Where Lenin worked before the revolution. Life story. Further development of revolutionary political activity

Lenin -
lived,
Lenin -
alive.
Lenin -
will live.

/V.Mayakovsky/

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich(1870-1924) - theorist of Marxism, who creatively developed it in new historical conditions, organizer and leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the international communist movement, founder of the Soviet state.

The formation and development of Lenin's aesthetic views was facilitated by his rich erudition, deep knowledge and study of the phenomena of domestic and world culture, revolutionary democratic aesthetics, as well as his constant interest in various types of art, especially in art. literature and music, and a thorough acquaintance with them, direct communication with prominent figures of culture and art (for example, Lenin and Gorky maintained close contacts for many years).

Designed by Lenin dialectical-materialist theory of reflection became the methodological basis of modern Marxist aesthetics and art history. Considering the process of cognition as a reflection of the external world in human consciousness, Lenin substantiated the dialectically contradictory nature of reflection, showed that it is not a simple, mirror-dead act, but a complex process, which is characterized by an active, creative attitude of the subject of cognition to the reflected reality.
Lenin revealed the historical nature of the phenomena of the spiritual culture of society, proved the need to reveal their epistemological and social-class roots. The Leninist theory of reflection made it possible to reveal the inconsistency of the idealistic concepts of art, which break its ties with reality. A true reflection of the laws of the latter in its leading tendencies (Artistic Reflection, Realism), a reflection of the essential, the typical, is, in the light of Lenin's theory, the most important criterion for the value of art.

A series of Lenin's articles on Tolstoy is an example of the concrete application of the principles of dialectics, the theory of reflection to the analysis of artistic creativity, the identification of its ideological and aesthetic originality. Calling Tolstoy "the mirror of the Russian revolution", Lenin emphasized the social-class conditionality of the process of reflecting reality in art: " Tolstoy's ideas are a mirror of the weakness, shortcomings of our peasant uprising, a reflection of the softness of the patriarchal village...» ( v. 17, p. 212). Speaking against both dispassionate objectivism and vulgar sociologism in the understanding of artistic creativity, Lenin showed that the reflection of reality in works of art (" Tolstoy embodied in striking relief ... the features of the historical originality of the entire first Russian revolution ...» - v. 20, p. twenty) is inseparable from the subjective attitude of the artist towards it, giving an aesthetic assessment of what is depicted from the standpoint of certain social ideals. According to the logic of Lenin's thought, Tolstoy's "hot, passionate, often mercilessly sharp protest" against the police state and the church, "denunciation of capitalism" ( v. 20, p. 20-21) is a necessary condition for the artistic value and social significance of his work. According to Lenin, the artistic generalization of the essential, the regular, is in fact carried out through the individual, the singular: “. ..the whole nail in an individual setting, in the analysis of the characters and psyche of these types» ( v. 49, p. 57). Thus, the process of artistic creativity was considered by Lenin as a dialectical unity of objective and subjective, cognition and evaluation, individual and general, social and individual.

The position on the connection of art with social reality received an in-depth interpretation in the doctrine developed by Lenin on the partisan nature of art. In work " Party organization and party literature”(1905) Lenin countered false ideas about the “disinterest” of art, “lordly anarchism”, the disguised dependence of the bourgeois artist on the money bag with the slogan of the proletarian, communist party spirit of art, its open connection with the ideas of socialism, the life and struggle of the revolutionary proletariat. Considering socialist art "a part of the common proletarian cause" ( vol. 12, p. 100-101), Lenin was far from ignoring the specifics of artistic activity, dialectically linking the principle of party membership with the issue of freedom of creativity. Pointing to the social prerequisites for the formation of artistic talent, Lenin criticized the subjective-idealistic slogan of absolute freedom of creativity. He was just as sharply opposed to belittling the specifics of the creative individuality of the artist (Individuality in art), constantly reminded of the need for careful attitude to talent. In art, Lenin wrote, “it is absolutely necessary to provide greater scope for personal initiative, individual inclinations, scope for thought and fantasy, form and content” ( vol. 12, p. 101). But the true freedom of creativity, Lenin emphasized, the artist finds only in the conscious service to the people, the revolution, socialism: “ It will be free literature, because not self-interest and not a career, but the idea of socialism and sympathy for the working people will recruit more and more new forces into its ranks.» ( vol. 12, p. 104).

Theoretical questions of art. creativity were considered by Lenin in organic connection with the tasks of the revolutionary transformation of society. Lenin defined the the ideological orientation of socialist culture, including artistic culture Lenin, concrete ways of its formation and development. The essence of the cultural revolution is revealed by Lenin in the works “Pages from a diary”, “About our revolution”, “Less is better” etc. The cultural revolution, according to Lenin, implies the broadest public education and upbringing, which opens access to cultural values for the masses of the people, the education of a new, truly popular intelligentsia, and the reorganization of life on socialist principles. Lenin presciently foresaw that as a result of the cultural revolution a new, multinational art would be born, capable of assimilated and creatively reworked the best achievements of world artistic culture.
It will be "really new, great communist art, which will create forms in accordance with its content." Pointing out the need to master the cultural wealth accumulated in the process of the historical development of society, Lenin at the same time opposed an uncritical attitude to the culture of bourgeois society, within which it is necessary to distinguish between the reactionary culture of the ruling classes and "elements of democratic and socialist culture" ( v. 24, p. 120). The process of development, processing and development of art. the culture of the past must take place "from the point of view of the world outlook of Marxism and the conditions of life and struggle of the proletariat in the era of its dictatorship" ( v. 41, p. 462).

Lenin sharply criticized the nihilistic denial of all past culture by the theoreticians of Proletkult. Proletarian culture is not "jumped out of nowhere," said Lenin at the Third Congress of the RKSM. " Proletarian culture should be a natural development of those stocks of knowledge that humanity has developed under the yoke of capitalist society ...» ( v. 41, p. 304). Attempts to “laboratory” create a new art, substantiate a “pure” proletarian culture, Lenin considered theoretically incorrect and practically harmful, containing the threat of separation of the cultural avant-garde from the masses ( v. 44, p. 348- 349). Genuine socialist art. culture should be not only the result of the cultural development of mankind, but also " have their deepest roots in the very thickness of the broad working masses».

Nationality is, according to Lenin, not only an integral feature of the new, socialist art, but also one of the principles of the development of cultural wealth. Evaluation of the artistic heritage through the prism of the artistic and aesthetic ideals of the masses does not, however, mean a simplified rejection of everything complex in the history of artistic culture. Mastering the artistic heritage should contribute to the formation of an aesthetic taste among the working people, the awakening of "artists" in them. Lenin's principles of partisanship and nationality of art, respect for artistic talent and cultural heritage, etc., formed the basis of the policy of the Communist Party in the development of Soviet literature and art.

Ulyanov family. From left to right: standing - Olga, Alexander, Anna; sitting - Maria Alexandrovna with her youngest daughter Maria, Dmitry, Ilya Nikolaevich, Vladimir. Simbirsk. 1879 Provided by M. Zolotarev

Biographical chronicle of V.I. Lenin” begins with the entry: “April, 10 (22). Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) was born. Vladimir Ilyich's father Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov was at that time an inspector, and then the director of public schools in the Simbirsk province. He came from the poor townspeople of the city of Astrakhan. His father was previously a serf. Lenin's mother Maria Alexandrovna was the daughter of the doctor A.D. Blanca".

It is curious that Lenin himself did not know many details of his ancestry. In their family, as in the families of other commoners, it was somehow not customary to delve into their "genealogical roots". It was only later, after the death of Vladimir Ilyich, when interest in such problems began to grow, that his sisters took up these studies. Therefore, when in 1922 Lenin received a detailed party census questionnaire, when asked about the occupation of his paternal grandfather, he sincerely answered: “I don’t know.”

GRANDSON OF serfs

Meanwhile, Lenin's paternal grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were indeed serfs. Great-great-grandfather - Nikita Grigorievich Ulyanin- was born in 1711. According to the revision tale of 1782, he and the family of his youngest son Feofan were recorded as a courtyard man of the landowner of the village of Androsov, Sergach district of the Nizhny Novgorod governorship, Marfa Semyonovna Myakinina.

According to the same revision, his eldest son Vasily Nikitich Ulyanin, born in 1733, with his wife Anna Semionovna and children Samoila, Porfiry and Nikolai lived there, but were considered yard cornets Stepan Mikhailovich Brekhov. According to the revision of 1795, Lenin's grandfather Nikolai Vasilievich, 25 years old, single, lived with his mother and brothers all in the same village, but they were already listed as yard people of lieutenant Mikhail Stepanovich Brekhov.

Of course, he was listed, but he was no longer in the village ...

The Astrakhan archive contains the document “Lists of registered landlord peasants who have come in from different provinces and are expected to be counted”, where under number 223 it is written: “Nikolai Vasilyev, son of Ulyanin ... Nizhny Novgorod province, Sergach district, Androsov village, landowner Stepan Mikhailovich Brekhov, a peasant. Absent in 1791. He was a fugitive or released for quitrent and redeemed - it is not known for sure, but in 1799 in Astrakhan Nikolai Vasilyevich was transferred to the category of state peasants, and in 1808 he was accepted into the bourgeois class, into the workshop of artisans-tailors.

Having got rid of serfdom and becoming a free man, Nikolai Vasilievich changed his surname Ulyanin to Ulyaninov, and then Ulyanov. Soon he married the daughter of the Astrakhan tradesman Alexei Lukyanovich Smirnov, Anna, who was born in 1788 and was 18 years younger than her husband.

Based on some archival documents, the writer Marietta Shahinyan put forward a version according to which Anna Alekseevna is not Smirnov’s own daughter, but a baptized Kalmyk girl, rescued by him from slavery and allegedly adopted only in March 1825.

There is no indisputable evidence of this version, especially since already in 1812 they had a son Alexander with Nikolai Ulyanov, who died four months old, in 1819 son Vasily was born, in 1821 - daughter Maria, in 1823 - Theodosius and, finally, in July 1831, when the head of the family was already over 60, his son Ilya was the father of the future leader of the world proletariat.

FATHER'S TEACHER'S CAREER

After the death of Nikolai Vasilyevich, the care of the family and the upbringing of children fell on the shoulders of his eldest son Vasily Nikolayevich. Working at that time as a clerk of the well-known Astrakhan firm "The Sapozhnikov Brothers" and not having his own family, he managed to provide prosperity in the house and even gave his younger brother Ilya an education.

ILYA NIKOLAEVICH ULYANOV GRADUATED FACULTY OF PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS OF KAZAN UNIVERSITY.
He was asked to stay at the department for "improvement in scientific work" - the famous mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky insisted on this

In 1850, Ilya Nikolayevich graduated from the Astrakhan gymnasium with a silver medal and entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Kazan University, where he completed his studies in 1854, receiving the title of Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the right to teach in secondary schools. And although he was asked to stay at the department for "improvement in scientific work" (the famous mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, by the way, insisted on this), Ilya Nikolayevich preferred a career as a teacher.

