Lenin Lives!: The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia

by Nina Tumarkin

This book provides a startling answer. Exploring the cult's mystical, historical, and political aspects, Nina Tumarkin demonstrates the galvanizing power of ritual in the establishment of the postrevolutionary regime.

Genres: Russia, History, Nonfiction, Politics, 20th Century

Hardcover

First published March 31, 1983

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

I was going to begin by saying that the story of Lenin's preservation and transformation into a cult figure was the strangest of the 20th century, but then I thought I'd best at least pretend occasionally to be serious, and since the previous century was so full of bizarre and unlikely, too strange for fiction stories, this one has to jostle for space on the podium.

Tumarkin has a little account of Lenin's life and, importantly for her theme, his death from a stroke after a series of strokes his father had also died in his mid-50s from a stroke, both men had severe arteriosclerosis. This was reported, eventually in great detail, newspapers portrayed his death as an act of self sacrifice, they didn't call it Christlike, but that is the implication of the citations that Tumarkin gives - Lenin died for you, in the struggle against world capitalism apparently though typically one doesn't normally consider eating a fatty diet an essential component of the revolutionary struggle, but through reading one always learns something new. Much of this was presaged by the reaction to Fania Kaplan's 1918 attempt to fatally shoot Lenin at close range, she succeeded in hitting him three times, which by the standards of terrorist/ freedom fighter violence she was a Socialist Revolutionary and seriously annoyed by the direction and manner of the Bolshevik government is actually pretty good historically speaking even if she failed in her mission to kill the man. But while the first reaction was to promise a disproportionate wave of revenge violence, the second was to stress Lenin's selflessness and preparedness to die, more than a martyr, for the good of the proletariat of all countries.

The conscious development of a cult - a word that she uses advisedly pointing out than back in the USSR a cult of the personality was regarded as negative, although widely practised, and so even the suggestion of the word was out of the question- was no accident plainly otherwise she'd have written a different book, she found four roots of the Lenin cult: firstly Lenin's popularity, which may come as a surprise for some, but the decree turning over land from monasteries and aristocrats to peasants appeared over Lenin's signature as did the later introduction of the New Economic Policy which allowed a limited free market as opposed to the earlier policy of shooting people for selling things at a profit and using bands of soldiers to seize agricultural produce from the villages, these policy associations gave Lenin a lasting degree of popularity among peasants who constituted a good 80% plus of the population, secondly and flowing on from that as a new regime with no popular roots to speak of the party appreciated the value of a cult in creating a new Communist identity here was stressed Lenin as role model - a good worker and crucially a good schoolboy who paid attention and studied hard- never was the link from school desk to revolutionary leader made so clear which is why you ought listen to your teacher, do your homework, and go to the library oddly it was stressed from early on that Lenin loved children for which there was no evidence although the daughter of one Bolshevik had made fun of his bald head without an outburst of Dickensian violence - he certainly though did love cats and Innesa Armand neither of which were considered suitable for the motivation of school children, thirdly the cult allowed for collective grief after WWI and civil war, it inspired and mobilised and became a focal point for the new regime as a whole, finally it drew upon considerable historic traditions: saints lives in particular Ss Boris and Gleb who patiently and quietly endured matyrdom, icons iconography and iconographic styles were freely used already in the civil war, whether deliberately or unconsciously as a popular artistic medium is unknown, most obviously the traditional house had a Red Corner I was taught that in earliest Russian red and beautiful were the same word the introduction of an extra syllable and division into two words came later, so the original meaning was beautiful corner ditto Red Square in which icons were displayed, Libraries and community centres, schools, staff rooms, etc in response had to have Lenin corners , naive monarchism that the tsar is intrinsically good and peasant like, but cruelly surrounded by wicked peasant hating advisers, the naive monarchism of the Russian peasantry was a traditional bugbear of nineteenth century Revolutionaries who could not motivate peasants to rebel and overthrow the monarchy and establish a Golden Age, indeed the fairly successful 18th century rebel Pugachov was widely believed to be Tsar Peter III or at least that's what people said once they'd been caught and brought face to face with the hangman's noose, rituals of monarchy lying in state in particular as an opportunity for people and ruler to meet, and 'godbuilding' a sub-cultural movement within Bolshevism to replace the old fashioned God with the deification of humanity, much of the cult may well have been gloriously circular with responses to carefully designed propaganda hailed as authentic popular feeling about Lenin, authentic or not there were some fantastic folkloric tales about Lenin in one Cunning Lenin tricks the Tsar into dividing the Empire, Lenin takes all the 'black people' (peasants, workers, soldiers) while the Tsar gets to keep all the 'white people' (generals, priests, rich people) but then finds to his frustration that there is nobody to make him breakfast or clean his boots, in another Lenin sleeps in his tomb by day, but at night wanders around talking to factory workers and peasants.

