Lenin in Literature

Article by Vladimir Shcherbina, Soviet Literary Critic, that appeared in USSR Magazine, April, 1948.

Soviet writers find in great Lenin a never-failing source of inspiration.

In his famous speech on Lenin at the Memorial Meeting of the Kremlin Military School on January 28, 1924, Joseph Stalin drew a vivid picture of him as man and statesman. The force of his expression and the comprehensive characterization of Lenin shown in his remarks have served as an example to many Soviet journalists and artists.

Maxim Gorky inscribed the initial pages on Lenin in Soviet literary prose in his Reminiscences of Vladimir Lenin . He begins with the London Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, where he first saw and heard Lenin, and says that this was also the first time he had ever heard anyone speak so simply of the most complex questions of politics, for Lenin did not attempt to invent beautiful phrases, but served up each word as plainly as on the palm of the hand, disclosing its exact meaning with astonishing ease.

The striking clarity which was typical of Lenin’s speech conveyed the rare strength of his ideas. Noble and at the same time practical ideals were presented in his words. “The finely sculptured figure of truth arose with an amazing simplicity from these words,” Gorky says in summing up his impressions.

His reminiscences give a many-faceted view of the people’s leader and statesman, a man of great personal charm.

The last chapters of the reminiscences speak of the inspiring power of his leadership, thanks to which the honor of becoming the first socialist state fell to the lot of a once backward country, Russia.

Alexei Tolstoy’s story Bread cotains an .expressive portrait of Lenin, shown in relief against the background of historic events. The writer emphasizes Lenin’s amazing ability to discern at the most difficult moments the new positive possibilities born of these difficulties, which might be taken as weapons for the struggle and victory.

In a most talented and monumental novel, the trilogy The Road to Calvary by the same author, the scene where Lenin addresses a workers’ meeting is drawn with power. Tolstoy shows the impregnability of Lenin’s principles, at the basis of which lie truth, experience and the hopes of the people.

Lenin, the people’s leader, listened attentively to them and valued their wisdom highly. This trait is emphasized in Vsevolod Ivanov’s novel Parkhomenko and in Constantine Treniev’s play On Neva’ s Banks.

Lenin appears in many Soviet prose works including drama; in Leonid Leonov’s Skutarevsky , in Nikolai Ostrovsky’s novel How I Be Steel was Tempered, in Nikolai Pogodin’s The Man with the Gun . in Alexander Korneichuk’s Truth and others.

A great deal of poetry has been written about Lenin by poets of different nationalities in the USSR. Vladimir Mayakovsky, one of the talented poets of Soviet times, dedicated his best works to him. When news of Lenin's death came in January 2024, Mayakovsky suffered, as the whole population did, the irreparable loss it brought to the working people of the world. The poem he wrote under the immediate impressions of Lenin’s death and funeral reflected with unusual power the people’s sorrow, their devotion to Lenin’s noble ideas.

The poet passes from scenes of the expression of national grief at the beginning of the poem, to facts of Lenin’s biography. He does not speak so much of the leader’s personal life, as of that great work which lifted millions of working people in the struggle for socialism.

In the last part of the poem, the poet returns once more to the scene of the funeral; these pages are memorable for their emotional quality. Mayakovsky showed us that Lenin lives in the conscious thoughts of millions who carry out the ideas of their teacher.

Conversation with Comrade Lenin is a Mayakovsky piece of wonderful lyrical penetration. After the day’s work is done, the poet stands before the portrait of Lenin and talks to him of the unceasing, heroic labor of those who are continuing his work.

“Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live!” is the refrain heard in another of Mayakovsky’s poems, Leninists . The theme of the deathlessness of Lenin’s work is one that appeals greatly to Soviet poets. In Nikolai Tikhonov’s fine verses, Those Days, written on the fifteenth anniversary of Lenin’s death, he speaks forcefully of the creative powers of his teaching, of the victory of his cause under the guidance of Joseph Stalin.

The same subject is chosen by the poets Alexander Prokofieff in Three Generations , Margarita Aliger in Our Lenin, Nairi Zaryan in Lenin, Samed Vurgun in The Word and A Woman Deputy, Suleiman Stalsky in Daghestan.

Widely known are the Russian folk-song The Road, and the Ukrainian song Falcons, which express love for the great leaders of the Soviet people. The names of Lenin and Stalin are inseparably linked in our literary work.

Jamboul, the bard of Kazakhstan, describes in one of his songs a visit to Lenin’s mausoleum. His grey head bowed, he whispered softly : “Lenin, thou livest, thou art at the full height of thy powers. We see thy traits in Stalin. In Stalin hast thou revived.”

The Lenin theme sounded particularly strong in wartime, when the Soviet people went out to fight under the great banner of Lenin and Stalin. The Little House at Shushenskoye, a poem by Stepan Shchipachev, takes a broad view' of events, though it speaks of only one episode in his life. The time is the end of the past century. The place–a peasant’s cottage in the village. Here in this distant Yenissei territory, Lenin spent three years of his banishment to Siberia.

The Little House at Shushenskoye is not merely an account of biographical facts; the past evokes an echo in the present. From the quietude of the house at Shushenskoye the poet takes the reader, at the end of the poem, to the din of battle in the Patriotic War. “May the victorious banner of great Lenin shield you!” Joseph Stalin says from the platform of the Lenin mausoleum as he speeds the troops going to battle.

Lenin is presented to us in Soviet literature as a great creator of human happiness, who gave embodiment to the age-old hopes of the mass of the people. That is why books about him are at the same time the narrative of the people’s progress to victory and happiness