Monument to Lobachevsky in Kazan. Beginning of XX century. Provided by M. Zolotarev

The first place of his work - from May 7, 1855 - was the Noble Institute in Penza. In July 1860, Ivan Dmitrievich Veretennikov came here as an inspector of the institute. Ilya Nikolaevich became friends with him and his wife, and in the same year Anna Aleksandrovna Veretennikova (nee Blank) introduced him to her sister Maria Alexandrovna Blank, who came to visit her in the winter. Ilya Nikolaevich began to help Maria in preparing for the exam for the title of teacher, and she helped him in spoken English. The young people fell in love, and in the spring of 1863 they were engaged.

On July 15 of the same year, after successfully passing the external exams at the Samara Men's Gymnasium, "the daughter of the court counselor, the maiden Maria Blank" received the title of primary school teacher "with the right to teach the Law of God, the Russian language, arithmetic, German and French." And in August they already played a wedding, and “maiden Maria Blank” became the wife of court adviser Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov - this rank was also granted to him in July 1863.

"ON THE POSSIBILITY OF JEWISH ORIGIN"

The pedigree of the Blank family began to be studied by Lenin's sisters, Anna and Maria. Anna Ilyinichna said: “The elders could not find out for us. The surname seemed to us a French root, but there was no evidence of such an origin. For a long time, I personally began to think about the possibility of Jewish origin, which was prompted mainly by the mother’s message that my grandfather was born in Zhytomyr, a well-known Jewish center. Grandmother - mother's mother - was born in St. Petersburg and was a German by origin from Riga. But while mother and her sisters kept in touch with their mother’s relatives for quite a long time, her father’s relatives, A.D. Blanc, no one heard. He was like a cut off piece, which also led me to think about his Jewish origin. None of the grandfather's stories about his childhood or youth have been preserved in the memory of his daughters.

Anna Ilyinichna Ulyanova reported to Joseph Stalin in 1932 and 1934 about the results of the searches that confirmed her assumption. “The fact of our origin, which I assumed before,” she wrote, “was not known during his [Lenin's] life ... I don’t know what motives we Communists can have for hushing up this fact.”

“To be absolutely silent about him” was Stalin's categorical answer. Yes, and the second sister of Lenin, Maria Ilyinichna, also believed that this fact "let it be known sometime in a hundred years."

Lenin's great-grandfather Moshe Itskovich Blank- Born, apparently, in 1763. The first mention of it is contained in the revision of 1795, where among the townspeople of the city of Starokonstantinov, Volyn province, Moishka Blank is recorded at number 394. Where he came from in these places is unclear. However…

Panorama of Simbirsk from the side of the Moscow tract. 1866–1867. Provided by M. Zolotarev

Some time ago, a well-known bibliographer Maya Dvorkina introduced a curious fact into scientific circulation. Somewhere in the mid-1920s, an archivist Yulian Grigorievich Oksman, who, on the instructions of the director of the Lenin Library, Vladimir Ivanovich Nevsky, studied the genealogy of the leader of the world proletariat, discovered a petition from one of the Jewish communities of the Minsk province, allegedly dating back to the beginning of the 19th century, for the release of a certain boy from the tax, because he is "the illegitimate son of a major Minsk official", and therefore, they say, the community should not pay for it. The boy's last name was Blank.

According to Oksman, Nevsky took him to Lev Kamenev, and then the three of them came to Nikolai Bukharin. Showing the document, Kamenev muttered: "I always thought so." To which Bukharin replied: “What do you think, it doesn’t matter, but what are we going to do?” They took the word from Oksman that he would not tell anyone about the find. And since then no one has seen this document.

One way or another, Moshe Blank appeared in Starokonstantinov, already an adult, and in 1793 he married a local 29-year-old girl Maryam (Marem) Froimovich. From subsequent revisions, it follows that he read both Jewish and Russian, had his own house, was engaged in trade, and besides, he rented 5 morgues (about 3 hectares) of land from the town of Rogachevo, which were sown with chicory.

In 1794, his son Aba (Abel) was born, and in 1799, his son Srul (Israel). Probably, from the very beginning, Moshe Itskovich did not have a relationship with the local Jewish community. He was "a man who did not want or, perhaps, did not know how to find a common language with his fellow tribesmen." In other words, the community simply hated him. And after in 1808, from a fire, and possibly arson, Blank's house burned down, the family moved to Zhytomyr.

LETTER TO THE EMPEROR

Many years later, in September 1846, Moshe Blank wrote a letter to Emperor Nicholas I, from which it is clear that already "40 years ago" he "renounced the Jews", but because of his "excessively pious wife", who died in 1834 , converted to Christianity and received the name Dmitry only on January 1, 1835.

But the reason for the letter was something else: while maintaining hostility towards his fellow tribesmen, Dmitry (Moshe) Blank proposed - in order to assimilate the Jews - to prohibit them from wearing national clothes, and most importantly, to oblige them to pray in synagogues for the Russian emperor and the imperial family.

It is curious that in October of that year the letter was reported to Nicholas I and he fully agreed with the proposals of the "baptized Jew Blank", as a result of which in 1850 Jews were forbidden to wear national clothes, and in 1854 they introduced the corresponding text of the prayer. The researcher Mikhail Stein, who collected and carefully analyzed the most complete data on the Blank pedigree, rightly noted that due to hostility to his people, Moshe Itskovich “can be compared, perhaps, only with another baptized Jew - one of the founders and leaders of the Moscow Union of the Russian people V.A. . Gringmuth "...

Alexander Dmitrievich Blank (1799–1870). Provided by M. Zolotarev

The fact that Blank decided to break with the Jewish community long before his baptism was evidenced by something else. Both of his sons, Abel and Israel, like their father, also knew how to read Russian, and when a county (district) school was opened in Zhytomyr in 1816, they were enrolled there and successfully graduated from it. From the point of view of believing Jews, this was blasphemy. And yet, belonging to the Jewish faith doomed them to vegetate within the boundaries of the Pale of Settlement. And only the event that happened in the spring of 1820 dramatically changed the fate of young people ...

In April, a "high rank" arrived in Zhytomyr on a business trip - the ruler of the affairs of the so-called Jewish Committee, senator and poet Dmitry Osipovich Baranov. Somehow, Blanc managed to meet him, and he asked the senator to assist his sons in entering the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg. Baranov did not sympathize with the Jews at all, but the conversion of two "lost souls" to Christianity, which was quite rare at that time, in his opinion, was a good deed, and he agreed.

The brothers immediately went to the capital and filed a petition in the name of Metropolitan Mikhail of Novgorod, St. Petersburg, Estland and Finland. “Having now settled down to live in St. Petersburg,” they wrote, “and having the constant treatment of Christians who profess the Greco-Russian religion, we now wish to accept it.”

The petition was granted, and already on May 25, 1820, the priest of the Church of St. Sampson the Hospitable in St. Petersburg, Fyodor Barsov, "enlightened" both brothers with baptism. Abel became Dmitry Dmitrievich, and Israel became Alexander Dmitrievich. The youngest son of Moshe Blank received a new name in honor of his successor (godfather) Count Alexander Ivanovich Apraksin, and a patronymic in honor of Abel's successor Senator Dmitry Osipovich Baranov. And on July 31 of the same year, at the direction of the Minister of Education, Prince Alexander Nikolayevich Golitsyn, the brothers were identified as “pupils of the Medical and Surgical Academy”, which they graduated in 1824, having received the academic title of doctors of the 2nd department and a present in the form of a pocket set of surgical tools.

MARRIAGE OF THE HEADQUARTER

Dmitry Blank remained in the capital as a police doctor, and in August 1824 Alexander began his service in the city of Porechie, Smolensk province, as a county doctor. True, already in October 1825 he returned to St. Petersburg and was enrolled, like his brother, as a doctor in the city police staff. In 1828 he was promoted to the staff doctor. It's time to think about getting married...

His godfather, Count Alexander Apraksin, was at that time an official for special assignments at the Ministry of Finance. So Alexander Dmitrievich, despite his origin, could well count on a decent game. Apparently, at his other benefactor, Senator Dmitry Baranov, who was fond of poetry and chess, who visited Alexander Pushkin and almost all of “enlightened Petersburg” gathered, the younger Blank met the Groshopf brothers and was received in their house.

Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov (1831–1886) and Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova (1835–1916)

The head of this very respectable family Ivan Fedorovich (Johann Gottlieb) Groshopf was from the Baltic Germans, was a consultant of the State Justice College of Livonian, Estonian and Finnish affairs and rose to the rank of provincial secretary. His wife Anna Karlovna, nee Estedt, was a Swedish Lutheran. There were eight children in the family: three sons - Johann, who served in the Russian army, Karl, vice director in the foreign trade department of the Ministry of Finance, and Gustav, who was in charge of the Riga customs, and five daughters - Alexandra, Anna, Ekaterina (married von Essen) , Carolina (married Biuberg) and the younger Amalia. Having got acquainted with this family, the staff doctor made an offer to Anna Ivanovna.

MASHENKA BLANK

At first, Alexander Dmitrievich's affairs were going well. As a police doctor, he received 1,000 rubles a year. For "quickness and diligence" he was repeatedly awarded thanks.

But in June 1831, during the cholera riots in the capital, his brother Dmitry, who was on duty in the central cholera hospital, was brutally killed by a rebellious crowd. This death shocked Alexander Blanc so much that he quit the police and did not work for more than a year. Only in April 1833 did he again enter the service - as an intern at the City Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene for the poor from the river regions of St. Petersburg. By the way, it was here that Taras Shevchenko was treated by him in 1838. At the same time (from May 1833 to April 1837) Blank worked in the Naval Department. In 1837, after passing the exams, he was recognized as an inspector of the medical board, and in 1838 - a medical surgeon.

IN 1874, ILYA NIKOLAEVICH ULYANOV RECEIVED THE POSITION OF DIRECTOR OF THE PEOPLE'S SCHOOLS OF THE SIMBIRSK PROVINCE.
And in 1877 he was awarded the rank of real state councilor, equal in the table of ranks to the rank of general and giving the right to hereditary nobility

The private practice of Alexander Dmitrievich also expanded. Among his patients were representatives of the highest nobility. This allowed him to move to a decent apartment in the outbuilding of one of the luxurious mansions on the English Embankment, which belonged to the emperor's life physician and president of the Medical and Surgical Academy, Baronet Yakov Vasilievich Willie. Maria Blanc was born here in 1835. Mashenka's godfather was their neighbor, former adjutant of the Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, and since 1833 Ivan Dmitrievich Chertkov, the ringmaster of the Imperial Court.

In 1840, Anna Ivanovna fell seriously ill, died and was buried in St. Petersburg at the Smolensk Evangelical Cemetery. Then her sister Ekaterina von Essen, who was widowed in the same year, completely took care of the children. Alexander Dmitrievich, apparently, had sympathized with her before. It is no coincidence that he named his daughter, born in 1833, Catherine. After the death of Anna Ivanovna, they become even closer, and in April 1841 Blank decides to enter into a legal marriage with Ekaterina Ivanovna. However, such marriages - with the godmother of daughters and the sister of the late wife - were not allowed by law. And Catherine von Essen becomes his common-law wife.

