100th anniversary of the death of WI Lenin: Lenin: There can only be one

During a meeting of the Council for Science and Popular Education under the President of the Russian Federation on January 21, 2016 – the 92nd anniversary of Lenin’s death was not the occasion of the event – Vladimir Putin pointed out, among other things, that it was Lenin’s ideas and policies that led to the would have led to the destruction of Russia. Therefore, for Russians, the upcoming 100th anniversary of the 1917 revolution was no reason to celebrate.

In his campaign against the Bolshevik Vladimir, President Vladimir decided to take both first names literally, as a true fighter for national unity: “Vladej mirom” means “rule the world.” In his opinion, instead of the mausoleum for Lenin, there should be a monument to Prince Vladimir on Red Square in Russia’s capital. But in 2016 the time was not yet ripe to risk removing the memorial to the founder of the Soviet state from the world cultural heritage list. Since 2017, the mood regarding Lenin’s mausoleum documented by the Russian opinion research institute Levada has remained unchanged. According to a survey by the Center, which was declared “foreign agents” in March of that year, 45 percent of Muscovites are in favor of reburying the mummified corpse in the Volkovskoye Cemetery in Petersburg, where the Ulyanov family grave is located; 42 percent are against it. In the area surrounding the capital, the pros and cons are also balanced.

Putin maintains his rejection of the policies pursued by Lenin: the “Bolshevik financed by Germany” laid the ax to the root of the proud, thousand-year-old Russian Empire; The federal principles of state building announced by him after he seized power were much more than just a mistake, he declared in December 2019, referring to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. At that time, the government spokesman felt compelled to point out that it was This is the president’s personal opinion and there is no reason to get upset about it.

Gennady Zyuganov, chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), had waited a long time to respond to Putin’s comments. Without naming the addressee of his reply, which he finally gave, he emphasized that Lenin was a brilliant politician and statesman because, like his executor Stalin, he always had the interests of the working people in mind.

The Association of Architects of Russia saw the exchange of blows at the time as an opportunity to put forward ideas for converting the mausoleum into a museum for its builder. The necropolis on the Kremlin wall was to disappear along with Lenin’s mummy and Red Square was finally to be converted into a festival site. A corresponding competition was announced in September 2020.

Again it was the chairman of the KPRF who protested. After three days, the Association of Architects withdrew the tender. But that doesn’t change the fact that Red Square is still used not only as a parade ground, but also as a place for folk festivals and sports competitions. To the annoyance of the church, for whom cemeteries were and should remain places of silence, including for the dead immortalized on the Kremlin wall.

In opinion polls conducted by the Levada Center, Stalin has long since displaced Lenin as the number one most influential figure in Russian history. No wonder, because according to official agitation, Lenin was also responsible for the defeat of the heroically fighting Russian soldiers on the fronts of the First World War through the “Decree of Peace” in November 1917 and the Brest-Litwosk armistice agreement with war enemy Germany in March of the following year as well as the “invention of Ukraine” with the founding of the USSR. Stalin, on the other hand, could be celebrated as the victor in the Great Patriotic War and the protector of the Russian Empire.

A reflection of the “image of history” propagated by the president are the forewords to the new editions published in Russia of the “shorthand” of the Moscow show trials published in the 1930s. Many Russians are convinced that what the state security organs would have thwarted at the time has been implemented as a result of perestroika. What is meant is the allegedly deliberate destruction of the USSR and the selling out of the country to the West.

But back to Lenin: The KPRF is preparing for the elections that will take place in the Russian Federation in March under the slogan “Into the future with Lenin”. Putin (there is no doubt about his re-election) will remain in office until May 2030. Perhaps what was read on a Russian satirical site on the Internet will then become reality: the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation signs a decree handing over the Lenin Mausoleum to the Russian Orthodox Church, thereby elevating it to the rank of a spiritual monument . After all, the baptized Ulyanov was never excommunicated.

The Berlin historian Dr. Wladislaw Hedeler, born in Tomsk in 1953, is an internationally renowned communism researcher and author of numerous monographs and document editions on the Comintern, Soviet history and the Russian present; In 2023, his volume “On the Road in Yeltsin and Putin’s Russia” was published.