I have been researching the fascinating Russian Revolution and am baffled on the complexity of the numerous ideological 'isms' at work. It is seeming that socialism as represented in early 20th century Russia and mid 20th century Germany are poor representations of more contemporary conceptualisations of socialism or communism. Is there some way this can be simplified because I feel like I cannot understand the Russian revolution without grasping how Lenin (mis?)interpreted Marx's work.
There have already been some interesting answers on this topic:
/u/Comrade-Chernov gave one here that also delves into Maoism: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/64r043/i_know_marxism_leninism_and_maoism_but_theres/
/u/khinzeer gives another more digestible answer here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/25c6ir/what_is_the_difference_between_maoism_leninism/
I have 'The Tragedy of the Soviet Union' by Malia and 'Russia in War and Revolution: 1914-1922 A Documentary History' by Johnathan Daly/Leonid Trofimov in front of me, so I'll give you a TL;DR.
'No support for the Provisional Government; the utter falsity of all its promises should be made clear, particularly of those relating to the renunciation of annexations...
...Recognition of the fact that in most of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies our Bolshevik Party is in the minority, so far a small minority, as against a bloc of all the petty-bourgeois opportunistic elements, from the Popular Socialists and the Socialist-Revolutionaries down to the Menshevik Organizing Committee who have yielded to the influence of the bourgeoisie and spread that influence among the proletariat' - From Vladimir Lenin's April Thesis, 1917. This was the thesis he wrote on the train back to Russia after the February Revolution.
I picked these quotes because it shows you that, in practice, Leninism was based around no compromise with other communist or socialist parties. Leninism pioneered the strict organization of a 'vanguard party' that would forcefully start the revolution, instead of waiting for it to happen like Marx said it naturally would. The context for this would be that Russia was not actually a country predicted to have a Communist Revolution. Marxism was pretty strict in saying there was a clear path of progression from an advanced, capitalist country, to a common revolution, and into communism. Russia was not an advanced, capitalist country, so it sort of defied his 'vision' as a place for communism.
Leninism reconciled this problem by saying a vanguard party would help leapfrog Russia past advanced, capitalist countries into communism. Implicit in this is that the vanguard party would be a minority group, and that it may not have popular support at first, but after seizing power the country would follow. Party organization was the major way to achieve this seizure: in practice it made the Bolsheviks more ideologically uniform and organized than the other socialist and communist groups operating in the Provisional Government, and this tactic led the Leninists to simultaneously reject compromise with other groups and wait for a chance to take over the government from them.
I don't know if it's really a misinterpretation of Marx's work, that's probably for someone more steeped in a communism subreddit to decide. Those answers I linked above delve into that, though.