In the same April, they all leave the capital and move to Perm, where Alexander Dmitrievich received the post of inspector of the Perm Medical Council and doctor of the Perm Gymnasium. Thanks to the latter circumstance, Blank met the Latin teacher Ivan Dmitrievich Veretennikov, who became the husband of his eldest daughter Anna in 1850, and the mathematics teacher Andrei Alexandrovich Zalezhsky, who married another daughter, Catherine.

Alexander Blank entered the history of Russian medicine as one of the pioneers of balneology - treatment with mineral waters. Having retired at the end of 1847 from the post of doctor of the Zlatoust arms factory, he left for the Kazan province, where in 1848 in the Laishevsky district the Kokushkino estate was bought with 462 acres (503.6 hectares) of land, a water mill and 39 serfs. On August 4, 1859, the Senate approved Alexander Dmitrievich Blank and his children in the hereditary nobility, and they were entered in the book of the Kazan noble assembly.

ULYANOV FAMILY

This is how Maria Alexandrovna Blank ended up in Kazan, and then in Penza, where she met Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov ...

Their wedding on August 25, 1863, like the weddings of the other Blanc sisters before, was played in Kokushkino. On September 22, the newlyweds left for Nizhny Novgorod, where Ilya Nikolayevich was appointed to the position of senior teacher of mathematics and physics at the male gymnasium. On August 14, 1864, daughter Anna was born. A year and a half later - on March 31, 1866 - son Alexander ... But soon - a sad loss: daughter Olga, who was born in 1868, did not live even a year, fell ill and died on July 18 in the same Kokushkino ...

On September 6, 1869, Ilya Nikolayevich was appointed inspector of public schools in the Simbirsk province. The family moved to Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk), which at that time was a quiet provincial town with a little over 40 thousand inhabitants, of which 57.5% were listed as petty bourgeois, 17% as military, 11% as peasants, 8.8% as nobles, 3.2% - merchants and honorary citizens, and 1.8% - people of the clergy, persons of other classes and foreigners. Accordingly, the city was divided into three parts: noble, commercial and petty-bourgeois. In the nobles' quarters there were kerosene lanterns and plank sidewalks, and in the petty-bourgeois quarters they kept all sorts of cattle in the yards, and this living creature, contrary to prohibitions, roamed the streets.
Here, on April 10 (22), 1870, the Ulyanovs' son Vladimir was born. On April 16, priest Vasily Umov and deacon Vladimir Znamensky baptized the newborn. The godfather was the head of the specific office in Simbirsk, the actual state councilor Arseniy Fedorovich Belokrysenko, and the godfather was the mother of a colleague Ilya Nikolaevich, collegiate assessor Natalia Ivanovna Aunovskaya.

Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov (sitting third from right) among the teachers of the Simbirsk men's classical gymnasium. 1874 Provided by M. Zolotarev

The family continued to grow. On November 4, 1871, the fourth child was born - daughter Olga. Son Nikolai died before he even lived a month, and on August 4, 1874, son Dmitry was born, on February 6, 1878, daughter Maria. Six children.
On July 11, 1874, Ilya Nikolayevich received the post of director of public schools in the Simbirsk province. And in December 1877, he was awarded the rank of real state councilor, equal in the table of ranks to the rank of general and giving the right to hereditary nobility.

The salary increase made it possible to realize an old dream. Having changed six rented apartments since 1870 and having accumulated the necessary funds, on August 2, 1878, the Ulyanovs finally bought their own house on Moskovskaya Street for 4 thousand silver - from the widow of the titular adviser Ekaterina Petrovna Molchanova. It was wooden, one floor from the facade and with mezzanines under the roof from the side of the courtyard. And behind the yard, overgrown with grass and chamomile, there is a beautiful garden with silvery poplars, thick elms, yellow acacia and lilac along the fence ...
Ilya Nikolaevich died in Simbirsk in January 1886, Maria Alexandrovna - in Petrograd in July 1916, outliving her husband by 30 years.

WHERE DID "LENIN" COME FROM?

The question of how and where in the spring of 1901 Vladimir Ulyanov got the pseudonym Nikolai Lenin has always aroused the interest of researchers, there were many versions. Among them are toponymic ones: both the Lena River (analogy: Plekhanov - Volgin) and the village of Lenin near Berlin appear. At the time of the formation of "Leninism" as a profession, "amorous" sources were looked for. This is how the assertion was born that the Kazan beauty Elena Lenina was allegedly to blame for everything, in another version - the chorus girl of the Mariinsky Theater Elena Zaretskaya, etc. But none of these versions could stand up to the slightest degree of serious scrutiny.

However, back in the 1950s and 1960s, the Central Party Archives received letters from relatives of a certain Nikolai Yegorovich Lenin, in which a fairly convincing everyday story was presented. The deputy head of the archive, Rostislav Aleksandrovich Lavrov, forwarded these letters to the Central Committee of the CPSU, and, naturally, they did not become the property of a wide circle of researchers.

Meanwhile, the Lenin family originates from the Cossack Posnik, who in the 17th century was awarded the nobility, the surname Lenin and an estate in the Vologda province for his services related to the conquest of Siberia and the creation of winter quarters on the Lena River. Numerous descendants of him distinguished themselves more than once both in military and civil service. One of them, Nikolai Yegorovich Lenin, fell ill and retired, having risen to the rank of State Councilor, in the 80s of the XIX century and settled in the Yaroslavl province.

Volodya Ulyanov with his sister Olga. Simbirsk. 1874 Provided by M. Zolotarev

His daughter Olga Nikolaevna, having graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of the Bestuzhev Courses in 1883, went to work at the Smolensk evening working school in St. Petersburg, where she met Nadezhda Krupskaya. And when there was a fear that the authorities might refuse to issue a foreign passport to Vladimir Ulyanov, and friends began to look for smuggling options for crossing the border, Krupskaya turned to Lenina for help. Olga Nikolaevna then conveyed this request to her brother, a prominent official of the Ministry of Agriculture, agronomist Sergei Nikolaevich Lenin. In addition, a similar request came to him, apparently, from his friend, the statistician Alexander Dmitrievich Tsyurupa, who in 1900 met the future leader of the proletariat.

Sergey Nikolayevich himself knew Vladimir Ilyich - from meetings in the Free Economic Society in 1895, as well as from his works. In turn, Ulyanov also knew Lenin: for example, he refers three times to his articles in the monograph The Development of Capitalism in Russia. After consulting, the brother and sister decided to give Ulyanov the passport of his father, Nikolai Yegorovich, who by that time was already quite ill (he died on April 6, 1902).

According to family tradition, in 1900 Sergei Nikolaevich went to Pskov on official business. There, on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, he received Sacca plows and other agricultural machines arriving in Russia from Germany. In one of the Pskov hotels, Lenin handed over his father's passport with a revised date of birth to Vladimir Ilyich, who then lived in Pskov. Probably, this is how the origin of Ulyanov's main pseudonym, N. Lenin, is explained.

Stein M.G. Ulyanovs and Lenins. Secrets of the pedigree and pseudonym. SPb., 1997
Loginov V.T. Vladimir Lenin: how to become a leader. M., 2011

Russian revolution

The figure of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin has attracted the close attention of historians and politicians around the world for almost a century. One of the most taboo topics in the “Leninian” in the USSR is the origin of Lenin, his genealogy. The same topic was subject to the greatest speculations on the part of the geopolitical opponents of the state, whose founder and “banner” was V.I. Lenin.

Secrets of Lenin's biography

How did the children of serfs become hereditary nobles, why did the Soviet authorities keep information about the maternal ancestors of the leader secret, and how did Vladimir Ulyanov turn into Nikolai Lenin in the early 1900s?
Ulyanov family. From left to right: standing - Olga, Alexander, Anna; sitting - Maria Alexandrovna with her youngest daughter Maria, Dmitry, Ilya Nikolaevich, Vladimir. Simbirsk. 1879 Provided by M. Zolotarev

Biographical chronicle of V.I. Lenin” begins with the entry: “April, 10 (22). Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) was born. Vladimir Ilyich's father, Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov, was at that time an inspector, and then the director of public schools in the Simbirsk province. He came from the poor townspeople of the city of Astrakhan. His father was previously a serf. Lenin's mother Maria Alexandrovna was the daughter of a doctor A.D. Blanca".

GRANDSON OF serfs

Meanwhile, Lenin's paternal grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were indeed serfs. Great-great-grandfather - Nikita Grigoryevich Ulyanin - was born in 1711. According to the revision tale of 1782, he and the family of his youngest son Feofan were recorded as a courtyard man of the landowner of the village of Androsov, Sergach district of the Nizhny Novgorod governorship, Marfa Semyonovna Myakinina.

According to the same revision, his eldest son Vasily Nikitich Ulyanin, born in 1733, with his wife Anna Semionovna and children Samoila, Porfiry and Nikolai lived there, but were listed as yard cornet Stepan Mikhailovich Brekhov. According to the revision of 1795, Lenin's grandfather Nikolai Vasilievich, 25 years old, single, lived with his mother and brothers all in the same village, but they were already listed as yard people of lieutenant Mikhail Stepanovich Brekhov.

Of course, he was listed, but he was no longer in the village ...

Based on some archival documents, the writer Marietta Shaginyan put forward a version according to which Anna Alekseevna is not Smirnov’s own daughter, but a baptized Kalmyk girl, rescued by him from slavery and allegedly adopted only in March 1825.

FATHER'S TEACHER'S CAREER

ILYA NIKOLAEVICH ULYANOV GRADUATED FACULTY OF PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS OF KAZAN UNIVERSITY.
HE WAS PROPOSED TO STAY AT THE DEPARTMENT FOR "IMPROVEMENT IN SCIENTIFIC WORK" - THE FAMOUS MATHEMATIST NIKOLAI IVANOVICH LOBACHEVSKY INSISTED ON THIS

Monument to Lobachevsky in Kazan. Beginning of XX century. Provided by M. Zolotarev

Panorama of Simbirsk from the side of the Moscow tract. 1866–1867. Provided by M. Zolotarev

Lenin's great-grandfather, Moshe Itskovich Blank, was apparently born in 1763. The first mention of it is contained in the revision of 1795, where among the townspeople of the city of Starokonstantinov, Volyn province, Moishka Blank is recorded at number 394. Where he came from in these places is unclear. However…
Some time ago, the famous bibliographer Maya Dvorkina introduced a curious fact into scientific circulation. Somewhere in the mid-1920s, the archivist Yulian Grigoryevich Oksman, who, on the instructions of the director of the Lenin Library, Vladimir Ivanovich Nevsky, was studying the genealogy of the leader of the world proletariat, discovered a petition from one of the Jewish communities of the Minsk province, allegedly dating back to the beginning of the 19th century, for the release of a certain boy from tax , because he is “the illegitimate son of a major Minsk official,” and therefore, they say, the community should not pay for him. The boy's last name was Blank.

