Vladlen Loginov - Vladimir Lenin. Choosing a path: Biography. History does not tolerate inclination Loginov Lenin rise and death

Are you here: Hand protection

Finally, I am starting to publish an interview with Lenin scholar Vladlen Loginov, which was conducted by telephone in mid-April of this year. The conversation turned out to be extensive, so it was decided to post it in parts.

The interview is accompanied by comments, which, in my opinion, are necessary, because... I would like it to be more or less accessible to those who are not entirely aware of the topics that were touched upon.

When my colleague agreed on the conversation, he mentioned that we were from Tatarstan, so from the very beginning Vladlen Terentyevich decided that they were calling him from Kazan. Therefore, the conversation began with the mention of this city.

If possible, I tried to do as little editing as possible to avoid semantic distortions.

The interview is available for copying, but with the possible preservation of comments to it and categorically without any corrections to Loginov’s words.

Special thanks to Sergei Kochnev for organizing the telephone conversation and transcribing the soundtrack.

Vladlen Terentyevich Loginov (born 1929) is a professor at the Department of Russian and World History at the University of the Russian Academy of Education, biographer of V.I. Lenin. Author of the books “Vladimir Lenin. Choosing a Path: Biography" (2005), "Unknown Lenin" (2010), took part in work on the Complete Works of Lenin, the collection "V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents. 1891-1922" (1999), published hundreds of articles on the history of the October Revolution, the Civil War and about Lenin. He is also a co-author of a number of plays and film scripts, and was a scientific consultant for the films “The Sixth of July” (1968), “Strokes to the Portrait of V.I. Lenin” (1967-69), etc.

Part one. "Lenin is not a figure on a county scale"

I am, of course, surprised that you are calling from Kazan - I had a rather negative experience communicating with Kazan. In the biography of Lenin there was a special chapter about Kazan, I immediately sent the book to the Lenin Museum in Kazan, but there was no answer or greeting from there, as if they were scared out of their wits. Then some time passed, and in Novaya Gazeta Zhenya Yevtushenko wrote an article with reference to Kazan archives - and there, in particular, it was written how Lenin drank with prostitutes in Kazan brothels, etc. 1 In response, playwright Mikhail Shatrov 2 and I sent a letter to Shaimiev 3 with the question: “Are there such documents or not?” I know that there are no such documents, but also - no answer, no hello. And suddenly you have a frenzied interest! Well, ask questions!

We are calling not from Kazan, but from Naberezhnye Chelny. And there really are problems with Kazan, because, being interested in Lenin as an amateur, I made requests to the Kazan archives a couple of times, but there was also silence in response.

And we will start with what goals, in your opinion, are pursued by the authors and creators of television programs and articles about Lenin that have an anti-Leninist direction?

The problem of attitude towards Lenin is so politicized that it has not the slightest relation to real history. The point is not that someone knows something and someone doesn’t know something, that some documents exist and some documents don’t - this is a purely political problem. I understand the situation with Stalin: some time will pass, and our government will find some kind of Modus Vivendi 4 - in the sense that it will use him as a statist, but you can’t do this with Lenin, since Lenin is a symbol of some kind of struggle , to put it primitively, the poor against the rich, a symbol of the struggle for justice, as it has developed in the consciousness of the whole world. We must not forget that Lenin is not a figure on a county scale and it is not the attitude of some of our authors that determines the attitude towards him in the world. On the contrary, when people come from the same States, they ask: “Are you all crazy?” You see, you can’t write Lenin anywhere, and this is where the “order” comes from, and it’s absolutely monstrous, stupid, but quite at the level of the intellectual squalor that is characteristic of our television and other media. Therefore, everything is absolutely transparent and understandable.

One example of such intellectual squalor, for example, is a journalistic documentary called “Ulyanov-Lenin,” which some Olga Absalyamova concocted some time ago. This lady goes so far as to outright lie, for example, voicing footage of Bolsheviks being executed by interventionists with a quote from Lenin about terror.

