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Read Victor Sebeschen's "Lenin: Power and Love" (16)
Continued by Victor SebeschenLenin, Power and Love.The following are some of the memorable passages from the
Lenin's Last Years - Lenin's Biggest Mistake
Around 1922, Lenin's health began to deteriorate significantly. It was no longer even possible for him to appear publicly on the political stage.
With the imminent death of the absolute leader of the party, the question of who would be his successor became an urgent one. The great task of choosing a successor was entrusted to Lenin, but his deteriorating health prevented him from performing it to the best of his ability.
One of Lenin's biggest mistakes was that he did not lay down rules for choosing his successor. Like many influential and powerful leaders, he could not think of anyone capable of succeeding him. No one knows exactly what Lenin had in mind for the leadership of the Soviet Union after his death. It is clear that he did not seriously consider it until it was far too late. It is conceivable that he wanted some kind of collective leadership, but he did not set out the steps by which his successor would emerge.
Hakusuisha, Victor Seveschen, translated by Motohiro Miura and Tsukasa Yokoyama, Lenin: Power and Love, 2nd vol.323
Lenin's Testament
When Lenin became bedridden and isolated from politics, he dictated his last will and testament, mostly to one of his public secretaries, Mariya Volodycheva, between December 22, 1912 and January 4, 1923. (omitted).
The first part was dictated on December 24. Comrade Stalin, as General Secretary, has gathered so much power that I am not sure he knows how to exercise it with due care. Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand, ...... stands out not only for his extraordinary abilities--as an individual he is probably the most capable person in the [party] Central Committee today--but also for his excessive self-confidence and excessive enthusiasm for the purely administrative aspects of his work. These qualities in two outstanding leaders can quite suddenly lead to a split, and if our Party does not take steps to prevent it, it may unexpectedly occur.
Hakusuisha, Victor Seveschen, translated by Motohiro Miura and Tsukasa Yokoyama, Lenin: Power and Love, 2nd vol.P324-325
The two leading candidates to succeed Lenin were Stalin, who was even General Secretary at the time, and Trotsky, the most outstanding member of the Party's Central Committee. However, Lenin feared that leaving these two men unchecked could lead to an unexpected split in the party.
Next, on January 4, he called Foteyeva and added an explosive postscript to his "Testament. Stalin is too violent, and this fault is perfectly forgivable in our inner circle and in our relations among Communists, but not as General Secretary. How to remove Stalin from his post and instead appoint another man who differs from Stalin in all respects by having only one advantage: he is more generous, more loyal, more polite, more considerate of the other comrades, and less capricious? That is why I propose that you, comrades, think about
The final quarrel between Lenin and Stalin was personal, not political. Lenin did not suddenly see through Stalin's true nature at the moment of his death. He had known for some time, but had never cared much for the ruthless immorality of "those wonderful" Georgians. It was Lenin who created this monster, and it was his greatest crime that he was now leaving Stalin with the great possibility of becoming the leader of the Soviet Union.
Hakusuisha, Victor Seveschen, translated by Motohiro Miura and Tsukasa Yokoyama, Lenin: Power and Love, 2nd vol.P325
In his last will and testament, Lenin wrote that "Stalin was not a suitable successor. However, as it turned out, Stalin's clever trickery prevented this will from being called into question, and Stalin went on to lead the Soviet Union as Lenin's successor.
Lenin then ended his life on January 21, 1924, at the age of 53.
The Debate over Lenin's Body
Lenin wanted to be buried next to his mother and sister Oliga at the Volkovo cemetery in Petrograd. Nadja and other family members assumed that this would be the case, with a private funeral as soon as the state funeral was over. They wanted to place an ordinary, modest headstone on the grave.
But behind the scenes in the Kremlin, the debate over Lenin's body begins. It is not clear who first proposed the bizarre plan to preserve Lenin's body and display it like the body of a saint. Several leading figures later claimed it was them, but Stalin and Dzerzhinsky pushed the plan - against the wishes of Nadja, Lenin's sisters, and his brother Dmitry.
Hakusuisha, Victor Seveschen, translated by Motohiro Miura and Tsukasa Yokoyama, Lenin: Power and Love, 2nd vol.P337
Lenin himself may not have imagined that after his death, his body would be embalmed, preserved semi-permanently, and venerated. Lenin's family also wanted him to be buried in a tomb after his death.
But his body was crucial to the Soviet Union's leadership. The people who took notice of this, overcoming the opposition of his family, would make Lenin into the very immortal god that he was.
