Lenin was obviously one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century. He set the groundwork for making a backwards nation into a super power - every few hundred years Russia seems to need a person or group of people to give it a good modernizing kick in the rear - the last time it happened on the level the Bolsheviks took it to was under Peter the Great. Lenin's plan for Russia was mass industrialization of the kind that took place under Stalin. He even called Russia during the time he was in power "capitalism with a thin veneer of socialism" so he knew capitalist property relations could not be eliminated all at once. Lenin issued the NEP, or New Economic Program which allowed for a free market in grain to keep the rural peasantry happy - forced collectivization was not initiated by him but by Stalin. Under Lenin the Communist party functioned with internal democracy so much so that there were different factions and currents of ideological thought such as the Left Opposition, the Right Opposition, etc... Stalin would later outlaw these. Lenin only outlawed other parties from participating in the government after an assassination attempt was made on him where he was shot in the neck by a "Left Social Revolutionary". The Cheka did not round up millions of people, but arrested counter-revolutionaries that truly did threaten the stability of the regime, compare the 15,000 "kill by Lenin's Cheka" to the 15 million of Stalin's NKVD - any new ruling power will always wage war against counter revolutionary elements - it happened here with the Whiskey Rebellion and very much so during the French Revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. Lenin was also the only Russian leader of the time to be able to finally pull Russia out of World War I - the Tsar and then Kerensky both failing the people in this measure.