Those who know documentaries well often laugh when they see that for documentary work they take frames from black-and-white feature films or from documentaries and use them completely inappropriately and in a different way from how they were used. It used to seem to me that people have a means in their heads that allows them to distinguish black from white, etc., but, in general, I see that twenty years of propaganda have done their job. For example, when I teach first-year students at the university, people sit in front of me with such cockroaches in their heads! Of course, in the 3rd or 4th year, the guys already want to understand what really happened and what is happening in modern television tapes and on movie screens.

Last year in Kirov, in the attic of one of the houses, orders and circulars of the district commissariat for military affairs of the Ural Military District from January 2, 1918 to December 30, 1919 were allegedly discovered. Some of these documents were signed directly by Lenin and Trotsky. Now the papers are allegedly kept in the Leningrad Museum of Rare Things. What do you know about these documents and can such finds significantly expand knowledge about Lenin?

I don’t know what exactly was found, and this is the first time I’ve heard about this discovery. I'm still waiting for those documents that were evacuated at the end of 1918 to be found in the Urals. I receive some letters, but not from Kirov.

-Can any new documents change our understanding of Lenin?

No, they cannot, because the main body of documents exists and it has been published. And what is not published is just all sorts of marginalia, notes, comments, signatures. And in addition to the complete works of Lenin, we also made one additional volume - initially they wanted to make it the next volume of collected works, but the publishing house got scared, and we called this volume “New Documents of Lenin” 5. And all those documents that were distorted or were not published, I mean substantial documents, in the complete works, were in this volume.

Therefore, I am waiting for documents from 1918, because there are a number of details that are important to me as a historian - the protocols of the Central Committee for 1918, but the absence of these protocols is indirectly compensated.

- It turns out, in any case, these will be some kind of little things that can complement the overall picture?

But it’s always interesting, because new details, new characters, etc. appear. But in principle, you know, when Volkogonov 6 read Lenin’s letter-telegram to Penza 7 and wrote an article that it was this document that turned his idea of Lenin upside down and the “Lenin fortress” collapsed. I told him when we met that it was in vain that you didn’t read the complete collected works, where there is the same telegram, but only, it seems, to the Yeletsk executive committee 8, it was published and there is no secret here. Bosch's detailed memoirs 9 were also published, where she detailed the contents of the telegrams.

The fortress collapsed due to ignorance - this is why many fortresses collapse! Nowadays, the category of people with one book is common: let’s say a person read a lot, but somehow he read one book, and everything collapsed for him. This comes from ignorance.

- This is exactly why I want to approach the works of Akim Arutyunov 10. I think you've read them.

To be honest, I don’t want to talk about him, especially since we knew Margarita Fofanova 11 quite well and participated in discussions with her on the same side of the barricades. I write about this in the second book of Lenin’s biography. But I don’t know the historian Arutyunov!

But Arutyunov claims that he knew her very well! Is this really true or is it a lie? After all, this is the starting point for many people’s thoughts: look, Arutyunov knew Fofanova herself, which means he is writing the pure truth!

I can only say one thing: both Margarita Vasilievna and Lidiya Aleksandrovna Fotieva 12 were people who could only tell something to very close people.

You know, people call me very often and ask: “Why don’t you answer this and that?” I answer: “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life arguing with the yellow press!” I’d rather have time to write the third volume of Lenin’s biography than argue with Pupkin or Pepkin! I will say again that I don’t know such a historian, Akim Arutyunov - I remember that at the Institute of History and Archives there was a graduate student Arutyunov, but his name was Kim - at the beginning of three letters meaning the Communist Youth International, but I don’t know his biography further.

- When can we expect the third part of Lenin’s biography?

You know, I write books for a long time - it takes me about 4-5 years. And although I've been doing this all my life, I've been writing for a long time. My first volume was published in 2005, the second in 2010, which means the next one will be in 2014-2015. But I publish pieces in advance in magazines and newspapers, and last time I was very lucky, because newspapers and magazines published a lot of pieces from the second book, and Pravda actually published the entire book.

The third volume will talk about the years 1922-1924, Lenin’s illness, will and death.

- I’ll be honest: your books are very difficult to get, and I often order them through online stores.

