Tag: Lenin

Most Russians Can’t or Won’t Rate Lenin but Overwhelmingly Oppose Taking Down Monuments to Him

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Lenin Mausoleum on Red Square, Kremlin Walls

(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton – Feb. 17, 2021) In most other former Soviet republics, people favor taking down statues of Lenin or renaming any place or street bearing his name – Ukraine, for example, has completed these tasks (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/01/last-lenin-statue-in-ukraine-falls.html). But a new Public Opinion Poll suggests Russians have a very different view. It found that while […]

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On Revolution Centenary, Perplexed Russians Ask, ‘Who Am I To Judge?’

History, Soviet Union, Human Rights, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Revolutionaries Marching in Moscow in 1917, adapted from image at state.gov

(Article ©2017 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – Tom Balmforth, Robert Coalson – ST. PETERSBURG/MOSCOW – Nov. 5, 2017 – also appeared at rferl.org/a/anniversary-bolshevik-revolution-100-lenin-assessment/28836011.html) The small museum in St. Petersburg located in the apartment where Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin lived in the months before the October 1917 Bolshevik coup was inexplicably closed one recent weekday afternoon. A small, […]

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NEWSLINK: “‘We are nothing, let us be all.’ The century of revolution. The first communist revolution had almost as many consequences for the rest of the world as it did for Russia itself. Its demise has brought about another type of universalism: capitalist globalisation.” – Le Monde Diplomatique/ Serge Halimi

History, Soviet Union, Newslinks, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Revolutionaries Marching in Moscow in 1917, adapted from image at state.gov

“… The ‘end of communism’ seemed to settle the great debate that opposed the main currents of the international left after the Russian Revolution, the defeat of one of the protagonists entailing the victory of the other, social democracy’s revenge on its boisterous sibling. That triumph was short-lived. The centenary of the storming of the Winter Palace is coinciding with […]

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The Ghosts Of Kremlins Past — Lenin

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Aerial View of Kremlin and Environs

(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore- October 10, 2016) Vladimir Vladimirovich is afraid of Vladimir Ilyich. Vladimir Putin is terrified of Vladimir Lenin. He’s afraid of how Lenin came to power. He’s afraid of how he led a street uprising that toppled an empire. And he’s afraid that a 21st-century Lenin could be lurking in the shadows. This isn’t about […]

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In the Flesh: Russian Scientists Work to Preserve Lenin’s Corpse

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Lenin Mausoleum on Red Square, Kremlin Walls

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Daria Litvinova – May 5, 2016) He lies in a glass sarcophagus. His eyes are closed, reddish beard and mustache trimmed, and his hands rest calmly on his thighs. Dressed in an austere black suit, Vladimir Lenin, the first Soviet leader, looks, on first impressions, to be sleeping. His image is so lifelike that it […]

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Interfax: Positive attitude to Lenin in Russia tops 50% – poll

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin

(Interfax – April 20, 2016) The share of Russian citizens who positively assess the historical role of Vladimir Lenin has grown from 40 percent to 53 percent in the past ten years, the Levada Center told Interfax. The opinion was mostly voiced by pensioners (67 percent), Russians older than 55 (66 percent), people with primary education (59 percent), people with […]

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Interfax: Putin entitled to personal opinion about Lenin – spokesman

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Dmitry Peskov file photo adapted from image at kremlin.ru/wikimedia commons

(Interfax – January 21, 2016) The Russian president’s press secretary Dmitriy Peskov has said Putin is entitled to have a personal opinion about Russian Revolution leader Vladimir Lenin, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 21 January. Peskov was commenting on a statement made by President Putin, who compared Lenin to a nuclear bomb which had destroyed historical Russia. “The […]

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What do today’s Russians think about Lenin?

History, Soviet Union
File Photo of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin

The leader of the revolution has turned into an ordinary historical figure for younger Russians. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – MARINA OBRAZKOVA, RBTH – January 21, 2016) Today’s generation of Russians have rather mixed feelings when it comes to the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution. The issue of burying Lenin’s body, which is still kept in a mausoleum […]

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Putin on Lenin: Planted atomic bomb under building called Russia

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin

(Interfax – January 21, 2016) Vladimir Putin has criticized the ideas and actions of the leader of the Russian revolution, Vladimir Lenin, which he thinks led to the ruin of historical Russia. He was responding to the head of the Kurchatov Institute, Mikhail Kovalchuk, who at a meeting of the presidential council for science and education quoted Boris Pasternak’s poem […]

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NEWSLINK Wall Street Journal: Ukraine Tries Adapting to Life Without Lenin. New law bans Soviet street names, statues and other reminders of communist past, as some question priorities

History, Soviet Union, Newslinks, Ukraine, Russo-Ukrainian War
Maidan Square in Kiev, Ukraine

In a country where at least 4,000 localities had a main thoroughfare named after Lenin, outlawing remnants of the Soviet era like street names and statues was bound to cause problems.

