Answer:
One of the major elements of Soviet totalitarianism under Vladimir Lenin was Marxism.
Step-by-step explanation:
Leninism is a movement within Marxism. It is a socialist movement that has as its main thinker the Russian revolutionary leader, and later Bolshevik Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin.
The main difference between orthodox Marxism and Leninism is that the first is based on the revolutionary power of an organized working class, while Leninism assumes that the workers can revolutionize much faster with the leadership of a vanguard party. Without this leadership, the working class would have to struggle for centuries and learn from its mistakes before it realizes how to reach socialism in the right way.
The second important point of Leninism is the proposition that a bourgeois revolution can immediately turn into a socialist revolution. According to Orthodox Marxism, that socialist or proletarian revolution would only take place, in accordance with the dialectical principle, if capitalism was fully developed and on the brink of collapse. According to Leninism, it is also possible that the revolution takes place in a country where capitalism is not fully developed, but where the capitalist class is very weak while the working class is very strong and well organized and class-conscious.
Leninism, in its many variants, has been the most common form of Marxism among communist parties since the beginning of the twentieth century.