As the publishers argue, the book sells out in Moscow, and oh well! And in St. Petersburg there are no my books - my friends from there call and ask: “Come out!” It’s a good thing – “Out!”, but do you know how much it costs to send a thick book? You'll go crazy! That’s why I say: “If you come to Moscow, I’ll give you pleasure!”

By the way, the second edition of the first and second volumes of the biography will be released soon - they are selling out quickly!

There are other considerations: don't forget that there is a press committee. When I wrote the first volume of Lenin's biography, one very high publishing house took it from me. And then a year later they openly told me that if you want the book to come out, take it slowly. I went to another publishing house, and there also seemed to be no doubts, but here too they are transferring, transferring, transferring. And then they also say - take it. Well, I found a third publisher.

But there is no doubt that these are commercial books, they sell out quickly and bring some profit to publishing houses. They don’t bring me anything personally in terms of income.

Part two "There is a certain policy in book publishing."

- By the way, in your books there are very few references to archival documents - was this what you intended?

As I said, the main body of documents has already been published, and if there is something new from the documents, then this is indicated in both the first volume and the second. I differ from other authors in that if someone published something, I will never link to the archive - even if it was published in some shabby magazine. In this sense, we must treat people with respect.

Now, for example, I have footnotes for a book by Boris Vladimirovich Yakovlev 13, which has not been published, but is stored in the archive. Yakovlev is one of the very famous Lenin scholars of former times, and I know that he did a gigantic job, so what, am I going to take credit for some things when he was the first to do it? In the third book there will be more links to the archives, because many documents were indeed inaccessible, so I will have to tell some things for the first time.

- Who, besides you, is now conducting full-fledged work on Lenin and his legacy?

Of those who write most honestly even on private issues related to Lenin, one can name an author from Bashkiria, who wrote about ARA 14. He writes well, and this book is related to the biography of Lenin 15. But, unfortunately, today the palm has been seized by the Americans: their work is now the most interesting. This is, for example, the book by Moshe Levin 16 “The Russian Revolution”, published by the publishing house “Europe”. Brilliant book! Levin, a famous historian, is almost a living classic, and in this work he has excellent chapters on Lenin.

Recently the second book by Alex Rabinovich 17 “Bolsheviks in Power” was published - a very brilliant book. Of course, everyone has their own cockroaches in their heads, I disagree with him in some ways. But this is an honest scholarly work about 1918, and if anyone is interested in the history of the Red Terror, read Rabinovich. This is a truly serious person, and, accordingly, he writes seriously.

In addition, there is also the Hungarian Tamás Kraus 18, a famous philosopher and historian. He has a brilliant work on Lenin - especially there is a lot written about the NEP period, about the transition from civil war to peace. The French philosopher Daniel Bensaid 19 writes well, and the Slovenian Slavoj Zizek 20 also has a brilliant philosophical work on Lenin.

All of these are very professional people, and not those who work according to orders, strive to get in line or please someone! They are professionally involved in the subject, and therefore their work is interesting.

We also have such people. Take, for example, the excellent work of the Leningrad historian Sobolev 21 “The Secret of “German Gold,” which was published in two editions. This is brilliant work! From time to time, good articles appear, for example, related to the First World War, written by young guys - for example, the history of the origin of fraternization, which is also a page in the biography of Lenin. Those who work honestly certainly bring something to Lenin’s biography! But you see, in the book publishing business there is a certain policy - take at least the new chronology of the same Fomenko, which has millions of book copies. You are probably reading it?

- How to say... I read it once.

But she comes out all the time. In response, scientists publish collections of “Antifomenko”, and, in my opinion, five volumes have already been published. Once our greatest archaeologists, ethnographers, historians, etc. gathered at Moscow State University, and there was an interesting discussion “Antifomenko”, but all this was published in only 500 copies, and some volumes in 300 pieces!

At the same time, take Suvorov’s “Icebreaker” - the circulation has already exceeded 2 million copies. And the translation from English of Gorodetsky’s book “The Myth of the Icebreaker” has a pitiful circulation, so try to buy it somewhere. Don't buy it anywhere! Therefore, there is a certain policy, and as a result, “yellow” literature is simply overwhelming with its mass, not to mention the fact that it is sold on every corner.