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Red Square Exhibit Sheds New Light on Soviet Cult of Lenin

History, Soviet Union
File Photo of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Kevin O’Flynn – October 28, 2014) [Photos here themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/leniniana-returns-to-red-square-to-dispel-myth-of-beloved-leader/510079.html] Everyone knew what was in the redbrick 19th-century building by Red Square in Soviet times. It was the Lenin Museum, the home – together with the nearby mausoleum – of the Lenin cult, to which a visit was a rite of passage for Soviet children, sculpting […]

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Down with Lenin!

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin

As they are toppled one after another in cities across the country, statues of Lenin are becoming an endangered species in Ukraine. But Lenin the political symbol is still alive and kicking. (opendemocracy.net – LEONID RAGOZIN – October 13, 2014) Inside a granite pyramid on Red Square, in front of the Kremlin wall, lies the mummy of a short bald […]

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Business New Europe: Lenin again! Lenin statue to be re-erected after toppling in Kharkiv

History, Soviet Union, Ukraine, Russo-Ukrainian War
File Photo of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin

(Business New Europe – October 2, 2014) Kharkiv authorities have said they will re-erect the central square statue of Vladimir Lenin that was toppled by pro-Ukraine activists. Kharkiv deputy head Ihor Terekhov said that “understanding the illegality of the monument’s toppling, the city authorities have ordered scaffolding to be put in place around the pedestal and in the immediate future […]

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Another Lenin Down, but How Many More Remain?

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin

(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, September 29, 2014) The demolition of the statue of Lenin in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv has attracted international attention, with some seeing this as a provocation by one or another side in the war in Ukraine and others viewing it as an indication of the maturation of the Ukrainian revolution and […]

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Transfer of Lenin’s body will improve situation in Russia – Human rights ombudsman

History, Soviet Union
Lenin Mausoleum on Red Square, Kremlin Walls, Sentry

(Interfax – January 21, 2014) Russian human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin said a decision on the transfer of the body of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin from the mausoleum and the elimination of the necropolis on the Red Square may be made in the nearest future. “The Red Square is not a place for a cemetery. A decision on this matter […]

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Russian Church advises Lenin advocates think about burying him

History, Soviet Union, Religion
File Photo of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin

Moscow, October 29, Interfax – The body of Vladimir Lenin, the mastermind of the Great October Socialist Revolution, which lies still in the Mausoleum on the Red Square, should sooner or later be buried, the Synodal Department for External Church Relations’ head Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said. “Debates on this issue will certainly continue. Probably, some harsh movements may cause rejections […]

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Brezhnev Beats Lenin as Russia’s Favorite 20th Century Ruler

History, Soviet Union
File Photo of Richard Nixon sitting with Leonid Brezhnev, with Third Person Standing and Leaning between Them

(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, May 22, 2013) ­ Russians view Leonid Brezhnev as the most positive of all Soviet and Russian leaders in the 20th century, but Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin were close behind in an opinion poll released on Wednesday. Brezhnev, who ruled the Soviet Union from 1964-1982, was viewed positively by 56 percent of respondents in the […]

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Attitude of Russians to Lenin becomes more moderate – poll

History, Soviet Union
File Photo of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin

(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 21, 2013) Russians have become more reserved in their attitudes to Vladimir Lenin and they do not support the idea of returning the name of Leningrad to St. Petersburg, according to a poll taken ahead of the birth anniversary of the Russian revolutionary (April 22). Sociologists from Levada Center told Interfax that almost every third Russian […]

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Lenin fans: a tribute of flowers; Lenin’s acolytes may be morbid, but they also have community

History, Soviet Union
Lenin Mausoleum on Red Square, Kremlin Walls, Sentry

(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – January 21, 2013) Anna Arutunyan is the politics editor of The Moscow News Let’s call her Valentina Petrovna. Standing with her bundle of red carnations, she looked at me, a little indignant, and said, “I’m here to lay flowers at Lenin’s monument, of course. The Mausoleum is closed.” For the 89 years […]

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Moscow to keep Lenin Mausoleum for now – Kremlin official

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Lenin Mausoleum and Red Square Environs

(Interfax – January 1, 2013) The Mausoleum containing Vladimir Lenin’s embalmed body is staying on Moscow’s Red Square for the time being, Interfax news agency quoted Kremlin property management chief Vladimir Kozhin as saying in a 1 January report. “No specific decisions have been taken with respect to the Lenin Mausoleum yet. I am unaware of plans to change anything, […]

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Companies Refuse to Make Lenin And Stalin Banners For Russian Communists

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin

MOSCOW. Nov 3 (Interfax) – Advertising agencies have been refusing to make or publish banners for Russian Communists with pictures of Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin and with Bolshevik slogans for the upcoming 95th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, a Communist leader complained. “Three banners have become the stumbling block – those with pictures of Lenin, Stalin and the cruiser […]

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