[Senior Chief]

Lenin took control gradually. Stalin took control by overt force. National Socialism (Nazi) took control over a long period of time. Historically, gun control and education were the two prime factors despots required to gain ultimate control...always for the good of the people.

[rogerv]

Again, I don't think the point is how quickly these changes took place. Depending on when you start the clock, Lenin was in power within a decade of his activity in Russia, and once in power effected sweeping changes very quickly. From Hitler's Beer Hall putsch to his reign as the Fuhrer was about five years. Once he was in power, he claimed emergency powers and changed things very quickly.

But the point isn't about how fast these changes were, but whether the changes were good or bad. And the point about making changes gradually is their reversibility. Very quick changes (often accompanied by great violence) are often hard to reverse (or, equally bad, superficial--the French Revolution was supplanted by a restoration of the monarchy only a few years later). (An interesting question is how much change rally did occur under Lenin or Hitler. After all, the Prussian unification of Germany under Bismark had left a militaristic caste on the nation, one that was perpetuated by Hitler rather than challenged by him. And the communists turned the Czars secret police into the KGB. It is worth asking how much of the repression under those totalitarian regimes was brand new, and how much a perpetuation of bad old authoritarian tendencies that have been with us for a long, long time).