How do you evaluate, for example, the level of works on Lenin by Louis Fischer 22 , Robert Payne 23 and Robert Service 24 ?

Fischer's work is very interesting. But it still came out before the main body of documents appeared.

- Well, yes, Fischer wrote in the 60s.

And what was published by The Young Guard by Robert Payne. Well, not only is it, as they say, written 100 years ago, but the author often does not understand the subject he is writing about, and besides, many documents did not exist then. This work is old, and it can do little to help in the study of Lenin.

- But for some reason it is published from time to time.

This is all no coincidence.

When the Young Guard sent me Robert Pena’s book for review, I wrote under each page: “not in the know,” “lying,” “doesn’t know,” “not true,” “wrong,” etc. But in the end - zero attention and a pound of contempt from the publisher, as if they had never even seen my review.

But Service, it turns out, ended up with more fulfilling work? After all, he worked in archives and, moreover, for several years, as he writes, at least in the preface.

I leafed through the Service book with pleasure. But I don’t like it when the author is so politicized that he knows the answer in advance. For example, look at how Alex Rabinovich writes and how Service writes - these are completely different things. Rabinovich is looking for answers in documents, especially since this American historian was the first to look at documents at the level of the district councils of St. Petersburg. And the Service is freer in this regard, because it has a certain political position. At the same time, in many countries Service is considered for some reason a serious person, and this is still somehow strange because of the way he writes.

- By the way, Service claims that Lenin gained wide popularity only in 1921 after the introduction of the NEP.

It's all nonsense. In the West in 1918, a book by John Reed 25 was published, this makes it clear that those abroad were well informed about the October Revolution and Lenin, not by our authors, but by a brilliant galaxy of American journalists. You see, we believe that everything that happens in the history of Russia is an event on a county scale. For example, when the famous Belovezhskaya Agreement was signed, one of the wisest people in Russia, Nikita Nikolaevich Moiseev 26, a major scientist, now deceased, who was then on the Presidential Council, having met a group that had arrived from Belovezhskaya Pushcha, including the same Burbulis 27, exclaimed: “ What have you done!” Burbulis said: “Nikita Nikolaevich! Don’t you understand, because now there is no one above us.” This is the level of district chiefs! And so they think that the October Revolution in Petrograd was a local event. But it really shocked the world! Look how everything went at once: Latin America, China, Iran stirred up.

And the name of Lenin became known, first of all, precisely thanks to the revolution.

To be continued

Notes:

