The Presidential Library's collections illustrate materials of the death of Vladimir Lenin

January 21, 2019 marks 95 years since the death of Vladimir Lenin, a political and state leader, founder of the Soviet state (1870–1924). On this day, the Presidential Library would like to share unique materials from its electronic collections dedicated to the personality of the leader of the Bolsheviks. They include materials on how the high-ranking party leaders, as well as ordinary workers and peasants, experienced the death of Lenin.

The book On the Death of Lenin available on the portal of the Presidential Library and written by a prominent Soviet figure Grigory Zinoviev (1883–1936) is of great interest. Zinoviev describes the day of Lenin’s funeral and a week after that:

“Have we seen a more magnificent picture for all the years we have experienced than the one we have seen all over Moscow for the fourth day? Have you ever seen such a wonderful single mass of the people, such a living surf of hundreds of thousands of proletarians who organize themselves on the streets themselves, who stand day and night this winter cold and are waiting for their turn to go to worship the leader’s dust? ... as if people experiencing the Great October Revolution for the second time”.

He further quotes the letters of the workers to the death of the leader:

“Our dear father! - writes one of them. - You left your children forever, but your voice, your words will never die in our proletarian hearts. We are going to bid farewell to our dear leader by the great thousands, we cry at your grave. Our father, by his death, dealt us a heavy blow. Reading newspapers, we thought that he would return to us soon, and we waited for him every minute, but an evil illness took away our unforgettable father — the father of the whole world. We know that the time will soon come when wreaths will strew down from your hot grave from all over the world; Your grave will always remain in the memory of every honest citizen. It will bloom forever, it will never be dry. Not the summer morning dew will sprinkle it, but the tears of your children, who loved you so dearly and will be forever devoted to you”.

This is what the worker-miner Tarasov wrote: “Sick. We cherished his every hour. Lenin, please, live! You alone understand us like no one else! We, the men, who trampled tsar! Today everyone has black spots on the heart. Star rolled up. Moscow, Russia, the Union of Republics put on mourning. The sun is darkened. The great Lenin between us is gone. "

Such responses, according to Zinoviev, came from many countries of the world, including China and India, “after all, the oppressed peoples of the East most of all perceive Vladimir Ilyich as their best friend”.

Lenin’s personality is also evaluated there in the eyes of A. M. Gorky: “I must say that my personal sympathies for him do not play any role at the moment when I write about him. I regard him as a creature subject to my observation, along with all other people and phenomena that cannot but interest me as the writer of my homeland. This man speaks at the workers' meeting, he speaks in surprisingly simple words, in iron language, with the logic of an ax, but in his harsh words I have never heard any crude demagogy or vulgar smartness with a beautiful phrase”.

V knige «V. I. Lenin: ocherk zhizni i deyatel'nosti» (1924), razmeshchonnoy na portale Prezidentskoy biblioteki, chlen Politbyuro Lev Kamenev pisal: «Nechelovecheskaya, neuderzhimaya zhazhda raboty, neustannaya mysl' i besposhchadnaya rastrata svoyey energii slomili etot bogatyrskiy organizm i pogasili navsegda zhizn' lyubimeyshego iz lyubimykh – nashego Il'icha. No yego fizicheskaya smert' ne yest' smert' yego dela. Lenin zhivot v serdtse kazhdogo krest'yanina-bednyaka. Lenin zhivot sredi millionov kolonial'nykh rabov».

Yest' v elektronnom fonde Prezidentskoy biblioteki, predstavlennom v boleye chem 800 tsentrakh dostupa po vsey Rossii i yeshcho v 38 zarubezhnykh stranakh, kniga «Lenin» 1920 goda, izdannaya k 50-letiyu sovetskogo vozhdya. Primechatel'na ona kak minimum po dvum prichinam. Vo-pervykh, v broshyure rech' idot ob N. Lenine – psevdonime, kotorym mnogo let podpisyval svoi stat'i geroy povestvovaniya, prezhde chem povsemestno stali ispol'zovat' formu «V. I. Lenin». Vo-vtorykh, kniga stala plodom sotrudnichestva dvukh avtorov: L'va Kameneva i Iosifa Stalina. Kazhdyy v svoyom stile otsenil vklad Lenina v ikh obshcheye delo.

