Anyway, is the Alien obviously only a jerk for creating Lenin? It seems to me that by the generalized anti-zombie principle, just having a complete enough model of Lenin to be certain of his actions is as good as creating him.

The jerkiness is not in creating Lenin per se, but in letting him loose on Earth. Keeping him in the Matrix unable to harm anyone might also be jerky, but for a completely different reason, and much more mild.