According to Oksman, Nevsky took him to Lev Kamenev, and then the three of them came to Nikolai Bukharin. Showing the document, Kamenev muttered: "I always thought so." To which Bukharin replied: “What do you think, it doesn’t matter, but what are we going to do?” They took the word from Oksman that he would not tell anyone about the find. And since then no one has seen this document.

LETTER TO THE EMPEROR

But the reason for the letter was different: while maintaining hostility towards his fellow tribesmen, Dmitry (Moshe) Blank proposed - in order to assimilate the Jews - to prohibit them from wearing national clothes, and most importantly, to oblige them to pray in synagogues for the Russian emperor and the imperial family.

Alexander Dmitrievich Blank (1799–1870). Provided by M. Zolotarev

MARRIAGE OF THE HEADQUARTER

Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov (1831–1886) and Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova (1835–1916)

The head of this very respectable family, Ivan Fedorovich (Johann Gottlieb) Groshopf, was from the Baltic Germans, was a consultant of the State Justice College of Livonian, Estonian and Finnish Affairs and rose to the rank of provincial secretary. His wife Anna Karlovna, nee Estedt, was a Swedish Lutheran. There were eight children in the family: three sons - Johann, who served in the Russian army, Karl, vice director in the foreign trade department of the Ministry of Finance, and Gustav, who was in charge of the Riga customs, and five daughters - Alexandra, Anna, Ekaterina (married von Essen) , Carolina (married Biuberg) and the younger Amalia. Having got acquainted with this family, the staff doctor made an offer to Anna Ivanovna.

MASHENKA BLANK

At first, Alexander Dmitrievich's affairs were going well. As a police doctor, he received 1,000 rubles a year. For "quickness and diligence" he was repeatedly awarded thanks.

IN 1874, ILYA NIKOLAEVICH ULYANOV RECEIVED THE POSITION OF DIRECTOR OF THE PEOPLE'S SCHOOLS OF THE SIMBIRSK PROVINCE.
AND IN 1877, HE WAS AWARDED THE RANK OF ACTIVE STATE COUNSELOR, EQUAL IN THE TABLE OF RANKS TO THE GENERAL RANK AND GIVING THE RIGHT TO HEREDIC NOBILITY

ULYANOV FAMILY

This is how Maria Alexandrovna Blank ended up in Kazan, and then in Penza, where she met Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov ...

Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov (sitting third from right) among the teachers of the Simbirsk men's classical gymnasium. 1874 Provided by M. Zolotarev

WHERE DID "LENIN" COME FROM?

Volodya Ulyanov with his sister Olga. Simbirsk. 1874 Provided by M. Zolotarev

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) is one of the greatest figures in the history of Russia and the world revolutionary movement. Nobody disputes his significance for the entire course of world, and especially Russian history, however, Lenin's philosophical and political views and his activities still cause the most controversial, extreme assessments. In the public consciousness, two mythological images coexist: the Soviet one, representing an almost ideal person and statesman, and the post-perestroika one, drawn almost exclusively in black paint. Both of them are quite far from reality.

George Vernadsky (historian):“Lenin's activity can be considered from various points of view, various assessments of its results are possible. But one cannot deny the fact that his personality had a tremendous impact on the course of the political development of Russia and, indirectly, world history.

Francesco Misiano (Italian politician): “No one is praised and scolded as much as Lenin, no one is spoken of so much good and so much bad as about Lenin. With regard to Lenin, no middle ground is known, he is either the embodiment of all virtues, or of all vices. In the definition of some, he is absolutely kind, and in the definition of others, he is extremely cruel.

Lenin's views were based on Marxism. At the same time, he did not consider all Marxist provisions to be dogma, and treated this doctrine creatively, making changes in relation to Russian conditions. This was especially evident in the period between the February and October revolutions and during the introduction of the NEP, when many associates even accused him of departing from Marxism.

Lenin proclaimed the class character of any state. For the transition to a just socio-political system at the transitional stage, he considered it necessary to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, believing that the only alternative to it could be the dictatorship of the landlords and capitalists. He regarded the Bolshevik Party as the vanguard of the working class. Lenin also considered morality to be a class concept, and contrasted bourgeois morality with revolutionary morality. “People have always been and always will be stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics until they learn to look for the interests of certain classes behind any moral, religious, political, social phrases, statements, promises,” he believed.

The February bourgeois revolution of 1917 came as a surprise to Lenin. However, he quickly assessed the situation and decided to take the chance to prepare and carry out the socialist revolution. Returning to Russia in April 1917, he put forward the slogan: "No support for the Provisional Government, all power to the Soviets!". The popularity of the Provisional Government, torn by inter-party contradictions, continuing the First World War and postponing the solution of the most important issues of the state system, was steadily declining, while the Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies were gradually gaining strength. Taking advantage of this situation of dual power, the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, headed for an armed uprising, which they carried out practically without resistance on October 25, 1917. Lenin became the head of the Soviet state.

In order to win the peasantry over to the side of the Bolsheviks, Lenin, in the April Theses, adopted some points of the Socialist-Revolutionary program. This caused the rejection of a significant part of the party members - some even believed that he was thereby sacrificing the proletariat to the peasantry. When the Bolsheviks took power in October 1917, one of the first decrees was the "Decree on Land", according to which private ownership of land was abolished, and peasants were allocated land plots free of charge. For the first time after the revolution, this contributed to the broad support of the Bolsheviks by the peasant masses, who made up the majority of the population of Russia.

The policy of military communism that followed during the years of the Civil War, one of the components of which was the surplus appropriation, dictated by the need to prevent starvation in the cities, caused mass discontent and peasant uprisings. In 1921, the transition to the New Economic Policy (NEP) was announced, allowing some market elements and replacing the surplus appropriation with a much more benign tax in kind. Even though Lenin viewed the NEP as a temporary tactical retreat, this decision provoked opposition from a large part of the party.

Lenin declared the First World War imperialist and unjust for all its participants. In this regard, he put forward the slogan of turning the imperialist war into a civil one. According to him, the soldiers had to turn their weapons against their own bourgeois governments, arrange revolutions in their countries, and then conclude a just peace without annexations and indemnities. Propaganda of such views, in the long run, contributed to the disintegration of the army.

The first decree of the Soviet government was the Decree on Peace. But, as Lenin admitted, "the war cannot be ended at will by sticking a bayonet into the ground." For its real implementation, a peace treaty with Germany was required, which was signed in Brest on March 3, 1918. To break through this decision, Lenin had to go into a serious conflict with a number of associates. Disputes over the Brest peace have not subsided to this day: assessments vary from an act of betrayal to a brilliant political move. On the one hand, Russia made territorial concessions and lost the opportunity to become one of the victorious countries and share the benefits of victory with the Entente states. On the other hand, the collapse of the army by that time had already reached such a degree that it was almost impossible to convince the soldiers to continue the war. The peace of Brest-Litovsk made it possible to obtain a respite for the formation of a new, worker-peasant Red Army.

Nikolay Berdyaev (philosopher):“He [Lenin] stopped the chaotic disintegration of Russia, stopped it in a despotic, tyrannical way. There is a similarity with Peter in this.

Lenin is considered one of the organizers and inspirers of the Red Terror policy. At the same time, he urged his comrades-in-arms to act only within the framework of necessity. In conversations and correspondence, he often used expressions such as "shoot" or "hang", but often they remained purely declarative and did not have the character of specific instructions. As for the execution of the royal family, Lenin's participation in making a decision about it has not been proven.

Heinrich Mann (German writer):"In Lenin's life, loyalty to a great cause is inevitably combined with intransigence towards everyone who tries to interfere with this cause."

When by 1919 it became clear that the hopes for a speedy world revolution were not justified, Lenin, who, in contrast to other Marxists of that time, had earlier spoken about the possibility of the victory of the socialist revolution in a single country, recognized the possibility of coexistence side by side of socialist and capitalist x states. At the same time, he proposed to adhere to the tactics of "setting the imperialists against each other." The emphasis in foreign policy was planned to be shifted from the West to the East, "to group around itself the awakening peoples of the East" and to help them in the national liberation struggle.

The Bolsheviks declared the right of nations to self-determination. If almost all political forces resigned themselves to the upcoming secession of Finland after the February Revolution, few were ready to recognize the secession from the Russian Empire of its other parts. Meanwhile, independent republics were being formed on the outskirts of Russia. Lenin did a lot to ensure that Soviet power was established in these republics, and they became part of a new state formation - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as close as possible to the former borders of the Russian Empire. After the destruction of the bourgeois state, he energetically set about building the state of the socialist Fr.

Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich:"The Russian national interests were guarded by none other than the internationalist Lenin, who spared no effort in his speeches to protest against the division of the former Russian Empire."

During the Civil War and immediately after it, the country fell apart, it was torn apart by interventionists and nationalists, industry was largely destroyed, and, most importantly, during the First World War and the Civil War, huge human losses were suffered. It was necessary to build a new state, making decisions on the go. And here Lenin showed great political instinct and flexibility, sometimes taking actions that contradicted his previous views and statements and caused bewilderment among former comrades. Someone sees this as a manifestation of political unscrupulousness, and someone sees it as the ability to admit their own mistakes and correct them.

The indisputable merit of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party was the establishment of broad social rights and guarantees: the right to work and its normal conditions, free health care and education, equality of representatives of different sexes and nationalities.

Bertrand Russell (English scientist and philosopher):"Others could destroy, but I doubt if there would be even one person who could build so well anew."

Lenin's books and articles are distinguished by absolute confidence in his own rightness. He was irreconcilable to other people's views in matters of principle and, being an excellent polemicist, mercilessly ridiculed them. He fought dissent both within the party and in the new Soviet state. One of the manifestations of such a struggle was the expulsion of a large group of thinkers who disagreed with Marxism on the so-called "philosophical ship". However, for those harsh times, this decision can be called quite humane. Parting with the Motherland was a personal tragedy for everyone, but for many, this expulsion certainly saved their freedom and even life.

Lenin's harsh statements about the intelligentsia are known, which, for the most part, reacted to the Soviet government at least wary, if not outright hostile. However, despite the desire of the most radical Bolsheviks to abandon the old culture and art, Lenin opposed these trends. With his direct participation, the leading theaters and museums were preserved. Moreover, the project of monumental propaganda was designed to perpetuate and, thereby, propagate the work of outstanding figures of Russian and world culture, even those whose views were far from revolutionary. Leading artists, writers, musicians, scientists were provided with reinforced rations. Even during the years of the Civil War, new research organizations were created. At the same time, a grandiose plan for the electrification of the country, GOELRO, was being developed. But, at the same time, a significant part of the intelligentsia, which he often called the "near-Cadet public", was subjected to various repressions: deportations, arrests, and some ended up in the machine of the Red Terror.

