The differences between Marx and Lenin in five sentences

Marx believed communism would be stateless while Lenin believed that a revolutionary vanguard was needed first to create a socialist state that owned the means of production, communism would come later.
Marx believed communism would be moneyless while Lenin believed that a revolutionary vanguard must first create a socialist that must use money because communism had not yet been reached.
Marx believed communism would be classless while Lenin believed that during the period of socialism before communism there would indeed be a classless society, and the Soviet Union was classless.
Marx believed that communism could only arise from nations with advanced capitalism coming first while Lenin believed that he could take the semi-feudal Russian nation and transition to a socialist system that would later fade into communism.
Both acknowledged the alienation and exploitation of labor under capitalism was degrading, both acknowledged the need for the proletariat to rise up and seize the means of production from their capitalist masters, and both rejected fascism, imperialism, and capitalism.

911 WeKnow