Marxism-Leninism?

I'm reading Paul Johnson's Modern Times at the moment, as part of my campaign to read through ISI's fifty best books of the century list. The editors at ISI called it "the most personal, yet the most objective, history of our time." I agree.

One thing of note: I've found it fascinating to read Johnson's account of how different Lenin's philosophy really was from that of Marx. One often hears the term "Marxism-Leninsm" used to describe the political dogma of the former Soviet Union, making it easy to assume that Marxism and Leninism are virtually the same thing. Not so. What made Lenin's thought--and his belief in a revolution in Russia--distinct from Marx's philosophy was the absence of a proletariat. In the early 20th century, Russia was not yet industrialized to the point of creating a large working class, which Marx thought was the key to revolution. Lenin, however, believed this could be overcome through the leadership of a "vanguard," an intellectual elite. Lenin believed himself to be the center of this vanguard, its originator and driving force. The result, as history has seen, was catastrophic. A few men, and ultimately a succession of individuals, held the power in Russia, not the proletariat.