Did Lenin say: “The capitalists themselves will sell us the rope with which we will hang them”?

A popular statement on the Internet attributed to the leader of the world proletariat is that the thirst for profit inherent in capitalism will help defeat it. We checked to see if the politician said anything similar.

With an indication of the authorship of Lenin, the phrase about the purchase of rope from capitalists for their own execution can be found in “Wikiquote", on websites With selections quotes and aphorisms, on social networks (“VKontakte", X, Facebook, Instagram), on blog platforms (LiveJournal, "Zene") and in services questions and answers. Her also include in printed collections of quotes from famous personalities. In some sources, the statement is presented in a different wording - for example, “Capitalists ready to sell give us a rope to hang them on" or "If you offer good price, the capitalists will sell the very rope on which they will be hanged.”

Not a single “Verified” publication with this phrase found indicates when and under what circumstances Lenin said or wrote it. However, it is not difficult to check whether a particular quote came from the pen of a revolutionary. Back in Soviet times, all his works, public speeches, personal correspondence and other documents were carefully collected and studied, and subsequently digitized. A 55-volume book has been published in the electronic catalog of the Russian National Library collected works Lenin, which includes his written legacy from 1893 to 1923. There are also others, earlier publications, where you can find some other documents. In none of them was the desired statement about the rope sold by capitalists “Verified” found. Nothing similar was found in the database National Corpus of the Russian Language, where a collection of texts with a total volume of more than 2 billion words is collected. 

One of the earliest sources in Runet discovered by “Verified”, where this quote is mentioned along with the name of Lenin, is digitized collection "Anthology of aphorisms from King Solomon to Stanislav Lem" edited by Konstantin Dushenko, published in 2001. The annotation states that it was compiled from Russian and foreign sources, and under the statement about the rope - that it is attributed to Lenin. IN reference book “Quotes from Russian history. From the calling of the Varangians to the present day,” released four years later, Dushenko clarifies that this phrase was attributed to the revolutionary in the English-language press in the mid-1950s. The authors of the portal agree with this Quote Investigator. In The Commonwealth magazine they found an article dated October 31, 1955, in which an American military man and ardent anti-communist George Racey Jordan attributed to Lenin the quote "When the time comes to hang the capitalists, they will compete with each other for the contract for the supply of ropes." Jordan did not indicate where or when exactly Lenin said this, but this is the earliest known source in which the leader of the world proletariat is named as the author of the phrase. Considering that the article in The Commonwealth was published 31 years after Lenin's death, the likelihood that such an attribution is erroneous is extremely high.

Discussing the origin of the quote, Dushenko also mentions an essay by the artist Yuri Annenkov “Memories of Lenin”, where he quotes a similar statement: “The capitalists of the whole world and their governments, in pursuit of the conquest of the Soviet market... will open loans that will serve us to support the Communist Party in their countries and, by supplying us with the materials and techniques we lack, will restore our military industry, necessary for our future victorious attacks against our suppliers. In other words, they will work to prepare for their own suicide." Annenkov indicates that he came across this quote in unpublished documents at the V.I. Lenin Institute in Moscow in 1924, immediately after the leader’s death. The essay was published in 1961, that is, its author quotes from memory several rather lengthy statements allegedly belonging to Lenin, decades after he read them. Even if Annenkov saw something similar, there are doubts about the accuracy of the quotation. Be that as it may, the vivid image of a rope is not included in the statement, although the meaning is indeed close.

Even later, in 1975, writer and Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in a speech in Washington told about such an episode from Lenin’s life: “And in difficult moments, at the party congress in Moscow, he said this: “Comrades, do not panic, when we feel very bad, we will give the bourgeoisie a rope and it will strangle itself.” And then Karl Radek—maybe, you know, he was such a resourceful wit—said: “Vladimir Ilyich, where are we going to get so much rope so that the entire bourgeoisie hangs itself?” And Lenin answered without difficulty: “And the bourgeoisie itself will sell it to us...”.” Although Lenin's remarks in this dialogue are similar to the statement being analyzed, Solzhenitsyn does not specify how he learned about this episode, what congress he is talking about and when it took place. The writer could hardly have attended it - at the time of Lenin’s death he was only five years old. So, most likely, Solzhenitsyn simply retold a story he had heard earlier.

In English there is a quote similar to the one being analyzed saying: “Give him enough rope and he’ll hang himself.” However, the meaning is somewhat different: if in the version attributed to Lenin we are talking about greed and thirst for profit, then in the saying it is more likely that a person will destroy himself with his rash actions if he is given freedom of action. Probably, in English-language literature, some real statements by Lenin (or other opponents of capitalism) that the bourgeoisie itself will lead itself to destruction were mixed with this saying, and as a result, a vivid statement appeared, to which the leader of the world proletariat himself has nothing to do. 

Note that this saying was used in a similar context long before the quote attributed to Lenin appeared. Thus, in 1896, the British socialist Samuel Edward Keeble in its book “Industrial Dreams: Studies in Industrial Ethics and Economics” wrote: “According to the German socialists, deliverance lies in the very success of capitalism - if you give it enough rope, it will hang itself. He will so concentrate in his hands the instruments of production and distribution—land, machinery, railways, etc.—that the expropriated society—disciplined, educated, and drilled by capitalism itself—will eventually rise up, quietly in some countries, violently in others, and “expropriate the expropriators.” This statement is both about stupidity and recklessness, as in the original saying, but at the same time about the greed of capitalists, which leads to these reckless actions.

Thus, there is no reliable evidence that Lenin is the author of the phrase “The capitalists themselves will sell us the rope on which we will hang them.” Nothing like this is found in his collected works. Some authors, writers and researchers attributed this or similar quotes to him, but several decades after his death. Moreover, those who attributed the statement about the rope to Lenin were not intimately familiar with him or his works.

Cover photo: Bain News Service, publisher, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Incorrect quote attribution

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Quote Investigator. Quote Origin: The Capitalists Will Sell Us the Rope with Which We Will Hang Them
2. Five quotes attributed to Lenin
3. Did Lenin say: “Let 90% of the Russian people die, if only 10% survive to see the world revolution”?
4. Did Lenin write: “In spirit I am with you, in hard labor in Siberia, but in body, unfortunately, here in Zurich in a hotel”?