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Various publications e.g. "The Parent Care Conversation" (which seems to be a religiously inspired book in some parts at least) attribute the saying "destroy the family, you destroy the country" to Lenin.

The book "The Marxist Goliath Among Us" (2010) attributes a sinister context to the quote:

Vladimir Lenin described the importance of the traditional family's annihilation in Marxist revolutions. "Destroy the family, you destroy the country", he insisted.

Did Lenin actually say or write that, and if so in what context?

(Wikiquote doesn't contain that quote, or anything else similar about family; well there's something about "the world family of the proletariat" in there, but that's clearly a different meaning of the term "family".)

Fizz
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  • Perhaps also add a gBooks search limited to 20th century and add another context for notability? [Perhaps, this one](https://books.google.com/books?id=noZdFRPwQV8C&pg=PA79) or this [pamphlet](https://books.google.com/books?id=Ce5KAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA58) – LangLаngС Nov 08 '19 at 04:09
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    Also, seems prudent to require more than [this](https://kali-yuga.org/so-did-v-i-lenin-really-say-%E2%80%98destroy-the-family-you-destroy-the-country%E2%80%99/) – LangLаngС Nov 08 '19 at 04:12
  • @LаngLаngС: I'm not seeing any close votes for now, so I'll refrain from adding more quotes to the question unless notability is actually challenged. – Fizz Nov 08 '19 at 04:25
  • Your Q, & just a suggestion to hopefully increase the quality of coming As and show more own prior research. But anyway: looking at the search hits, it's an excellent question here… – LangLаngС Nov 08 '19 at 04:29
  • The concept is fundamental to Communism (no private property, no inheritance, no marriage, no religion, …, and eventually, when all children are raised communally rather than as property of their biological parents and everyone has seen the light, no government). I think this is one of those "if he *didn't* say it, he *should* have said it" quotations. – Ray Butterworth Nov 08 '19 at 14:55
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    @RayButterworth: if you have some other quote from Lenin (but not from someone else) that is in effect saying what you have paraphrased, you could answer with that. – Fizz Nov 08 '19 at 16:40
  • Related: [Were these 'Communist Rules for Revolution' written in 1919?](//skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/31405) & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_in_the_Soviet_Union – LangLаngС Nov 08 '19 at 17:54
  • @Fizz, the ideas are from the Communist Manifesto, so not attributable to Lenin. – Ray Butterworth Nov 09 '19 at 01:10
  • @RayButterworth It think Lenin's comrade Aleksandra Kollontaĭ gave the most detail in her "Communism and the family". For example saying "The family is ceasing to be a necessity of the State, as it was in the past; on the contrary, it is worse than useless" https://books.google.com/books?id=8SHZAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA20&dq=%22The+family+is+ceasing+to+be+a+necessity+of+the+state%22+useless&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjOu8PLgtzlAhVCiFkKHXt3BycQ6AEwAnoECAEQAg#v=onepage&q=%22The%20family%20is%20ceasing%20to%20be%20a%20necessity%20of%20the%20state%22%20useless&f=false – DavePhD Nov 09 '19 at 01:56
  • Lenin wasn't not that extreme as Kollontai - he could say that arguing with her... – HEKTO Nov 09 '19 at 02:37
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    `you destroy the country` - did Lenin want to destroy his own country? Unlikely... So, the whole quote looks erroneous – HEKTO Nov 09 '19 at 02:51
  • @HEKTO Lenin would have only said in the sense of capitalists are destroying the traditional family by making woman and children work in factories; thereby destroying the country. – DavePhD Nov 09 '19 at 14:22
  • @DavePhd - yes, this interpretation looks consistent to me – HEKTO Nov 09 '19 at 14:59
  • @DavePhD But look (what I am still missing from your As): how was the context indeed; & is this now used? Extreme right 'proves' with it that this is the Marxist masterplan to undermine *America*. "Go forth, comrades, and destroy the West by making them divorced & gay!" So: what is the closest Lenin said, what did that mean and where was that applied (or not). Was that an observation or recipe, an instruction or analysis, something he approved of or disliked? – LangLаngС Nov 09 '19 at 17:24
  • @LаngLаngС In the 1900-1910 time period this was already a highly developed issue (socialism being attacked on the basis that it would destroy the family). For example in the 1904 "The Struggle for Existence" question 866 is "will not Socialism destroy the family?" and the publication explains how socialists should respond by saying that capitalism is destroying the family. https://books.google.com/books?id=UHgiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA616&dq=%22Socialism+destroy%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwis2Zy24N3lAhVwuVkKHcUNAX4Q6AEwAHoECAAQAg#v=onepage&q=%22Socialism%20destroy%22&f=false ... – DavePhD Nov 09 '19 at 18:26
  • @LаngLаngС so Lenin, in the 1914 passage of my answer, is utilizing this preexisting strategy of saying capitalism is destroying the family, as he presents Marx. Since he is writing about Marx, he needs to precede "stupid to regard the Christo-Teutonic form of the family as absolute" with the established strategy of blaming capitalism from destroying the family. – DavePhD Nov 09 '19 at 18:30
  • @DavePhD The crucial difference is that this is all about the institution of the *bourgeois* 'family', a mechanism that re-produces oppression etc. Marx/Engels have this really all laid out *long* ago. They *all* wanted to really 'destroy' the oppressive aspects *and* the church/state's involvement in all of that. – LangLаngС Nov 09 '19 at 19:49
  • @LаngLаngС In this 1853 reference, well before Lenin was born, it is written of a generic socialist "In his enthusiasm...he would ruin States, — he would destroy family". So the supposed quote is more like a long-standing accusation about socialists. https://books.google.com/books?id=6r5VAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA258&dq=%22he+would+ruin+States,+%E2%80%94+he+would+destroy+family%22&hl=en&ppis=_c&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjrvMi_jt7lAhVNjlkKHfmBAXwQ6AEwAHoECAAQAg#v=onepage&q=%22he%20would%20ruin%20States%2C%20%E2%80%94%20he%20would%20destroy%20family%22&f=false – DavePhD Nov 09 '19 at 21:52

