"The best way to control the opposition is to lead…

“The best way to control the opposition is to lead it” is a popular political saying that has been credited to Russian communist leader Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924). The earliest citation, however, is only from 2000:

“Lenin, the first Communist dictator after the takeover of Russia in 1917, is widely credited with the following quotation, ‘The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.’”

“Vladimir Lenin openly declared in 1917: ‘The best way to control the opposition against us is to lead it ourselves’” was cited in 2015. There remains, however, a citation gap of 83 years. It is unlikely that Lenin made the famous quote about “controlled opposition” in this form. Almost everything that Lenin “openly declared” had been recorded in print.

Lenin, however, did believe in controlling the opposition. The Black Hundreds was one controlled opposition group (according to the 1998 citation, below).

Wikipedia: Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. alias Lenin (/ˈlɛnɪn/; Russian: Ле́нин; IPA: [ˈlʲenʲɪn]) (22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924) was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He served as head of government of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1917, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death. Under his administration, the Russian Empire was replaced by the Soviet Union; all wealth including land, industry and business was confiscated. Based in Marxism, his political theories are known as Leninism.

Google Books
Nevada Studies in History and Political Science
1962
Issues 1-6
Pg. 34:
Both Marx and Lenin emphasized the need for and prophesied the emergence of what Communist ideology terms the “controlled opposition.” Under such a concept opposition parties are permitted to continue in existence, to publish their own newspapers, to make their own speeches, and to propose their own slates of candidates. The crucial difference is, however, that the coalition formed in the second stage is a sham. Newspapers are subject to strictest control, speakers are censored and harrassed or even arrested for deviation from the prescribed Communist party line, and slates of candidates are set up only with prior Communist approval.

Google Books
It’s Very Simple;
The True Story of Civil Rights
By Alan Stang
Boston, MA: Western Islands
1965
Pg. 198:
So the only way the Communists can win is, as we have seen, with guile.

The only way they can beat the opposition, in fact, is to control the opposition.

Now, how would they do that?

Google Groups: misc.activism.militia
Radicalizing the “Right”
Jon Roland
1/22/98
From The New American
Vol. 14, No. 3, February 2, 1998
Radicalizing the Right
by William Norman Grigg
(...)
It is worthwhile to examine how the Soviet regime and other governments have made use of controlled opposition groups—and to consider the possibility that the neo-Nazi Elohim City cabal implicated in the OKC
bombing may have been used in the same fashion by the Clinton Administration.

Lenin boasted that prior to the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, his agents infiltrated the militant, anti-Semitic Black Hundred societies in Russia, and eventually exercised effective control over many of them.
Significantly, many of those who joined the Black Hundred societies were tradition-minded Russians who had little initial enthusiasm for terrorism, but who eventually succumbed to the movement’s lawlessness—
and unwittingly assisted communist efforts to subvert Russia. The depredations of the “right-wing” Black Hundred societies helped undermine lawful order in Russia and provided a useful foil for the Bolsheviks, who were secretly coordinating many of the Black Hundred atrocities that were denounced in communist propaganda.

In the early post-war era, Soviet propaganda tirelessly associated anti-communists with the late Nazi regime, and covert efforts were undertaken to create controlled neo-Nazi “opposition” groups.

Google Groups: alt.liberty-vs.conspiracy
[N.A.] False Opposition and Lack of Progress
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
1/20/00
(...)
Lenin, the first Communist dictator after the takeover of Russia in 1917, is widely credited with the following quotation, “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”

RealNews247.com
Fascism—Packaged as Democracy
and Other Lies Peddled by U.S./British Plutocrats in Last Century
By: Tina Staik - 03/26/03
(...)
Interestingly, Lenin, the first Communist dictator after the takeover of Russia in 1917, gives a clue. He’s widely credited with the following quotation, “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”

Alaska Citizens Militia
quote from Lennin
nicole smyth
1/24/10
“The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.” i know ron paul says all the right things and even kucinch does sometimes but think about it.

Urban Dictionary
Controlled opposition
A controlled opposition is a protest movement that is actually being led by government agents. Nearly all governments in history have employed this technique to trick and subdue their adversaries. Notably Vladimir Lenin who said ‘‘“The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”
(...)
by Aliases January 26, 2013

Google Groups: alt.conspiracy
Controlled Opposition
Jack Hobbs
Jan 19, 2015
(...)
CONTROLLED OPPOSITION - the third layer of the onion

If you’re genuinely open to new truths, the third layer of enlightenment is the fact that the official opposition is controlled and deliberately ineffective.

Everything is rigged.

Vladimir Lenin openly declared in 1917:
“The best way to control the opposition against us is to lead it ourselves.”

CONTROLLED OPPOSITION is one of those basic truths which, when realised, makes us blush and cover our eyes and say:
“why didn’t I think of that before?!”

Yes obviously - ruling groups are addicted to control, ever increasing control. And you can control nearly everything if you control a phoney, DELIBERATELY INEFFECTIVE ‘opposition’ to yourselves.