Jack Lindsay (English writer):“For me, Lenin is first of all the greatest intellect of the century. His books, his works have completed the process of re-education of many millions of people on earth.

Lenin was an implacable materialist and atheist, therefore he considered the fight against religion one of the most important things in building a new state. Religion, in his opinion, “is one of the types of spiritual oppression that lies everywhere on the masses of the people ... Religion is the opium of the people, a kind of spiritual fuselage in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demands for a life worthy of a person.” In the fight against religion, Lenin urged supporters to act flexibly, as far as possible without offending the feelings of believers. The “Decree on Separation from the State and the School of the Church” was one of the first signed, back in early 1918. This document declared freedom of conscience and equality of all religions. Church lands and property were nationalized, but could be transferred to religious organizations for free use by decision of local authorities. This inevitably led to excesses, sometimes ending in bloody clashes. There were especially many of them during the campaign to seize church valuables to help the starving people of the Volga region in 1922. Lenin secretly called on his comrades-in-arms to use it to discredit the church.

Patriarch Tikhon:"I have information about him [Lenin] as a kind man, a truly Christian soul."

Maksim Gorky:"His [Lenin's] private life is such that in religious times they would have made a saint out of him."

Lenin's personal modesty and simplicity were noted by almost everyone who had the opportunity to communicate with him personally. This was recognized even by his enemies. He considered himself not a great man, but a representative of a great idea and, at the same time, an instrument for its implementation. That is why in him, as in the religious figures of the past, kindness and cruelty paradoxically coexisted. Having set the goal of creating a society of social justice, Lenin was ready to achieve its achievement in the most effective way at the moment. And, ultimately, the attitude towards the figure of Lenin largely depends on the attitude towards this goal and on what methods of its implementation are considered acceptable.

Winston Churchill (English politician):"Their [Russians'] greatest misfortune was his birth, but their next misfortune was his death."

Romain Rolland (French writer):“Never since the time of Napoleon the First has history known such a will of steel. Never since the heroic era have European religions known an apostle of such a granite faith. Never before has mankind created a ruler of thoughts, so absolutely disinterested.

Lenin (Ulyanov) Vladimir Ilyich, the greatest proletarian revolutionary and thinker, successor to the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, organizer of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, founder of the Soviet socialist state, teacher and leader of the working people of the whole world.

Lenin's grandfather, Nikolai Vasilyevich Ulyanov, a serf from the Nizhny Novgorod province, later lived in the city of Astrakhan, was a tailor-craftsman. Father - Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov, after graduating from Kazan University, taught in secondary schools in Penza and Nizhny Novgorod, and then was an inspector and director of public schools in the Simbirsk province. Lenin's mother, Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova (nee Blank), the daughter of a doctor, having received a home education, passed the exams for the title of teacher externally; devoted herself entirely to the upbringing of her children. The elder brother, Alexander Ilyich Ulyanov, was executed in 1887 for participating in the preparation of the assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander III. Sisters - Anna Ilyinichna Ulyanova-Elizarova, Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova and younger brother - Dmitry Ilyich Ulyanov became prominent figures in the Communist Party.

In 1879-87 L. (Lenin) studied at the Simbirsk Gymnasium. The spirit of protest against the tsarist system, social and national oppression, awakened early in him. Advanced Russian literature, the works of V. G. Belinsky, A. I. Herzen, N. A. Dobrolyubov, D. I. Pisarev, and especially N. G. Chernyshevsky contributed to the formation of his revolutionary views. From his older brother L. learned about Marxist literature. After graduating from high school with a gold medal, L. entered Kazan University, but in December 1887 he was arrested for active participation in a revolutionary gathering of students, expelled from the university, and exiled to the village of Kokushkino in the Kazan province. From that time on, L. devoted his entire life to the struggle against autocracy and capitalism, to the cause of the liberation of the working people from oppression and exploitation. In October 1888 L. returned to Kazan. Here he joined one of the Marxist circles organized by N. E. Fedoseev, in which the works of K. Marx, F. Engels, G. V. Plekhanov were studied and discussed. The works of Marx and Engels played a decisive role in shaping L.'s worldview—he became a staunch Marxist.

In 1891, L. passed the exams externally for the Faculty of Law at St. Petersburg University and began working as an assistant to a barrister in Samara, where the Ulyanov family moved in 1889. Here he organized a circle of Marxists, established contacts with the revolutionary youth of other cities of the Volga region, and delivered essays directed against populism. The first of the surviving works of L. belongs to the Samara period - the article "New Economic Movements in Peasant Life."

At the end of August 1893, L. moved to St. Petersburg, where he joined a Marxist circle, whose members were S. I. Radchenko, P. K. Zaporozhets, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, and others. . Unshakable faith in the victory of the working class, extensive knowledge, a deep understanding of Marxism and the ability to apply it to the resolution of vital issues that worried the masses, earned L. the respect of the St. Petersburg Marxists and made L. their recognized leader. He establishes contacts with advanced workers (I. V. Babushkin, V. A. Shelgunov, and others), leads workers' circles, and explains the need for a transition from circle propaganda of Marxism to revolutionary agitation among the broad proletarian masses.

L. was the first of the Russian Marxists to set the task of creating a party of the working class in Russia as an urgent practical task and led the struggle of the revolutionary Social Democrats for its implementation. L. believed that it should be a proletarian party of a new type, in terms of its principles, forms and methods of activity meeting the requirements of a new era - the era of imperialism and socialist revolution.

Having accepted the central idea of Marxism about the historical mission of the working class as the grave-digger of capitalism and the builder of communist society, L. devotes all the strength of his creative genius, all-encompassing erudition, colossal energy, and rare capacity for work to selfless service to the cause of the proletariat, becomes a professional revolutionary, and takes shape as the leader of the working class.

In 1894, L. wrote the work “What are “friends of the people” and how do they fight against the Social Democrats?” In late 1894 and early 1895, the work “The economic content of populism and criticism of it in the book of Mr. Struve (Reflection of Marxism in bourgeois literature )". Already these first major works of L. were distinguished by a creative approach to the theory and practice of the labor movement. In them, L. subjected the subjectivism of the Narodniks and the objectivism of the “legal Marxists” to devastating criticism, and showed a consistently Marxist approach to the analysis of Russian. In reality, he characterized the tasks of the proletariat of Russia, developed the idea of an alliance between the working class and the peasantry, substantiated the need to create a truly revolutionary party in Russia. In April 1895, L. went abroad to establish contact with the Emancipation of Labor group. In Switzerland he met Plekhanov, in Germany - with W. Liebknecht, in France - with P. Lafargue and other leaders of the international working-class movement. In September 1895, returning from abroad, L. visited Vilnius, Moscow and Orekhovo-Zuevo, where he established contacts with local Social Democrats. In the autumn of 1895, on the initiative and under the leadership of L., the Marxist circles of St. Petersburg united into a single organization—the St. Petersburg Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, which was the germ of a revolutionary proletarian party and, for the first time in Russia, began to unite scientific socialism with the mass working-class movement.

On the night of December 8 (20) to December 9 (21), 1895, L., together with his associates in the Union of Struggle, was arrested and imprisoned, from where he continued to lead the Union. In prison, L. wrote "Project and explanation of the program of the Social Democratic Party", a number of articles and leaflets, prepared materials for his book "The Development of Capitalism in Russia." In February 1897, L. was exiled for 3 years to the village. Shushenskoye, Minusinsk district, Yenisei province. For active revolutionary work, N. K. Krupskaya was also sentenced to exile. As the bride of L., she was also sent to Shushenskoye, where she became his wife. Here L. established and maintained contact with the Social Democrats of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh, and other cities, with the Emancipation of Labor group, corresponded with the Social Democrats who were in exile in the North and Siberia, rallied around him exiled social democrats of the Minusinsk district. In exile, L. wrote over 30 works, including the book "The Development of Capitalism in Russia" and the pamphlet "The Tasks of the Russian Social Democrats", which were of great importance for the development of the program, strategy and tactics of the party. In 1898, the First Congress of the RSDLP was held in Minsk, proclaiming the formation of a Social Democratic Party in Russia and publishing the Manifesto of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. With the main provisions of the "Manifesto" L. solidarized. However, the party has not actually been created yet. The congress, which took place without the participation of L. and other prominent Marxists, was unable to work out a program and party rules and overcome the disunity of the Social Democratic movement. L. developed a practical plan for the creation of a Marxist party in Russia; The most important means of achieving this goal was to become, as L. believed, an all-Russian illegal political newspaper. Fighting for the creation of a new type of proletarian party, irreconcilable to opportunism, L. opposed the revisionists in the international Social Democracy (E. Bernstein and others) and their supporters in Russia (the Economists). In 1899, he composed the "Protest of the Russian Social Democrats", directed against "Economism". The "Protest" was discussed and signed by 17 exiled Marxists.

After the end of his exile, L. on January 29 (February 10), 1900, left Shushenskoye. Following to a new place of residence, L. stopped in Ufa, Moscow, etc., illegally visited St. Petersburg, everywhere establishing ties with the Social Democrats. Having settled in Pskov in February 1900, L. did a great deal of work in organizing the newspaper, and in a number of cities he created strongholds for it. In July 1900, L. went abroad, where he set up the publication of the Iskra newspaper. L. was the direct head of the newspaper. Iskra played an exceptional role in the ideological and organizational preparation of the revolutionary proletarian party, in demarcation with the opportunists. It became the center of association of parties. forces, education desks. frames. Subsequently, L. noted that “the entire flower of the class-conscious proletariat took the side of the Iskra” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 26, p. 344).

From 1900 to 1905, L. lived in Munich, London, and Geneva. In December 1901, L. for the first time signed one of his articles published in Iskra with the pseudonym Lenin (he also had pseudonyms: V. Ilyin, V. Frey, Iv. Petrov, K. Tulin, Karpov, and others).

In the struggle to create a new type of party, Lenin's work What Is To Be Done? Painful questions of our movement” (1902). In it L. criticized Economism and shed light on the main problems of building the party, its ideology and politics. L. outlined the most important theoretical questions in the articles The Agrarian Program of Russian Social Democracy (1902) and The National Question in Our Program (1903). With the leading participation of L., the editors of Iskra developed a draft Party Program, which formulated the demand for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat for the socialist transformation of society, which is absent in the programs of Western European Social Democratic parties. L. wrote the draft Charter of the RSDLP, drew up a work plan and drafts of almost all the resolutions of the upcoming party congress. In 1903, the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP was held. At this congress, the process of unification of revolutionary Marxist organizations was completed and the party of the working class of Russia was formed on the ideological, political and organizational principles developed by L. A proletarian party of a new type, the Bolshevik Party, was created. “Bolshevism has existed as a current of political thought and as a political party since 1903,” L. wrote in 1920 (ibid., vol. 41, p. 6). After the congress, L. launched a struggle against Menshevism. In One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (1904), he exposed the anti-party activities of the Mensheviks and substantiated the organizational principles of a new type of proletarian party.

