De-Leninization
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De-Leninization (Ukrainian: Ленінопад, romanized: Leninopad, lit. 'Leninfall') is political reform aimed at refuting Leninist and Marxist–Leninist ideology, ending the personality cult of Vladimir Lenin, removing images and toppling statues of Lenin, renaming places and buildings, dismantling the Lenin Mausoleum currently in Red Square, Moscow, and burying his mummified corpse.
De-Stalinization began in the former Soviet Union in the mid-1950s during the Khrushchev thaw following the latter's secret speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences". But this was framed as a return to orthodox Leninism and thus the cult of Lenin remained[1] until the dissolution of the USSR, when public challenges to the cult and its ideology and iconography began.
In post-Communist Russia
A referendum on reversing the renaming of Leningrad was held on 12 June 1991, with 54.86% of voters (with a turnout of 65%) supporting "Saint Petersburg". Renaming the city Petrograd was not an option. This change officially took effect on 6 September 1991.[2] Meanwhile, the oblast whose administrative center is also in Saint Petersburg is still named Leningrad.
In 1992, Lenin's likeness disappeared from the currency as Russia's bank system transitioned to the Russian Ruble.
There was some reform in education, and Lenin's name began to disappear from books, articles, and dissertations.
Former Soviet colonel general turned historian Dmitri Volkogonov gained access to the State Archive of the Russian Federation and wrote critical biographies of both Stalin and Lenin. He had previously been a head of the Soviet military's psychological warfare department.
But there was only partial and intermittent removal of his statues and likenesses in Russia. As historian Yury Pivovarov notes, “All these metamorphoses predominantly took place in publishing, on TV and the radio… the dismantling of Lenin happened only verbally and almost didn’t materialize in any other way.”[3]
Russia's first president Boris Yeltsin tried and failed to establish the new regime on a basis of Anti-communism. Russian president Vladimir Putin made peace with the Communists when he came to power in 2000, but after his 2012 election began denouncing the Bolsheviks for their treachery in "betraying the country's national interests" to Germany in World War I.[4] In 2016, he critiqued Lenin's concept of a federative state divided along ethnic lines, each with a right of secession. Various public figures also denounced Lenin for executing the czar and his family and for killing priests.[5] A 2017 survey showed that 56% of Russia's population had a favorable opinion of Lenin, with the majority of support coming from the older generation that lived in the USSR.[6]
In 2012, the state-sponsored Russia Today media network reported that Liberal-Democratic party (LDPR) deputy Aleksandr Kurdyumov proposed the removal of monuments to museums, citing high maintenance costs due to the prevalence of vandalism, and saying that Lenin's dominance was "unfair” to other outstanding personalities – such as Peter the Great, Alexander Suvorov, Ivan the Terrible and others. The lawmaker proposed regional referendums to decide the question.
Lenin's Mausoleum controversy
Many have proposed burying Lenin's corpse and dismantling the Lenin Mausoleum, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and hierophants of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 2017, legislation was proposed by six lawmakers, including 3 from Putin's United Russia Party and three from the LDPR, but was opposed by the Russian Communist Party. The embalming and Mausoleum had been opposed from its outset by Leon Trotsky, Bukharin, Kamenev, by Lenin's widow Nadezhda Krupskaya, and reportedly by Lenin himself before his premature death.[7]
In Ukraine and other post-Soviet states
After the dissolution of the USSR other post-Soviet states also began removing many of their Lenin monuments, although some have remained. In 1991, Ukraine had 5,500 Lenin monuments,[8] and until November 2015, approximately 1,300 Lenin monuments were still standing.[8] More than 700 Lenin monuments were removed or destroyed between February 2014 and December 2015,[8] On 9 April 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed legislation on de-communization,[9] which provided for their removal, signed into law on 15 May 2015.
See also
- Decommunization
- Anti-communism
- Demolition of the Vladimir Lenin monument in Kyiv
- Muzeon Park of Arts
- Good Bye, Lenin!
- David Shub exiled social democrat revolutionary who wrote an early critical biography of Lenin.
- Leon Trotsky Bolshevik revolutionary, exponent of anti-Leninist Trotskyism
References
- ^ Volkogonov 1994.
- ^ Orttung, Robert W. (1995). "Chronology of Major Events". From Leningrad to Saint Petersburg. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 273–277. ISBN 978-0-312-12080-1.
- ^ Sinelschikova, Yekaterina (25 December 2021). "What Russia felt IMMEDIATELY after the USSR's breakup". Russia Beyond. Retrieved 9 May 2022.
- ^ "Putin Disses Lenin". The New Yorker. 3 September 2014. Retrieved 18 August 2022.
- ^ "Vladimir Putin accuses Lenin of placing a 'time bomb' under Russia". the Guardian. Associated Press. 25 January 2016. Retrieved 18 August 2022.
- ^ "Lenin's approval rating surges, 100 years after the Bolshevik Revolution". Newsweek. 19 April 2017. Retrieved 19 August 2022.
- ^ "A century after the Russian Revolution, why is Lenin's body still on display in Red Square?". Newsweek. 5 November 2017. Retrieved 19 August 2022.
- ^ a b c "Out of Sight: Decommunisation as a Way to Decolonise the Visual Space of Ukrainian Cities". The Ukrainian Week. 28 December 2015. Archived from the original on 29 January 2016.
- ^ Hyde, Lily (20 April 2015). "Ukraine to rewrite Soviet history with controversial 'decommunisation' laws". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 16 May 2015. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
Books
- Shub, David (1966). Lenin: A Biography (revised ed.). London: Pelican.
- Lenin, Vladimir (1948). "Appendix: Essentials of Leninism". Lenin: A Biography. By Shub, David (revised ed.). New York: Mentor Books.
- Sebestyen, Victor (2017). Lenin: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror. Pantheon Books. ISBN 9781101871638.
- Volkogonov, Dmitri (1994). Lenin: A New Biography. Translated by Shukman, Harold. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-255123-6.
- Velikanova, Olga V. (2001). "The Public Perception of the Cult of Lenin Based on Archival Materials". UNT Digital Library (in Russian). Retrieved 14 April 2022.
- Shub, Anatole (1989). "De-Leninization" Or "post-Leninism"?: New Soviet Thinking on the Past and Future. U.S. Information Agency, Office of Research.
Articles and Reviews
- Clines, Francis X. (22 January 1992). "Moscow Journal; Temple to Lenin Opens Its Doors to Freethinkers". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
- Sinelschikova, Yekaterina (25 December 2021). "What Russia felt IMMEDIATELY after the USSR's breakup". Russia Beyond. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
- "The Next Line of Hills: The Challenge of Peace Revisited | George Weigel". First Things. Retrieved 14 April 2022.