Lenin's death centenary: a quiet commemoration in modern Russia
After the 1924 death of the founder of the Soviet Union, a popular poet said “Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live", but a century later, Vladimir Lenin appears to be largely an afterthought in Russia today.
Russian Communist supporters carry portrait of Vladimir Lenin as they walk to lay flowers at the Mausoleum of the Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin to mark the 100th anniversary of his death, in Red Square. / Photo: AP
For almost a century after his death, Vladimir Lenin's carefully preserved body has lain in a purpose-built mausoleum on Red Square — a glaring reminder of Russia's communist past.
But the father of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution that founded the Soviet Union — and the 100th anniversary of his passing — has largely been ignored by ordinary Russians.
Few official events have been scheduled to mark the centenary on Sunday, beyond a Communist Party ceremony at his tomb in the shadow of the Kremlin.
For President Vladimir Putin, who has publicly chided Lenin for his supposed role in dividing the Russian Empire into nation-states like Ukraine, this is convenient.
Putin, now mired in an almost two-year assault against Kiev, has instead championed Joseph Stalin — the man who led the USSR to victory in World War II, and who purged all his political opponents in a years-long reign of terror.
Huge crowds of people queued to pay their respects to Lenin in Soviet times, but today, ceremonies honouring the revolutionary are attended mainly by those nostalgic for the communist era, flags and red carnations in hand.
Tourist attraction
When Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) died on 21 January 1924, Soviet authorities at the behest of Stalin began embalming his body and building a mausoleum.
The red and black polished stone temple has stood at the heart of Red Square since October 1930 and briefly housed Stalin's remains until 1961.
Huge crowds of people queued to pay their respects to Lenin in Soviet times, but today, ceremonies honouring the revolutionary are attended mainly by those nostalgic for the communist era, flags and red carnations in hand.
His embalmed body has become, primarily, a tourist attraction. Once every 18 months, the mausoleum is closed to allow scientists to re-embalm his body and repair the damage caused by time.
Since the collapse of the USSR in 1991, a debate about whether to close the mausoleum and bury his body has regularly cropped up in Russian media. But the proposal has been met with fierce resistance from communists.
Russian Communist party leaders speak to journalists next to the Mausoleum of the Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin to mark the 100th anniversary of his death, in Red Square.
Putin's attack on Lenin
Putin rarely mentions Lenin. So, his attack on the instigator of the October Revolution, days before ordering his troops into Ukraine on 24 February 2022, was notable.
In a vitriolic speech questioning Ukraine's statehood three days before the attack, the Kremlin leader accused Lenin of having "invented" Ukraine when he founded the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
By giving the Soviet republics a degree of autonomy, Putin argued, Lenin allowed the emergence of nationalism and the eventual implosion of the USSR.
"It was because of Bolshevik policy that the Soviet Ukraine came into being, which (one) would be perfectly justified to call Lenin's Ukraine," Putin raged.
"He is its inventor, its architect," he continued. "And now," Putin said, "grateful descendants have torn down Lenin's monuments in Ukraine."
Since the collapse of the USSR in 1991, a debate about whether to close the mausoleum and bury Lenin's body has regularly cropped up in Russian media. But the proposal has been met with fierce resistance from communists.
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