During the Revolution of 1905–07, L. directed the work of the Bolshevik Party in leading the masses. At the 3rd (1905), 4th (1906), 5th (1907) congresses of the RSDLP, in the book “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution” (1905) and numerous articles, L. developed and substantiated a strategic plan and the tactics of the Bolshevik Party in the revolution, criticized the opportunist line of the Mensheviks, on November 8 (21), 1905, L. arrived in St. Petersburg, where he directed the activities of the Central Committee and the St. Petersburg Committee of the Bolsheviks, and the preparation of an armed uprising. L. headed the work of the Bolshevik newspapers Vperyod, Proletary, and Novaya Zhizn. In the summer of 1906, due to police persecution, L. moved to Kuokkala (Finland), in December 1907 he was again forced to emigrate to Switzerland, and at the end of 1908 to France (Paris).

During the reaction years of 1908–10, Leningrad waged a struggle for the preservation of the illegal Bolshevik Party against the Menshevik Liquidators and Otzovists, against the splitting actions of the Trotskyists (see Trotskyism), and against conciliation to opportunism. He deeply analyzed the experience of the Revolution of 1905–07. At the same time, L. rebuffed the offensive of the reaction against the ideological foundations of the party. In his work Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (published in 1909), L. exposed the sophisticated methods of defending idealism by bourgeois philosophers, the attempts of the revisionists to distort the philosophy of Marxism, and developed dialectical materialism.

From the end of 1910, a new upsurge of the revolutionary movement began in Russia. In December 1910, on the initiative of L., the newspaper Zvezda began to be published in St. Petersburg; on April 22 (May 5), 1912, the first issue of the daily legal Bolshevik workers' newspaper Pravda was published. In order to train cadres of party workers, L. in 1911 organized a party school in Longjumeau (near Paris), in which he gave 29 lectures. In January 1912, the 6th (Prague) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP was held in Prague under the leadership of L., which expelled the Menshevik liquidators from the RSDLP and determined the tasks of the party in an atmosphere of revolutionary upsurge. In order to be closer to Russia, L. moved to Krakow in June 1912. From there, he directs the work of the bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP in Russia, the editorial office of the Pravda newspaper, and directs the activities of the Bolshevik faction of the 4th State Duma. In December 1912 in Krakow and in September 1913 in Poronin, under the leadership of L., meetings of the Central Committee of the RSDLP with party workers were held on the most important issues of the revolutionary movement. L. paid great attention to the development of the theory of the national question, the education of party members and the broad masses of working people in the spirit of proletarian internationalism. He wrote program works: "Critical Notes on the National Question" (1913), "On the Right of Nations to Self-Determination" (1914).

From October 1905 to 1912 L. was the representative of the RSDLP in the International Socialist Bureau of the 2nd International. Heading a Bolshevik delegation, he took an active part in the work of the Stuttgart (1907) and Copenhagen (1910) International Socialist Congresses. L. waged a resolute struggle against opportunism in the international working-class movement, rallying leftist revolutionary elements, and paid much attention to exposing militarism and developing the tactics of the Bolshevik Party in relation to imperialist wars.

During World War I (1914–18), the Bolshevik Party, led by L., raised high the banner of proletarian internationalism, exposed the social-chauvinism of the leaders of the Second International, and put forward the slogan of turning the imperialist war into a civil war. The war found L. in Poronin. On July 26 (August 8), 1914, on a false denunciation, L. was arrested by the Austrian authorities and imprisoned in Novy Targ. Thanks to the assistance of the Polish and Austrian Social Democrats, L. was released from prison on August 6 (19). On August 23 (September 5) he left for Switzerland (Bern); in February 1916 he moved to Zurich, where he lived until March (April) 1917. In the manifesto of the Central Committee of the RSDLP "War and Russian Social Democracy", in the works "On the National Pride of the Great Russians", "The Collapse of the Second International", "Socialism and War", “On the slogan of the United States of Europe”, “The military program of the proletarian revolution”, “The results of the discussion on self-determination”, “On the caricature of Marxism and “imperialist economism””, etc. L. developed further the most important provisions of Marxist theory, developed a strategy and the tactics of the Bolsheviks during the war. L.'s work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) provided a profound foundation for the Party's theory and policy on questions of war, peace, and revolution. During the war, L. worked a lot on questions of philosophy (see "Philosophical Notebooks"). Despite the difficulties of wartime, L. established a regular publication of the Central Organ of the party of the newspaper "Social Democrat", established links with the party organizations of Russia, directed their work. At international socialist conferences in Zimmerwald (August (September) 1915) and Kienthal (April 1916), L. defended revolutionary Marxist principles and fought against opportunism and centrism (Kautskyism). By rallying the revolutionary forces in the international working-class movement, L. laid the foundation for the formation of the Third, Communist International.

Having received in Zurich on March 2 (15), 1917, the first reliable news of the February bourgeois-democratic revolution that had begun in Russia, L. determined the new tasks of the proletariat and the Bolshevik Party. In Letters from Afar, he formulated the political course of the party for the transition from the first, democratic, stage to the second, socialist, stage of the revolution, warned against supporting the bourgeois Provisional Government, put forward the position on the need to transfer all power into the hands of the Soviets. On April 3 (16), 1917, L. returned from exile to Petrograd. Solemnly greeted by thousands of workers and soldiers, he made a short speech, ending it with the words: "Long live the socialist revolution!" On April 4 (17), at a meeting of the Bolsheviks, L. delivered a document that went down in history under the title of V. I. Lenin’s April Theses (“On the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution”). In these theses, in "Letters on tactics", in reports and speeches at the 7th (April) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP (b), L. developed a plan for the party's struggle for the transition from a bourgeois-democratic revolution to a socialist revolution, the tactics of the party in conditions of dual power - installation on the peaceful development of the revolution, put forward and justified the slogan "All power to the Soviets!". Under the leadership of L., the party launched political and organizational work among the masses of workers, peasants, and soldiers. L. directed the activities of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) and the central printed organ of the party - the newspaper Pravda, spoke at meetings and rallies. From April to July 1917, L. wrote over 170 articles, pamphlets, draft resolutions of the Bolshevik conferences and the Central Committee of the Party, appeals. At the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets (June 1917), L. delivered speeches on the question of the war, on the attitude towards the bourgeois Provisional Government, exposing its imperialist, anti-people policy and the conciliation of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. In July 1917, after the liquidation of dual power and the concentration of power in the hands of the counter-revolution, the peaceful period of the development of the revolution ended. On July 7 (20) the Provisional Government ordered the arrest of L. He was forced to go underground. Until August 8 (21), 1917, L. was hiding in a hut behind the lake. Spill, near Petrograd, then until the beginning of October - in Finland (Jalkala, Helsingfors, Vyborg). And in the underground, he continued to direct the activities of the party. In the theses "Political Situation" and in the pamphlet "To the Slogans" L. defined and substantiated the tactics of the party in the new conditions. Based on Lenin's guidelines, the 6th Congress of the RSDLP (b) (1917) decided on the need for the working class to take power in alliance with the poorest peasantry through an armed uprising. In the underground, L. wrote the book The State and Revolution, the pamphlet The Threatening Catastrophe and How to Fight It, and Will the Bolsheviks Retain State Power? and other works. On September 12-14 (25-27), 1917, L. wrote a letter to the Central, Petrograd and Moscow committees of the RSDLP (b) “The Bolsheviks must take power” and a letter to the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) “Marxism and the uprising”, and then on September 29 (12 October) article "Crisis is ripe". In them, on the basis of a deep analysis of the alignment and correlation of class forces in the country and in the international arena, L. concluded that the moment had come for a victorious socialist revolution, and developed a plan for an armed uprising. In early October, L. returned illegally from Vyborg to Petrograd. In the article “Advice from an outsider” on October 8 (21), he outlined the tactics of carrying out an armed uprising. October 10 (23) at a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) L. made a report on the current situation; at his suggestion, the Central Committee adopted a resolution on an armed uprising. On October 16 (29) at the expanded meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) L. in his report defended the course of the uprising, sharply criticized the position of the opponents of the uprising L. B. Kamenev and G. E. Zinoviev. L. Trotsky considered the position of postponing the uprising until the convocation of the Second Congress of Soviets to be extremely dangerous for the fate of the revolution. The meeting of the Central Committee confirmed Lenin's resolution on an armed uprising. During the preparation of the uprising, L. directed the activities of the Military Revolutionary Center, created by the Central Committee of the Party, and the Military Revolutionary Committee (VRC), formed at the suggestion of the Central Committee under the Petrograd Soviet. On October 24 (November 6), in a letter to the Central Committee, L. demanded to immediately go on the offensive, arrest the Provisional Government and take power, emphasizing that “delay in speaking out is like death” (ibid., vol. 34 p. 436).

On the evening of October 24 (November 6), L. illegally arrived at Smolny to directly lead the armed uprising. At the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which opened on October 25 (November 7), which proclaimed the transfer of all power in the center and localities into the hands of the Soviets, L. made presentations on peace and land. The congress adopted Lenin's decrees on peace and land and formed a workers' and peasants' government - the Council of People's Commissars, headed by L. The victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, won under the leadership of the Communist Party, opened a new era in the history of mankind - the era of transition from capitalism to socialism.

L. led the struggle of the Communist Party and the masses of Russia for the solution of the problems of the dictatorship of the proletariat, for the building of socialism. Under the leadership of L., the party and government created a new, Soviet state apparatus. The confiscation of landed estates was carried out and the nationalization of all land, banks, transport, large-scale industry, a monopoly of foreign trade was introduced. The Red Army was created. The national oppression has been destroyed. The party enlisted the broad masses of the people in the grandiose work of building the Soviet state and carrying out fundamental socio-economic transformations. In December 1917, L. in the article "How to organize a competition?" put forward the idea of socialist competition of the masses as an effective method of building socialism. At the beginning of January 1918, L. prepared the Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People, which became the basis of the first Soviet Constitution of 1918. Thanks to L.’s principles and perseverance, as a result of his struggle against the “Left Communists” and Trotskyists, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk 1918 was concluded with Germany, which gave The Soviet government needed a peaceful respite.

From March 11, 1918, L. lived and worked in Moscow, after the Central Committee of the Party and the Soviet government moved here from Petrograd.

In his work The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power, in his work On "Left" Childishness and Petty-Bourgeoisness (1918), and others, L. outlined a plan for laying the foundations of a socialist economy. In May 1918, on the initiative and with the participation of L., decrees on the food question were drafted and adopted. At L.'s suggestion, food detachments of workers were created and sent to the countryside to raise the poor (see Committees of the Poor Peasants) to fight against the kulaks, to fight for bread. The socialist measures of the Soviet government met with fierce resistance from the overthrown exploiting classes. They launched an armed struggle against Soviet power and resorted to terror. On August 30, 1918, L. was seriously wounded by a terrorist Social Revolutionary F. E. Kaplan.