Despite Lenin's repeated wish not to be a mere icon,state desire to be buried next to his Mum, and the wishes of his widow and sisters the decision was taken to embalm him and put him on public display in a specially constructed tomb, inspirations for this move in Tumarkin's opinion include:
i) discovery of Tutankhamen 15 months earlier, the newspapers made reference to how ridiculous the feeble efforts of the Pharaohs were in comparison to what Soviet science could achieve
ii) Russian Orthodoxy -in which the incorruptibility of body was often taken as proof of sanctity
iii) Fedorov's philosophy, a fin de siecle character who believed that the task of science is to achieve the complete resurrection of all the ancestors
iv) Bolshevik 'god building' with its consciousness creation of a religion to celebrate and elevate humanity (p179)

Embalming was also forced on the regime, initially it was believed that if Lenin could be put in an airtight container at zero degrees celsius he could be displayed indefinitely like some kind of super ham on the cold counter,however sadly he began to go mouldy, which meant it was either a case of embalming him or burying him. The period after his death was followed by competition for leadership among all the leading Bolshevik, all of whom strove to appear more Leninist than Lenin, only to be opposed by others boasting that they were even more Leninist. This period was marked by extravagant claims of Leninism. Stalin claimed that he had been Lenin's bestest friend since 1903 when he had received a letter from him, which in a moment of foolishness he had burnt, only for Trotsky to point out that he already knew Lenin in 1902, and furthermore had once borrowed Lenin's shoes to go to the opera in they were to small, for both of them

Lively and entertaining analysis of the public use and abuse of Lenin in the Soviet Union and his transformation into a cult figure. Taking in the broad range of ideas at his death for suitable tombs and memorials including one suggestion to display the body like a slab of meat at a constant temperature of zero degrees, to how this new type of soviet ideal merged into traditional patterns of veneration. She traces the development of both an invented tradition and the adaptation of existing culture. The creation then of a tomb mounted by a platform for the self-declared heirs of Lenin to take the salute, made concrete the idea of the Lenin Cult that Soviet power was to be maintained by standing on Lenin's corpse.

Once Stalin had finally managed to establish that he was the most Leninist, he had the problem that Lenin made him look bad by comparison which led to some careful amendments to the Lenin cult essentially that all Lenin's good ideas had come from Stalin, and that Stalin was always Lenin's best friend and helper. After Stalin's death the Lenin cult became such a cornerstone of the regime that it spawned a number of jokes a new double bed was designed with space for three people because Lenin is always with us; a prize was offered for the best statue of Alexander Pushkin, third prize went to a statue of Lenin reading Pushkin, second prize went to a statue of Pushkin reading Lenin, first Prize went to a statue of Lenin. . The final difficulty, and I'm late in mentioning this but many revolutionaries, including all the varieties of Russian communists had a seminary education of whom Stalin is the classic example, according to legend his mother always regretted that he hadn't become a priest, one suspects there were many of the same opinion in Siberia seminaries are well known for producing atheists I understand and so there was always a strong tendency to demonology and angelogy in the Soviet world view, with the end of Communism - slowly in the 1990s there were abrupt attempts to demonise Lenin: he had a mistress! He may have been Jewish! I imagine that today officially he is viewed as a strong leader, worthy of respect even if he wasn't terribly good at Judo. History aspires to find some human understanding between the angels and the demons who would otherwise dominate our picture of the world.

More entertaining than a book about the trials and tribulations of a dead body could reasonably be imagined to be.

[Highjump · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nina Tumarkin is the greatest. Just as in the amazing Living and the Dead she takes something you've observed (Lenin is treated sort of like a saint) but haven't thought deeply about and adds the details and theory to completely blow you away. Unparalleled understanding of Soviet/Russian culture.

[Hailey Levenberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tbh i fully read this book cover to cover for school and lowk super interesting abt lenin cult… didn’t enjoy the 70 pg on his embalming tho no hate. da writing a book review for class on this book so let’s see if my opinions change 👀👀

[Matthew Rowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting and detailed.