Abstract
In the early years of glasnost, the subject of Lenin and his years in power after the Bolshevik Revolution remained a most sensitive issue which hardly received any public discussion until the end of 1987.1 Although Gorbachev had condemned both Stalin personally and various aspects of the Stalinist system, Lenin’s theory and practice were still regarded as the essence of true socialism, subsequently distorted by Stalin; and Lenin as a human being was held up as a model to emulate. Gorbachev was fully aware that a Soviet Communist leadership professing Marxism-Leninism would lose all legitimacy if faith in Lenin and the October Revolution were undermined. In his book Perestroika (1987) Gorbachev presented his own philosophy as a return to true Leninism.2
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Notes and References
R. W. Davies, Soviet History in the Gorbachev Revolution (London, 1989 ), pp. 115–25.
M. Gorbachev, Perestroika. New Thinking for Our Country and the World (London, 1987 ), p. 26.
A. Gel’man, Kommunist, no. 9 (1988), pp. 17–18.
D. Joraysky, ‘Glasnost Theater’, New York Review of Books (10 November 1988 ), p. 36.
For contrasting interpretations of the relationship between Inessa and Lenin, see B. Wolfe, ‘Lenin and Inessa Armand’, Slavic Review, vol. 22 (1963), pp. 96–114;
A. Ulam, Lenin and the Bolsheviks (NY, 1968), pp. 284–5.
R. Marsh, Images of Dictatorship (London, 1989), p. 100.
L. A. Gordon, Ogonek, no. 12 (1988), p. 4;
M. Stepanchenko, KP (24 February 1988 ).
D. Urnov, LG (17 January 1988 ).
V. Selyunin, ‘Istoki’, NM, no. 5 (1988), pp. 163–70;
for further discussion, see A. Nove, Glasnost’ in Action (London, 1989), pp. 21–2.
A. Burganov, DN, no. 6 (1988), pp. 148–9;
G. Popov, SK (21 July 1988 ).
M. Dewhirst, ‘The Second Rehabilitation of Alexander Solzhenitsyn?’, Soviet Analyst, no. 23 (1988), p. 7;
D. Smith, ‘Reappraisal of Solzhenitsyn in the USSR’, RL Report on the USSR, vol. 1, no. 36 (1989), p. 7. For Solzhenitsyn’s polite refusal on the grounds that he lived outside the USSR. see RM (6 September 1988 ), p. 1.
J. Dunlop, ‘Solzhenitsyn Begins to Emerge from the Political Void’, RL Report on the USSR, vol. 1, no. 36 (1989), p. 1.
R. Sakwa, Gorbachev and his Reforms (London, 1990), p. 101;
J. Scherrer. Sakwa, Gorbachev and his Reforms (London, 1990), p. 101;
J. Scherrer, ‘History Reclaimed’, in A. Brumberg (ed.), Chronicle of a Revolution (NY, 1990), pp. 90–107. Anatolii Sobchak later called for Lenin’s reburial, but his view of the family’s wishes was challenged: Pravda (24 September 1991 ), p. 4.
N. Ivanova, ‘Proiti cherez otchayanie’, Yunost, no. 2 (1990), p. 90.
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V. Soloukhin, ‘Chitaya Lenina’, Rodina, no. 10 (1989).
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G. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov and V. Loginov, Kommunist, no. 14 (1989); reply to critics in ibid., no. 5 (1990);
R. Medvedev, Let History Judge, 2nd edn (London, 1989 ).
The defence of Lenin is sympathetically discussed in R. W. Davies, ‘History and Perestroika’, in E. A. Rees (ed.), The Soviet Communist Party in Disarray (London, 1991), p. 123: R. Service, Lenin: a Political Life, 2nd edn (London, 1991 ), p. 81.
For further discussion, see A. Lawton, Kinoglasnost (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 72–3.
G. Melikhyants, Izvestiya (31 August 1992), p. 1 relates that Solzhenitsyn liked Govorukhin’s film.
A. Latynina, Krushenie ideokratii: of “Odnogo dnya Ivana Denisovicha” k Arkhipelagu GULAG-, LO, no. 4 (1990), p. 7–8.
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A. Solzhenitsyn, Avgust chetyrnadtsatogo, Zvezda, nos 1–12 (1990); Oktyabr’ shestnadtsatogo, NS, nos 1–12 (1990); Mart semnadtsatogo, Neva, nos 1–12 (1990); Aprel’ semnadtsatogo was announced for publication in NM in 1992, but failed to appear because of the journal’s difficulties with paper and funding.
Charles Trueheart, ‘The Perimeter of the Prodigious Solzhenitsyn’, International Herald Tribune (30 November 1987), p. 14;
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N. Struve, ‘Solzhenitsyn o Lenine’,VRKhD, no. 116 (1975);
M. Friedberg,‘ Solzhenitsyn’s and other literary Lenins’, Canadian Slavonic Papers, no. 2 (1977), pp. 12–37;
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V. Medvedev and A. Belyaev, ‘Leninizm i perestroika’, Pravda (8 February 1990 ), p. 3.
See, in particular, V. Loginov, ‘Lenin bez legend’, Rabochaya tribuna (14 April 1990 ), pp. 1–2;
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M. Zlotonosov, ‘Otdykhayushchii fontan. Malen’kaya monografiya o postsotsialistichekom realizme’, Oktyabr’, no. 4 (1991), p. 174.
P. Palamarchuk, ‘Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: putevoditel’, Moskva, no. 10 (1990), pp. 184–20; citing Solzhenitsyn, Sob. soch. (Vermont and Paris, 1978-), vol. X, p. 522.
A. Latynina, ‘Solzhenitsyn i my’, NM, no. 1 (1990), pp. 241–58.
D. Hearst, ‘On the revolution’s anniversary, Russia pickles cabbages’, Guardian (9 November 1992 ), p. 7;
D. Volkogonov, Lenin: Politicheskii portret v dvukh knigakh, vol. 1 (M., 1994 ).
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© 1995 Rosalind Marsh
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Marsh, R. (1995). Lenin and Leninism. In: History and Literature in Contemporary Russia. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377790_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377790_9
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