During the years of the Civil War and the military intervention of 1918–20, L. was chairman of the Workers' and Peasants' Defense Council, which was set up on November 30, 1918, to mobilize all forces and resources to defeat the enemy. L. put forward the slogan "Everything for the front!" At his suggestion, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee declared the Soviet Republic a military camp. Under the leadership of L., the party and the Soviet government in a short time were able to rebuild the country's economy on a war footing, developed and put into practice a system of emergency measures, called "war communism." Lenin wrote the most important party documents, which were a combat program for mobilizing the forces of the party and the people to defeat the enemy: "Theses of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) in connection with the situation on the Eastern Front" (April 1919), letter of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) to all organizations of the party " Everyone to fight Denikin!” (July 1919) and others. L. directly supervised the development of plans for the most important strategic operations of the Red Army to defeat the White Guard armies and the troops of foreign interventionists.

At the same time, L. continued to conduct theoretical work. In the autumn of 1918 he wrote the book The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, in which he exposed Kautsky's opportunism and showed the radical opposition between bourgeois and proletarian democracy, Soviet democracy. L. pointed to the international significance of the strategy and tactics of the Russian Communists. “... Bolshevism,” L. wrote, “is suitable as a model of tactics for everyone” (ibid., vol. 37, p. 305). L. basically drafted the second Party Program, which determined the tasks of building socialism, adopted by the 8th Congress of the RCP (b) (March 1919). The focus of L. was then the question of the transition period from capitalism to socialism. In June 1919, he wrote the article "The Great Initiative", dedicated to communist subbotniks, in the fall - the article "Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat", in the spring of 1920 - the article "From the destruction of the age-old way of life to the creation of a new one." In these and many other works, L., generalizing the experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat, deepened the Marxist doctrine of the transitional period, shed light on the most important questions of communist construction in the conditions of the struggle between the two systems: socialism and capitalism. After the victorious end of the Civil War, L. led the struggle of the party and all the working people of the Soviet Republic for the restoration and further development of the economy, and directed cultural construction. In the Report of the Central Committee to the Ninth Congress of the Party, L. defined the tasks of economic development and emphasized the exceptional importance of a single economic plan, the basis of which should be the electrification of the country. Under the leadership of L., the GOELRO plan was developed - a plan for the electrification of Russia (for 10-15 years), the first long-term plan for the development of the national economy of the Soviet country, which L. called "the second program of the party" (see ibid., vol. 42, p. 157).

In late 1920 and early 1921, a discussion unfolded in the party about the role and tasks of the trade unions, in which questions were actually decided about the methods of approaching the masses, the role of the party, and the fate of the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism in Russia. L. spoke out against the erroneous platforms and factional activities of Trotsky, N. I. Bukharin, the “workers’ opposition,” and the group of “democratic centralism.” He pointed out that, being the school of communism in general, the trade unions should be for the working people, in particular, the school of economic management.

At the 10th Congress of the RCP(b) in 1921, L. summed up the results of the trade union discussion in the party and put forward the task of transitioning from the policy of "war communism" to the New Economic Policy (NEP). The congress approved the transition to the New Economic Policy, which ensured the strengthening of the alliance between the working class and the peasantry, the creation of the production base of a socialist society; adopted written L. resolution "On the unity of the party." In the pamphlet On the Food Tax (The Significance of the New Policy and Its Conditions) (1921) and the article On the Fourth Anniversary of the October Revolution (1921), L. revealed the essence of the New Economic Policy as the economic policy of the proletariat in the transitional period and outlined the ways of implementing it.

In his speech “The Tasks of Youth Unions” at the 3rd Congress of the RKSM (1920), in the outline and draft resolution “On Proletarian Culture” (1920), in the article “On the Significance of Militant Materialism” (1922), and in other works, L. the creation of a socialist culture, the tasks of the party's ideological work; L. showed great concern for the development of science.

L. identified ways to solve the national question. The problems of nation-building and socialist transformations in national regions are covered by L. in the report on the party program at the 8th Congress of the RCP (b), in the “Initial Outline of Theses on National and Colonial Questions” (1920) for the 2nd Congress of the Comintern, In his letter “On the Formation of the USSR” (1922) and others, L. developed the principles for uniting the Soviet republics into a single multinational state on the basis of voluntariness and equality—the Union of the SSR, which was created in December 1922.

The Soviet government, headed by L., consistently fought for the preservation of peace, for the prevention of a new world war, and sought to improve the economy and diplomatic relations with other countries. At the same time, the Soviet people supported the revolutionary and national liberation movements.

In March 1922, L. led the work of the 11th Congress of the RCP (b) - the last party congress at which he spoke. Hard work, the consequences of being wounded in 1918 undermined L.'s health. In May 1922, he fell seriously ill. In early October 1922, L. returned to work. His last public speech was November 20, 1922 at the plenum of the Moscow City Council. On December 16, 1922, L.'s health deteriorated sharply again. In late December 1922 and early 1923, L. dictated letters on internal party and state issues: “Letter to the Congress”, “On the Attribution of Legislative Functions to the State Planning Commission”, “On the Question of Nationalities or “Autonomization”” ”and a number of articles -“ Pages from a diary”, “On cooperation”, “On our revolution”, “How do we reorganize the Rabkrin (Proposal to the XII Party Congress)”, “Better less, but better”. These letters and articles are rightly called L.'s political testament. They were the final stage in L.'s development of a plan for building socialism in the USSR. In them, L. outlined in a generalized form the program for the socialist transformation of the country and the prospects for the world revolutionary process, and the fundamentals of the party's policy, strategy, and tactics. He substantiated the possibility of building a socialist society in the USSR, developed the propositions on the industrialization of the country, on the transition of the peasants to large-scale social production through cooperation (see V. I. Lenin’s Cooperative Plan), on the cultural revolution, emphasized the need to strengthen the alliance between the working class and the peasantry, friendship of the peoples of the USSR, improvement of the state apparatus, ensuring the leading role of the Communist Party, the unity of its ranks.

L. consistently pursued the principle of collective leadership. He put all the most important questions for discussion at regular party congresses and conferences, plenums of the Central Committee and the Politburo of the Central Committee of the party, All-Russian Congresses of Soviets, sessions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and meetings of the Council of People's Commissars. Such prominent figures of the party and the Soviet state as V. V. Borovsky, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, M. I. Kalinin, L. B. Krasin, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, V. V. Kuibyshev, A. V. Lunacharsky, G. K. Ordzhonikidze, G. I. Petrovsky, Ya. M. Sverdlov, I. V. Stalin, P. I. Stuchka, M. V. Frunze, G. V. Chicherin, S. G. Shaumyan and others.

L. was the leader not only of the Russian, but also of the international labor and communist movement. In letters to the working people of Western Europe, America, and Asia, L. explained the essence and international significance of the October Socialist Revolution and the most important tasks of the world revolutionary movement. On the initiative of L. in 1919, the 3rd, Communist International was created. Under the leadership of L. passed the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th congresses of the Comintern. He drafted many resolutions and congress documents. In the works of L., primarily in the work “Children's disease of “leftism” in communism” (1920), the program foundations, strategy and principles of tactics of the international communist movement were developed.

In May 1923 L. moved to Gorki due to illness. In January 1924, his health suddenly deteriorated sharply. January 21, 1924 at 6 o'clock. 50 min. L. died in the evening. On January 23, the coffin with the body of L. was transported to Moscow and installed in the Hall of Columns. For five days and nights, the people said goodbye to their leader. On January 27, the funeral took place on Red Square; the coffin with the embalmed body of L. was placed in a specially built Mausoleum (see Mausoleum of V. I. Lenin).

Never since Marx has the history of the liberation movement of the proletariat given the world a thinker and leader of the working class, of all working people, on such a gigantic scale as Lenin. The genius of a scientist, political wisdom and foresight were combined in him with the talent of the greatest organizer, with an iron will, courage and courage. L. boundlessly believed in the creative forces of the masses, was closely associated with them, enjoyed their boundless trust, love and support. All the activity of L. is the embodiment of the organic unity of revolutionary theory and revolutionary practice. Selfless devotion to communist ideals, the cause of the party, the working class, the greatest conviction in the rightness and justice of this cause, the subordination of his whole life to the struggle for the liberation of working people from social and national oppression, love for the motherland and consistent internationalism, implacability towards class enemies and touching attention to comrades , demanding of oneself and others, moral purity, simplicity and modesty are the characteristic features of Lenin - a leader and a man.

L. built the leadership of the party and the Soviet state on the basis of creative Marxism. He tirelessly fought against attempts to turn the teachings of Marx and Engels into a dead dogma.

“We do not at all look at Marx’s theory as something complete and inviolable,” wrote L., “we are convinced, on the contrary, that she laid only the cornerstones of the science that socialists must move forward in all directions if they do not want to lag behind life” (ibid., vol. 4, p. 184).

L. raised revolutionary theory to a new, higher level, enriched Marxism with scientific discoveries of world-historical significance.

“Leninism is the Marxism of the era of imperialism and proletarian revolutions, the era of the collapse of colonialism and the victory of national liberation movements, the era of the transition of mankind from capitalism to socialism and the building of a communist society” (“On the 100th anniversary of the birth of V. I. Lenin”, Theses Central Committee of the CPSU, 1970, p. 5).

L. developed all the constituent parts of Marxism—philosophy, political economy, and scientific communism (see Marxism-Leninism).

Generalizing from the standpoint of Marxist philosophy the achievements of science, especially physics, of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, L. further developed the doctrine of dialectical materialism. He deepened the concept of matter, defining it as an objective reality that exists outside of human consciousness, developed the fundamental problems of the theory of human reflection of objective reality and the theory of knowledge. L.'s great merit is the comprehensive development of materialist dialectics, in particular the law of unity and struggle of opposites.

“Lenin was the first thinker of the century who saw the beginning of a grandiose scientific revolution in the achievements of contemporary natural science, was able to reveal and philosophically generalize the revolutionary meaning of the fundamental discoveries of the great researchers of nature ... The idea he expressed about the inexhaustibility of matter became the principle of natural science knowledge” (ibid., p. . fourteen).

L. made a major contribution to Marxist sociology. He concretized, substantiated and developed the most important problems, categories and provisions of historical materialism about socio-economic formations, about the laws of the development of society, about the development of productive forces and production relations, about the relationship between the base and the superstructure, about classes and the class struggle, about the state, about the social revolution, the nation and national liberation movements, the relationship between objective and subjective factors in public life, public consciousness and the role of ideas in the development of society, the role of the masses and the individual in history.

L. significantly supplemented the Marxist analysis of capitalism by posing such problems as the formation and development of the capitalist mode of production, in particular in relatively backward countries with strong feudal remnants, agrarian relations under capitalism, as well as an analysis of bourgeois and bourgeois-democratic revolutions, the social structure of the capitalist society, the essence and forms of the bourgeois state, the historical mission and forms of the class struggle of the proletariat. Of great importance is the conclusion of L. that the strength of the proletariat in historical development is immeasurably greater than its share in the total mass of the population.