Tak, Kamenev teoretiziruyet: «Dlya Lenina teoriya Marksa vso tak zhe neprelozhna i tselostna, yavlyayetsya takim zhe nichem ne zamenimym orudiyem analiza, kak osnovnyye algebraicheskiye formuly dlya stroitelya-inzhenera».

A vot chto chitayem u Stalina: «Neredko tovarishcha Lenina obvinyali v chrezmernoy sklonnosti k raskolu, v neprimirimoy bor'be s primirentsami i pr. Nesomnenno, i to i drugoye imelo mesto v svoyo vremya. No ne trudno ponyat', chto nasha partiya ne mogla by izbavit'sya ot vnutrenney slabosti i rasplyvchatosti, ne mogla by dostich' prisushchey yey sily i kreposti, yesli by ne izgnala iz svoyey sredy neproletarskiye, opportunisticheskiye elementy».

In the book “Vladimir Lenin: Essay on Life and Work" (1924), posted on the Presidential Library's portal, Politburo member Lev Kamenev wrote: "The inhuman, unstoppable thirst for work, tireless thought and merciless waste of its energy broke this heroic organism and extinguished forever the life of your beloved favorite - our Ilyich. But his physical death is not the death of his work. Lenin lives in the heart of every poor peasant. Lenin lives among millions of colonial slaves”.

The electronic collections of the Presidential Library, presented in more than 800 access centers throughout Russia and in 38 foreign countries, contains the book "Lenin" of 1920, published for the 50th anniversary of the Soviet leader. It is remarkable for at least two reasons. First, in the pamphlet we are talking about N. Lenin - a pseudonym with whom the storytelling hero had signed his articles for many years before the “Vladimir Lenin". Secondly, the book was the fruit of the collaboration of two authors: Lev Kamenev and Joseph Stalin. Each in his own style appreciated Lenin's contribution to their common cause.

Thus, Kamenev theorizes: “For Lenin, Marx’s theory is still immutable and complete, is just as irreplaceable a tool of analysis, as the basic algebraic formulas for the builder-engineer”.

Stalin mentions: “Often Comrade Lenin was accused of excessive inclination to split, in an uncompromising struggle against conciliators, etc. Undoubtedly, both of these took place at the time. But it is not difficult to understand that our party could not get rid of internal weakness and vagueness, it could not have achieved its inherent strength and strength if it had not expelled from its midst non-proletarian, opportunist elements”.

Fragments of the newsreel “The Funeral of Vladimir Lenin, January 23–27, 1924, are of undoubted interest. The struggle for power after the death of Vladimir Lenin".

“On January 21, at 6 hours and 50 minutes in the evening, Vladimir Ilyich died. Funeral is on Saturday evening. Secretary of the Central Committee of Stalin", - said voice-overs.

The video tells about the funeral of the proletarian leader and the inner-party struggle caused by his death. Photographs and film documents give an idea of ​​members and candidate members of the Politburo: I. V. Stalin, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, M. I. Kalinin, L. B. Kamenev, G. I. Zinoviev, M. P. Tomsky, A. I. Rykov, M. V. Frunze, K. B. Radek, G. I. Petrovsky, L. D. Trotsky, V. V. Kuibyshev, and others. In the historical frames, N. K. Krupskaya sits at the tomb, changing of a guard, comrades carry the coffin through the streets of Moscow...

A special feeling of the newsreel is caused by the fact that future political opponents Kamenev, Zinoviev, Stalin are here "on one side of the barricades". It is then Zinoviev and Kamenev will be declared enemies of the people.

It is worth noting that Vladimir Ilyich Lenin died a man not old by today's standards - only 53 years old. There are different versions of the causes of his long illness. It is said that the assassination of August 30, 1918 also affected health. Last summer, 100 years after the events described, the Presidential Library presented on its portal official materials on the investigation of this case.

In the book by Henri Gilbo “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (description of his life)” (1924), available in the electronic reading room of the Presidential Library, the author recalls: “The day after the assassination attempt of Fanny Kaplan on Lenin, Trotsky was a spokesman for Lenin. He said: "When you think that Lenin can die, it seems that all our lives are useless, and he ceases to want to live".