The Sick Leader: De Facto Removal from Power

Abstract

Lenin’s health began to fail in 1921. In August 1921, he wrote to M. Gorky, “I am so tired that I am incapable of the slightest work.”¹ Undoubtedly, the political and personal failures of the past year (the defeat in Poland, the failure of War Communism, and the death of his former lover Inessa Armand²), as well as Lenin’s efforts to solve the regime’s economic, political, cultural, and other problems single-handedly, contributed to his health crisis.