We are talking about the note “Totalitarianism began with a dash. Lenin himself was a traitor to Lenin’s ideals” (“Novaya Gazeta” No. 5 of January 26, 2004), where E. Yevtushenko said the following: “While working in the archives of the city of Kazan on a poem about Lenin, I found a precious folder of denunciations to the police department about a seventeen-year-old student - Volodya Ulyanov. One of them described the following picture: after the execution of his beloved older brother-terrorist, students who sympathized with his younger brother dragged him into a cheap pub and gave him a full two-hundred-gram glass of vodka. Volodya drank it almost sightlessly and inaudibly, like a somnambulist, after which they carefully brought him a mug of beer to wash it down and gave him a bite of pickled cucumber and black bread. Two local whores sat down next to Volodya. They cried as best they could, consoled Volodya, stroked his head, but he did not notice anything and only stared at one , a point visible only to him, repeated: “I will avenge my brother! I will avenge my brother!” Another denunciation described that when other students took him home in this state hypnotized by one thought, he tore a map of Russia from the wall and threw it on the floor and, growling like a hunted animal, rolled around on it, tearing it with his hands and teeth..."
http://novgaz.ru/data/2004/05/31.html
Shatrov Mikhail Filippovich (1932-2010) - Soviet playwright, author of plays and film scripts about Lenin, member of the CPSU from 1961 to 1991. With the participation of Vladlen Loginov, he wrote the scripts for the films “Trust” and “Two Lines in Fine Print.”
Shaimiev Mintimer Sharipovich (born 1937) - politician, member of the CPSU from 1963 to 1991, member of the CPSU Central Committee from 1990 to 1991. In June 1991, he was elected president of the Republic of Tatarstan (TSSR). In August 1991, he supported the State Emergency Committee. Subsequently, a member of various political movements and pro-government parties. Member of the United Russia party since 2001. In 2010, he resigned as president of Tatarstan.
In diplomacy it means a temporary agreement.
Here Loginov talks about the collection “V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents. 1891-1922" published by the ROSSPEN publishing house in 1999.
Volkogonov Dmitry Antonovich (1928-1995) – Colonel General, historian, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the CPSU from 1951 to 1991. Author of the pseudo-historical work “Leaders” (“Lenin”, “Stalin”, “Trotsky”).
We are talking about a telegram dated August 11, 1918:
To Penza
T-scham Kuraev, Bosch, Minkin and other Penza communists.
T-shchi! The uprising of the five kulak volosts must lead to merciless suppression. This is required by the interests of the entire revolution, because now everywhere there is a “last decisive battle” with the kulaks. You need to give a sample.
1. Hang (be sure to hang, so that the people can see) at least 100 notorious kulaks, rich people, bloodsuckers.
2. Publish their names.
3. Take away all their bread.
4. Assign hostages - according to yesterday's telegram.
Make it so that people hundreds of miles away can see, tremble, know, shout: they are strangling and will strangle the bloodsucking kulaks.
Wire receipt and execution. Your Lenin.
P.S. Find tougher people.
Here Loginov is most likely talking about a telegram dated August 20, 1918 to the Livensky Executive Committee.
Livny, to the executive committee
Copy to military commissar Semashka
and communist organizations
I welcome the energetic suppression of kulaks and White Guards in the district. It is necessary to strike while the iron is hot and, without missing a minute, organize the poor in the district, confiscate all the grain and all property from the rebel kulaks, hang the instigators from the kulaks, mobilize and arm the poor under reliable leaders from our detachment, arrest hostages from the rich and hold them until all the surplus grain is collected and dumped in their volosts. Telegraph execution. Send part of the exemplary Iron Regiment immediately to Penza.
Predsovnarkom Lenin.
Bosch Evgenia Bogdanovna (1879-1925) – revolutionary, member of the RSDLP-RCP(b) since 1901. In August 1918, she was the chairman of the Penza Provincial Committee of the RCP(b).
In his memoirs (first published in 1924), Bosch quotes not the aforementioned letter-telegram of August 11, 1918, but a directive that was received by the Penza Provincial Committee on the same day:
“When suppressing the uprising of five volosts, make every effort and take all measures in order to remove all surplus grain from the hands of the holders, doing this simultaneously with the suppression of the uprising. To do this, for each volost, appoint (don’t take, but appoint) hostages by name from the kulaks, rich people and world-eaters, on whom you entrust the duty of collecting and transporting to the specified stations or dumping points, and handing over to the authorities all the surplus grain in the volost.
The hostages are responsible with their lives for the exact execution, in the shortest possible time, of the imposed indemnity. The total amount of surplus in the volost is determined by the pre-gubernia executive committee and the provincial food commissar based on data on the 1918 harvest and on the remnants of grain from the harvests of previous years. This measure must be carried out decisively, swiftly and mercilessly under your responsibility, the provincial food commissar and the military commissar, for which the indicated persons are hereby given the appropriate powers.
