This article reassesses Lenin’s understanding of Hegel and his dialectic.It argues that Lenin deployed two understandings of that dialectic,one a more mechanistic and vulgar form and the other ruptural.While the former favours the objective and even evolutionary unfolding of stages,the latter is conced with subjective intervention in those objective conditions.In order to develop this argument,I deal with the whole expanse of Lenin’s treatments of Hegel and of Marx’s materialist appropriation of the dialectic.This material spans almost three decades of writing,so I focus on key moments from the whole period.The argument is structured in three main sections:the first deals with Lenin’s appreciation of the subjective rupture at the heart of the dialectic;the second concs his focus on the dialectic’s objective mechanisms;the third analyses the texts where Lenin juxtaposes both approaches,an effort that creates a dialectical tension of its own.I conclude by observing that Lenin did not invent this vulgar-ruptural dialectic,but rather that he inherited the tension from Marx.