Answer: John Lennon

John Lennon said this in an interview that he gave at The National Theatre in 1968. The full quote is: "I think our society is run by insane people for insane objectives, and I think that's what I sussed when I was 16 and 12, way down the line. But, I expressed it differently all through my life.

It's the same thing I'm expressing all the time, but now I can put it into that sentence that I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends." Lennon expressed his dissatisfaction with politicians in general, arguing that he wanted to live in a world where he wasn't lied to.

He expressed many of these sentiments in songs like "Imagine" (1971) and "Gimme Some Truth" (1971).