Masha Lipman: Moving Lenin's body won't cut Russia's ties to its Soviet past
[Masha Lipman, editor of the Carnegie Moscow Center's Pro et Contra journal, writes a monthly column for The Post.]
It was audacious to suggest two decades ago that Vladimir Lenin's body be moved from its mausoleum in Red Square. But by the time Vladimir Medinsky, a member of the chief pro-Kremlin force in the lower house of parliament, made the same suggestion last month, the proposal had become politically meaningless. Regardless of whether Lenin's body is moved, Russia remains tied to its Soviet past and practices.
Lenin presided over one of the most ambitious sociopolitical transformations in history. To build a new society based on proletarian internationalism, he created a Bolshevik state; launched the gulag; and evicted or exterminated Russian nobility, property owners, clerics and other "old world" classes. After his death in 1924, his body was displayed in a downtown mausoleum where generations paid homage to the communist idol.
For decades worship of Lenin remained the pillar of Soviet ideology, but by the centennial of Lenin's birth, in 1970, the Soviet people were losing their faith. The anniversary was celebrated as a state event, but in private citizens were making jokes about the great leader. Officially, however, the cult was maintained; it was only at the height of Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika that the tide of disclosures about the communist dictatorship finally washed away Lenin. Still, it was a political bombshell when it was suggested in the legislature in 1989 that Lenin's body be removed from the mausoleum. Communist hard-liners' fierce opposition prevented this...
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It was audacious to suggest two decades ago that Vladimir Lenin's body be moved from its mausoleum in Red Square. But by the time Vladimir Medinsky, a member of the chief pro-Kremlin force in the lower house of parliament, made the same suggestion last month, the proposal had become politically meaningless. Regardless of whether Lenin's body is moved, Russia remains tied to its Soviet past and practices.
Lenin presided over one of the most ambitious sociopolitical transformations in history. To build a new society based on proletarian internationalism, he created a Bolshevik state; launched the gulag; and evicted or exterminated Russian nobility, property owners, clerics and other "old world" classes. After his death in 1924, his body was displayed in a downtown mausoleum where generations paid homage to the communist idol.
For decades worship of Lenin remained the pillar of Soviet ideology, but by the centennial of Lenin's birth, in 1970, the Soviet people were losing their faith. The anniversary was celebrated as a state event, but in private citizens were making jokes about the great leader. Officially, however, the cult was maintained; it was only at the height of Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika that the tide of disclosures about the communist dictatorship finally washed away Lenin. Still, it was a political bombshell when it was suggested in the legislature in 1989 that Lenin's body be removed from the mausoleum. Communist hard-liners' fierce opposition prevented this...