ABSTRACT
The thorny issues of leadership and of leaders' succession have plagued many generations of Marxists. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels treated almost all political leaders, both historical figures and their own contemporaries, with open contempt, repeatedly stressing that the issue of leadership could only be analyzed in terms of the specific historical circumstances and that leaders were actually produced by history itself. Georgiy Plekhanov qualified Marx's theory that leaders were the product of historical circumstances. Lenin clarified the leadership issue presented in Marx's writings and offered a completely new view on the role of the leader in the revolution. Lenin charged the leaders of the proletariat with many tasks: to educate the proletariat, to raise the level of its consciousness through agitation and propaganda, and to lead it toward victory by acting as mass mobilizers, organizers, and strategists and by stimulating heroic actions that would serve as the motive force for a revolutionary chain reaction.