4 Answers4

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The one thing somewhat like the quote that he wrote, in 1914, was:

A new form of family, new conditions in the status of women and in the upbringing of the younger generation are prepared by the highest forms of present-day capitalism: the labor of women and children and the break-up of the patriarchal family by capitalism inevitably assume the most terrible, disastrous, and repulsive forms in modern society.

He goes on to quote Marx:

...absurd to hold the Teutonic-Christian form of the family...

There are various published English translation of what Lenin wrote. A more-common translation of the Lenin's quote of Marx is:

...stupid to regard the Christo-Teutonic form of the family as absolute...

DavePhD
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    It's important to highlight (above "patriarchal" bourgeois family) that unlike anarchists for Lenin 'the state' as such isn't that bad in the mid-term.The analysis and predictions by Marx/Engels are already different from VIL, but https://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1920/lenin/zetkin1.htm should explain well what the stance 'on family' is. We see neither no more families, nor no more state – but what we do see is that ie 'American (family) values' are seen as oppressive etc. Remains: when was the claim put in Lenin's mouth and how does it relate to his visions & reality of modern enemies? – LangLаngС Nov 10 '19 at 10:45
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It is almost an exact quote from Lenin's time, but not by Lenin.

Instead, in 1918, Sir John Robertson, the Medical Officer of Health for Birmingham, UK said:

To destroy the family is to destroy the nation

DavePhD
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I found it in a 1901 issue of Messenger of the Sacred Heart, a Roman Catholic periodical.

I was actually looking for another Lenin quote and somehow I found that source right before I found this site asking about it.

I guess actually it's "state" instead of "country".

The “divorce mills " are grinding our country to powder; for if you destroy the family you destroy the State.

https://books.google.com/books?id=sT45AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA201&lpg=PA201&dq=Destroy+the+Family,+You+Destroy+the+Country&source=bl&ots=FPGZJRa3Q4&sig=ACfU3U0tc9dvTPSnDZRah6KcwZRTL5-EgQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiLvcLBnO_mAhUnnq0KHTP9AI84ChDoATAIegQIBRAB#v=onepage&q=Destroy%20the%20Family%2C%20You%20Destroy%20the%20Country&f=false

DavePhD
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Emma Cahill
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    Interesting, but you should be more clear that Lenin is not mentioned by the source. – DavePhD Jan 06 '20 at 15:51
  • Can you please quote/snapshot the page so we can see it in context. I cannot, and I am wondering if they are claiming to be the origin of the quote or if they are quoting Lenin (and if so, if they provide a source.) – Oddthinking Jan 07 '20 at 03:29
  • @Oddthinking I added the quote. There is no mention of Lenin. No author of the article is named. It is just a sentence in the article, not a quote of someone else. – DavePhD Jan 07 '20 at 14:30
  • This seems to predate the 1914 Lenin quote and the 1918 Robertson quotes provided in existing answers, but it still leave it open that Lenin said something in earlier writings. – Oddthinking Jan 07 '20 at 15:18
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There is a site (in Russian), devoted to Lenin works etc. I've entered the phrase "уничтожить семью" - in double quotes, meaning "to destroy the family", into the search field (upper right corner) - and got nothing. Also I tried some variations of this phrase - also nothing.

My conclusion, not 100%-reliable of course - Lenin didn't say that.

HEKTO
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  • Here https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/self-det/ch05.htm Lenin mentions “disintegration of the family”, “disintegration of family ties” and "destruction of family ties" (not that he is advocating these). – DavePhD Nov 10 '19 at 03:01
  • Do you mean that quality of search at this site might be not that good? I've tried one of phrases, suggested by you and translated back to Russian - "распад семьи" - and got the chapter 5 of: https://leninism.su/works/63-tom-25/2188-o-prave-naczij-na- – HEKTO Nov 10 '19 at 04:30
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    No, just that there are synonym-phrases. In English, Marx's phrase in The Communist Manifesto is "abolition of the family". Unfortunately I don't know any Russian and only a little German. – DavePhD Nov 10 '19 at 14:20