L. created the doctrine of imperialism as the highest and last stage in the development of capitalism. Having revealed the essence of imperialism as monopoly and state-monopoly capitalism, having characterized its main features, showing the extreme sharpening of all its contradictions, and the objective acceleration of the creation of the material and sociopolitical prerequisites for socialism, L. concluded that imperialism is the eve of the socialist revolution.

L. comprehensively developed the Marxist theory of socialist revolution in relation to the new historical epoch. He deeply developed the idea of the hegemony of the proletariat in the revolution, the need for an alliance between the working class and the working peasantry, he determined the attitude of the proletariat towards the various sections of the peasantry at different stages of the revolution; created the theory of the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution, shed light on the question of the relationship between the struggle for democracy and for socialism. Having revealed the mechanism of operation of the law of uneven development of capitalism in the era of imperialism, L. made the most important conclusion, which is of great theoretical and political significance, about the possibility and inevitability of the victory of socialism initially in a few or even in one single capitalist country; This conclusion of L., confirmed by the course of historical development, formed the basis for the development of important problems of the world revolutionary process, the building of socialism in countries where the proletarian revolution has triumphed. L. developed propositions about a revolutionary situation, about an armed uprising, about the possibility, under certain conditions, of the peaceful development of the revolution; substantiated the idea of the world revolution as a single process, as an epoch connecting the struggle of the proletariat and its allies for socialism with democratic, including national liberation, movements.

L. deeply developed the national question, pointing out the need to consider it from the standpoint of the class struggle of the proletariat, revealed the thesis about the two tendencies of capitalism in the national question, substantiated the position on the complete equality of nations, on the right of the oppressed, colonial and dependent peoples to self-determination and at the same time the principle internationalism of the labor movement and proletarian organizations, the idea of the joint struggle of the working people of all nationalities in the name of social and national liberation, the creation of a voluntary union of peoples.

L. revealed the essence and characterized the driving forces of the national liberation movements. He came up with the idea of organizing a united front of the revolutionary movement of the international proletariat and of national liberation movements against the common enemy—imperialism. He formulated a proposition on the possibility and conditions for the transition of backward countries to socialism, bypassing the capitalist stage of development. L. developed the principles of the national policy of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which ensures the flourishing of nations, nationalities, their close rallying and rapprochement.

L. defined the main content of the modern era as the transition of mankind from capitalism to socialism, characterized the driving forces and prospects for the world revolutionary process after the split of the world into two systems. The main contradiction of this era is the contradiction between socialism and capitalism. L. considered the socialist system and the international working class to be the leading force in the struggle against imperialism. L. foresaw the formation of a world system of socialist states, which would have a decisive influence on all world politics.

L. developed an integral theory of the transition period from capitalism to socialism, revealed its content and patterns. Generalizing the experience of the Paris Commune and the three Russian revolutions, L. developed and concretized the teachings of Marx and Engels on the dictatorship of the proletariat and comprehensively revealed the historical significance of the Republic of Soviets—a state of a new type, immeasurably more democratic than any bourgeois-parliamentary republic. The transition from capitalism to socialism, L. taught, cannot but give a variety of political forms, but the essence of all these forms will be the same - the dictatorship of the proletariat. He comprehensively developed the question of the functions and tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat, pointed out that the main thing in it is not violence, but the rallying of the non-proletarian strata of the working people around the working class, the building of socialism. The main condition for the implementation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, L. taught, is the leadership of the Communist Party. In the works of L. deeply illuminated the theoretical and practical problems of building socialism. The most important task after the victory of the revolution is the socialist transformation and planned development of the national economy, the achievement of higher labor productivity than under capitalism. Of decisive importance in building socialism are the creation of an appropriate material and technical base and the industrialization of the country. L. deeply worked out the question of the socialist reorganization of agriculture through the formation of state farms and the development of cooperation, the transition of the peasants to large-scale social production. L. put forward and substantiated the principle of democratic centralism as the basic principle of economic management in the conditions of building a socialist and communist society. He showed the need to preserve and use commodity-money relations, to implement the principle of material interest.

L. considered the implementation of a cultural revolution as one of the main conditions for building socialism: the rise of popular education, the introduction of the broadest masses to knowledge and cultural values, the development of science, literature, and art, the provision of a profound revolution in the consciousness, ideology, and spiritual life of the working people, and their re-education in the spirit of socialism. . L. emphasized the need to use the culture of the past, its progressive, democratic elements in the interests of building a socialist society. He considered it necessary to enlist the old, bourgeois specialists to participate in socialist construction. At the same time, L. put forward the task of training numerous cadres of the new, popular intelligentsia. In articles about L. Tolstoy, in the article “Party Organization and Party Literature” (1905), as well as in letters to M. Gorky, I. Armand, and others, L. substantiated the principle of party spirit in literature and art, considered their role in the class struggle of the proletariat , formulated the principle of party leadership in literature and art.

In the works of L. developed the principles of socialist foreign policy as an important factor in building a new society, the development of the world revolutionary process. This is the policy of a close state, economic and military alliance of the socialist republics, solidarity with the peoples fighting for social and national liberation, peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems, international cooperation, and resolute opposition to imperialist aggression.

L. developed the Marxist doctrine of the two phases of communist society, the transition from the first to the higher phase, the essence and ways of creating the material and technical basis of communism, the development of statehood, the formation of communist social relations, and the communist education of the working people.

L. created the doctrine of a new type of proletarian party as the highest form of the revolutionary organization of the proletariat, as the vanguard and leader of the working class in the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat, for the construction of socialism and communism. He developed the organizational foundations of the party, the international principle of its construction, the norms of party life, pointed out the need for democratic centralism in the party, unity and conscious iron discipline, the development of inner-party democracy, the activity of party members and the collective leadership, intransigence towards opportunism, and close ties between the party and the masses.

L. was firmly convinced of the inevitability of the victory of socialism throughout the world. He considered the indispensable conditions for this victory: the unity of the revolutionary forces of our time - the world system of socialism, the international working class, the national liberation movement; the correct strategy and tactics of the communist parties; resolute struggle against reformism, revisionism, right and left opportunism, nationalism; solidarity and unity of the international communist movement on the basis of Marxism and the principles of proletarian internationalism.

Theoretical and political activity of L. marked the beginning of a new, Leninist stage in the development of Marxism, in the international working-class movement. The name of Lenin and Leninism are associated with the greatest revolutionary accomplishments of the 20th century, which radically changed the social face of the world and marked the turn of mankind towards socialism and communism. The revolutionary transformation of society in the Soviet Union on the basis of Lenin's brilliant plans and plans, the victory of socialism and the building of a developed socialist society in the USSR are the triumph of Leninism. Marxism-Leninism, as the great and united international doctrine of the proletariat, is the property of all communist parties, all revolutionary workers of the world, all working people. All the fundamental social problems of our time can be correctly assessed and solved on the basis of the ideological heritage of L., guided by a reliable compass—the ever-living and creative Marxist-Leninist teaching. The Appeal of the International Conference of Communist and Workers' Parties (Moscow, 1969) "On the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" states:

“The entire experience of world socialism, the workers' and national liberation movement, has confirmed the international significance of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine. The victory of the socialist revolution in a group of countries, the emergence of the world system of socialism, the conquest of the working-class movement in capital countries, the entry into the arena of independent socio-political activity of the peoples of the former colonies and semi-colonies, the unprecedented upsurge in the anti-imperialist struggle—all this proves the historical correctness of Leninism, which expresses the fundamental needs of the modern era. "(" International Conference of Communist and Workers' Parties. Documents and Materials, M., 1969, p. 332).

The CPSU attaches great importance to the study, preservation, and publication of L.'s literary heritage, as well as documents related to his life and work. In 1923, the Central Committee of the RCP(b) created the V. I. Lenin Institute, which was entrusted with these functions. In 1932, as a result of the merger of the Institute of K. Marx and F. Engels with the Institute of V. I. Lenin, a single Institute of Marx-Engels-Lenin was formed under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (now the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU). More than 30,000 Lenin's documents are stored in the Central Party Archive of this institute. Five editions of Lenin's works have been published in the USSR (see the Works of V. I. Lenin), and "Lenin Collections" are being published. Thematic collections of works by L. and his individual works are printed in millions of copies. Much attention is paid to the publication of memoirs and biographical works about L., as well as literature on various problems of Leninism.

The Soviet people sacredly honor the memory of Lenin. The All-Union Communist Youth Union and the Pioneer Organization in the USSR bear Lenin's name, and many cities, including Leningrad, the city where Leningrad proclaimed the power of the Soviets; Ulyanovsk, where L. spent his childhood and youth. In all cities, the central or most beautiful streets are named after L. Factories and collective farms, ships and mountain peaks bear his name. In honor of L. in 1930, the highest award in the USSR, the Order of Lenin, was established; the Lenin Prizes were established for outstanding services in the field of science and technology (1925), in the field of literature and art (1956); International Lenin Prizes "For strengthening peace among peoples" (1949). A unique memorial and historical monument is the Central Archive of V. I. Lenin and its branches in many cities of the USSR. There are also museums of V. I. Lenin in other socialist countries, in Finland and France.

In April 1970, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the entire Soviet people, the international communist movement, the working masses, the progressive forces of all countries solemnly celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of V. I. Lenin. The celebration of this significant date resulted in the greatest demonstration of the vitality of Leninism. Lenin's ideas arm and inspire communists and all working people in the struggle for the complete triumph of communism.

Compositions:

Collected works, vols. 1-20, M. - L., 1920-1926;
Soch., 2nd ed., vols. 1-30, Moscow-Leningrad, 1925-1932;
Soch., 3rd ed., vols. 1-30, Moscow-Leningrad, 1925-1932;
Soch., 4th ed., vols. 1-45, Moscow, 1941-67;
Complete collection of works, 5th ed., vols. 1-55, M., 1958-65;
Lenin collections, book. 1-37, M. - L., 1924-70.

Literature:

To the 100th anniversary of the birth of V. I. Lenin. Abstracts of the Central Committee of the CPSU, M., 1970;
To the 100th anniversary of the birth of V. I. Lenin, Collection of documents and materials, M., 1970.
V. I. Lenin. Biography, 5th ed., M., 1972;
V. I. Lenin. Biographical chronicle, 1870-1924, vol. 1-3, M., 1970-72;
Memories of V. I. Lenin, vol. 1-5, M., 1968-1969;
Krupskaya N. K., About Lenin. Sat. Art. and speeches. 2nd ed., M., 1965;
Leninian, Library of V. I. Lenin's works and literature about him 1956-1967, in 3 volumes, vols. 1-2, M., 1971-72;
Lenin is still more alive than all the living. Advisory index of memoirs and biographical literature about V. I. Lenin, M., 1968;
Memories of V. I. Lenin. Annotated index of books and journal articles 1954-1961, M., 1963;
Lenin. Historical and biographical atlas, M., 1970;
Lenin. Collection of photographs and film frames, vols. 1-2, Moscow, 1970-72.

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