Politics

FACT CHECK: Did Vladimir Lenin Say ‘Socialized Medicine Is The Keystone To The Arch Of A Socialist State’?

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The conservative youth organization Turning Point USA posted a meme on Facebook that claimed Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin once said “socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of a socialist state.”

Verdict: False

The Daily Caller News Foundation found no evidence of Lenin ever making this statement.

Fact Check:

Turning Point often posts quotes to its Facebook page, attributing this one to Lenin, the revolutionary who established communist rule in Russia. “Well, At Least He Admitted It … Today’s Politicians Are Trying To Fool The American People Into Unknowingly Adopting Socialism #SocialismSucks,” reads the post caption.

While the statement about socialized medicine has been widely attributed to Lenin for more than 60 years, there is no evidence to suggest he ever actually said or wrote it.

The Daily Caller News Foundation found no credible source linking the quote to Lenin. The Marxist Internet Archive has no record of Lenin ever saying these words, according to Andy Blunden, an administrator for the site, although Lenin did occasionally use the term “keystone” in remarks.

The late Mark G. Field, former professor emeritus at Boston University and expert on Soviet socialized medicine, told The Baltimore Sun in 2013 that he had “very great doubts” about the authenticity of the quote.

“Lenin had more important areas to worry about,” he said. “The priority for Lenin was industrialization and the ability to produce weapons of defense and attack.”

The Library of Congress even investigated the quote at one point, according to authors David Blumenthal and James Morone in “The Heart of Power.” “As expected, they found nothing like it,” reads the book.

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