One hundred years after his death, Lenin, the father of the Bolshevik Revolution, remains on display, embalmed, in Red Square. But his legacy languishes in Russian society, especially after President Vladimir Putin reproached him for having “invented” Ukraine.
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The authorities did not announce any specific event for this Sunday, January 21, on the centenary of his death.and only a Communist Party ceremony was planned at its mausoleum, located near the Kremlin.
In anticipation of possible protests, The authorities shielded Red Square, and reduced public events and tributes to a minimum. to the leader of the Bolshevik revolution.
After the death of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov on January 21, 1924, at the age of 53, the Soviet authorities, by order of Stalin, decided to embalm his body and build a mausoleum. The red and black stone building was completed in October 1930..
In 1953, Stalin's remains were moved alongside Lenin's, but in 1961 they were removed during the de-Stalinization process. In Soviet times, large crowds gathered at Lenin's remains.
But today only nostalgic people continue to honor the revolutionary leader.
The low temperatures – about 15 degrees below zero – reduced the influx of public, but did not prevent Hundreds of people paid tribute to the father of the Soviet proletariat at the foot of the Kremlin.
Communists and nostalgics of the old regime of all ages fought the cold by waving flags with the hammer and sickle and singing Soviet songs on the cobblestones of the square.
They placed large wreaths of flowers at the entrance to the marble mausoleum that houses Lenin's embalmed body, protected since 1924 by a sarcophagus, before which they paid their respects in almost sepulchral silence.
Lenin “represents an ideal,” Valentina Alexandrovna, 78, told AFP.
For this retiree, “only” Lenin's doctrine can allow Russia to “get out of the current situation.”
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During the rest of the year, Lenin's embalmed body is primarily a tourist attraction. Once every 18 months, the mausoleum is closed so that scientists can repair the deterioration of its mummified remains.
According to the state news agency TASS, only 23 percent of Lenin's body remains in the armored glass sarcophagus, kept at a temperature of 16°C.
Putin, Lenin and Ukraine
As happened on the centenary of the 2017 revolution, The head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, was absent from the communist celebrations. Of course, within the framework of the presidential campaign, he takes advantage of any opportunity to criticize Lenin, whom he accuses of placing “an atomic bomb under the building called Russia”, by recognizing the right to self-determination of peoples.
Three days before the start of the offensive against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Putin denied in a speech the reality of the Ukrainian nation and He accused Lenin of having invented Ukraine when founding the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
According to the Russian president, the Ukrainian State is located on Russian lands; and Lenin, by creating the Soviet republics with a little autonomy, allowed the emergence of nationalism and the subsequent implosion of the USSR.
“Because of Bolshevik policy, Soviet Ukraine emerged. It would be perfectly justified to call it Lenin's Ukraine. He is its inventor, its architect,” he stated.
The figure of Lenin has not, however, been totally suppressed. In Moscow, a 22-meter-high Lenin monument dominates Kaluga Square.
On the contrary, Stalin is the Soviet leader to whom Putin refers most. And not precisely to denounce the atrocious repression of his regime but to praise the statesman and war leader who defeated Hitler's Germany.
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Since the beginning of the operation in Ukraine, Putin places his campaign in the legacy of World War II and compares the Ukrainian authorities to the Nazis.
In the eyes of the Kremlin, Stalin remains a victorious model and Lenin a loser. “The current power needs Stalin because he is both a hero and a villain,” Alexei Levinson, a sociologist at the independent Levada polling institute, told AFP.
“He won the war, so all his atrocities are erased,” he adds.
“Lenin is the leader of the world revolution, which never occurred. Lenin is the leader of the world proletariat, which does not exist. Lenin is the creator of the socialist State, which no longer exists and no one wants it to rise again,” the expert concludes.
AFP and EFE
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