Lenin embalming and Lenin worship
Initially, the pathologist who performed the autopsy the day after Lenin's death, Dr. Alexei Abrikosov, embalmed the body to preserve it for six days until the funeral. However, on January 24, the funeral committee, co-chaired by Stalin, ordered the pathologist to embalm the body for 40 days. This is not such an odd request in the Russian Orthodox Church. In the Russian Orthodox Church, prayers are often recited near the body for 40 days. At first, Nadja flatly refused, but softened when Zinoviev told her that if she agreed, they could discuss the plan again in a month.
But already at this time, the heavyweights had decided to leave the body "indefinitely ......, preferably permanently" in the form of preservation in the Mausoleum in Red Square.
Gerzinski, who had briefly been educated in the Catholic priesthood before turning to Marxism, said. If science can preserve the human body for a long time, by all means let it do so. If science can preserve human bodies for a long time, then by all means let it do so. We do it because Lenin is a great man, unlike anyone else.
Stalin, once an Orthodox seminary student, said at one ministerial meeting, "We must show that Lenin is alive.
Many old comrades, including Khamenev and Bukharin, were astonished. Vladimir Ponch-Bruevich, who was probably closest to Lenin in his later years, said he thought Lenin himself would have been shocked to learn of the idea.
Trotsky said the embalming of Lenin's body was like a medieval religious rite. 'Once we had the relics of Sergius of Radnezh and Seraphim of Sarov. Now you want to replace these with relics of Vladimir Ilyich?" he said.
But the decision was made. The Bolsheviks needed a temple of Lenin worship. And the embalmed and decomposition-proofed body lying beside the Kremlin was to be that pilgrimage site. (omitted)
On February 26, 1924, five weeks after Lenin's funeral, the Marxist atheists in charge of Soviet Russia inaugurated the ostentatiously named "Committee for Immortalization," without any hint of irony.
Hakusuisha, Victor Seveschen, translated by Motohiro Miura and Tsukasa Yokoyama, Lenin: Power and Love, 2nd vol.P337-339
Some line breaks have been made.
Lenin MausoleumWikipedia.
The preservation and "permanent" veneration of Lenin's body sounds very religious. In the atheistic Soviet Union, this was a paradoxical form of worship.
Lenin Mausoleum and Lenin still living
For the Kremlin overlords, the embalmed bodies and the extraordinary Lenin worship sent a variety of messages that went beyond the bizarre fusion of religious and political rituals. Lenin was proclaimed a saint of this world under the acclamation, and veneration of him became the people's duty.
But the crypt in Red Square was not merely a temple. It was a physical reminder that the Russian people had not been freed from Lenin, even after his death. Russians would still be required to follow his precepts through their solemnly appointed successors.
The wooden mausoleum was replaced by a marble and granite building in 1930 and still stands 100 years after the revolution in Lenin. On Soviet national holidays, later generations of communistsleaderIt was his old friend Leonid Krasin who conceived the idea of attaching a podium where Lenin addressed the masses. After the crypt was opened to travelers, an estimated 2 million people visited the mausoleum over the next 80 years, gazing at the embalmed and eerily waxy Lenin.
The Soviet chiefs who followed in Lenin's footsteps believed that Lenin's achievements justified their rule. A century later, Lenin was used by a new breed of despotic rulers. Communism may be superfluous to them, but they are still extreme nationalists who revere Lenin as a competent man in line with Russian tradition.
Hakusuisha, Victor Seveschen, translated by Motohiro Miura and Tsukasa Yokoyama, Lenin: Power and Love, 2nd vol.P344-345
*Lines have been changed as appropriate.
Lenin is dead, but he lives on in Russia. The existence of Lenin's Mausoleum is connected to Russia in a much deeper way than we can imagine. This is a very important issue for the study of religion, and even for the study of human beings themselves.
At the End - Reading "Lenin: Power and Love"
How was your reading of "Lenin: Power and Love" over the past 16 issues? I am sure that you have made some surprising discoveries.
I myself was so taken aback by this book that I read it in one sitting, so engrossed in it that I couldn't help but shout out. Such an exciting book is hard to find.
Above all, Lenin is a rather minor figure in Japan, even though his name is well known. I knew very little about him until I studied Soviet history.
But after reading this book, I realized that learning about Lenin is directly related to learning about the present day.
Lenin's political methods are still relevant today. In this book we have seen such fearful political skills of Lenin. We must also learn to protect ourselves from the politics of fear by politicians like him.
You may think that Lenin is a man of world history, a special person, and that this is an issue that has nothing to do with us. However, it seems to me that Lenin raises a very serious question when we consider what is the essence of human nature. Leninism" can happen anywhere in the world. I would like to keep that in mind.
The above is "Lenin's Death and Reading Lenin's Mausoleum "Lenin: Power and Love" (16)" as a temple that still lives on.
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