The Most Influential Man

Murat Yıldırımoğlu, 05/10/2004

The most Influential man today (and perhaps during all the twentieth century) is not Christ, Mohhammed, Marx, Bush, Blair or Chirac, Reagan or Khoumeyni. He is Lenin. Lenin is dead but his ghost reigns in the intellectual world.

Lenin recovered an already falsified theory of Marxizm that Capitalizm is to be crashed because of its inherent conflicts. Lenin put forth the theory of Imperializm. Imperializm, according to Lenin, solved the problem of Capitalizm providing the enough fresh resources to the capitalists. Capitalizm exploits the rest of the world and capitalists use the world's resources to supress their labour class. The industrialized countries exploits the rest of the world.

Like Marxizm, this theory is also wrong but most of the people in the third world bought this idea. For example, in Turkey, most of the people, whether they are Islamic fundemantalists, right or left wing
extremists, secular people or normal/simple people, think that America exploits Turkey. In fact, there is a joke for the American Aid: Someone takes whatever valuable the other has and says "It is the American aid". This belief is contrary to the truth. Asaf Savas Akat, a distinguished economist in Turkey, showed that there is a net income into Turkey from America, not the opposite, during the
last fifty years. But not Akat's but Lenin's explanation was accepted by the Turkish people.

The image of the America is a public relations disaster. What America failed is to demonstrate that the welfare and prosperity of the USA has nothing to do with exploitation. America couldn't show or explain that the cause of the American way of life is hard working, creativity, a unique and efficient law system etc. If America will not be able to do that the ghost of Lenin will still reign in the minds of the people.