The award was instituted in connection with the founding of the Jan Myrdal Society in 2008, on the initiative of, among others, the entrepreneur Lasse Diding before Jan Myrdal's and Andrea Gaytan Vegas's wedding.

This change took several years to finish, as two AGM resolutions are required to amend the statutes of the Jan Myrdal Society.

[4] In 2022 the award was once again called Jan Myrdal’s big prize – the Lenin Award after an agreement between Lasse Diding and Jan Myrdal before the latter’s death in 2020.

[6] In 2013, author Susanna Alakoski declined the award because she did not want to be associated with "totalitarian ideologies or regimes".

[7] In the same year, the award and the 2013 laureate Maj Sjöwall were criticized by Carl Bildt.