The implementation of the measure should be accompanied by an appeal to the population with a leaflet in which to explain its meaning and indicate that the responsibility of hostages is imposed on the kulaks, world-eaters, rich people, and the primordial enemies of the poor. Telegraph your receipt of this and regularly report on the progress of the operation at least every other day. Predsovnarkom V. Ulyanov (Lenin)
People's Commissariat for Food A. Tsyurupa
People's Commissar of Military Affairs E. Sklyansky"
This directive was published in the 29th volume of the 3rd edition of Lenin's collected works.
Arutyunov Akim (Kim) Alexandrovich (Armenakovich) (b.) – publicist, author of pseudo-historical books and articles about Lenin. The most famous and republished work is “Lenin’s Dossier without Retouching” (1995). Arutyunov’s works are distinguished by free interpretation of facts, incompetence, fraud and outright speculation.
Arutyunov claims that in the early 1970s he met Margarita Vasilyevna Fofanova (1883-1976), who was the owner of the apartment in Petrograd where Lenin was hiding in July and October 1917. After the October Revolution, she worked in the People's Commissariat of Agriculture and in administrative and economic positions. Allegedly from her, Arutyunov heard a lot of unusual and shocking information about Ilyich.
Lidiya Aleksandrovna Fotieva (1881-1975) – revolutionary, member of the RSDLP-RCP(b) since 1904. From 1918 to 1924 - Lenin's personal secretary.
Yakovlev Boris Vladimirovich (1913-1994) - Soviet literary critic, member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)-CPSU since 1941. Author of books and articles about Lenin, including “Lenin and Goethe” (1957), “Lenin Reads...” (1962), “Lenin and the Russian Book Business” (1964).
American Relief Administration (American Relief Administration, ARA) is an organization created in 1919 to provide humanitarian assistance to countries affected by World War I. In 1921-22, she participated in helping the starving people of the Volga region, simultaneously conducting counter-revolutionary activities on the territory of Soviet Russia.
We are most likely talking about Nail Usmanov (born 1957), associate professor of the Department of General History of the Birsk State Social-Pedagogical Academy, author of the works “Activities of the American Relief Administration in Bashkiria in 1921-1923.” (2004) and “Colonel Bell’s Mission: On the activities of the Ufa-Ural Branch of the American Relief Administration (1921-1923)” (2007).
Moshe Levin (1921-2010) – American historian. Author of the books “Lenin’s Last Battle” (1968), “Creation of the Soviet System” (1985), “Soviet Century” (2005).
Alex Rabinovich (born 1934) is an American historian. Believes that the October Revolution is truly popular. Author of the books “Prelude to the Revolution: Petrograd Bolsheviks and the July Days of 1917” (1968), “Russia in the era of NEP” (1991).
Tamás Kraus (1948) – Hungarian historian, socialist. Author of a number of books about Lenin, Bolshevism and the October Revolution.
Daniel Bensaid (1946-2010) – French Marxist philosopher.
Slavoj Žižek (1949) – Slovenian culturologist. Author of the book “13 Experiments on Lenin” (2002).
Sobolev Gennady Leontyevich (born 1935) – Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor. Author of the books “The October Revolution in American Historiography” (1979), “Alexander Kerensky: Love and Hate of the Revolution” (1992), “The Mystery of German Gold” (2002). Participated in the work on the encyclopedia “The Great October Socialist Revolution” (3rd edition, 1987).
Louis Fisher (1896-1970) – American publicist, Sovietologist. From 1922 to 1936 he worked in the USSR for the Nation magazine. Author of the book “The Life of Lenin” (1964), which was published in Russia in 1997.
Robert Payne (1911-1983) - Anglo-American writer, author of biographical books. In 1964 he published a work entitled “The Life and Death of Lenin.” In 2003, this book was translated into Russian and published three times in the “ZhZL” series by the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house.
Robert Service (born 1947) is an English historian, specialist in Russian history. Author of the books “Russian Revolution. 1900-27." (1999), “Lenin: political life” (1986-1995), “History of modern Russia: from Nicholas II to Putin” (2003). In 2000, Service’s book “Lenin: A Biography” was published, while working on it the author studied documents in Russian archives. The book was published in Russian by the Minsk publishing house “Poppuri” in 2002.
John Reed (1887-1920) – American journalist. He was an eyewitness and participant in revolutionary events in Russia. He wrote the book “Ten Days That Shook the World.”
Moiseev Nikita Nikolaevich (1917-2000) – mathematician, academician, founder of new directions in applied mathematics.
Burbulis Gennady Eduardovich (born 1945) – politician, one of Boris Yeltsin’s associates. In 1991, he took an active part in the preparation of the Belovezhskaya Accords aimed at eliminating the USSR.

In 1902, when Lenin and Krupskaya lived in London, they often went to the zoo there and, as Nadezhda Konstantinovna said, stood for a long time in front of the white wolf’s cage. All animals get used to the cage over time: bears, tigers, lions, the guard explained to us. Only the white wolf from the Russian north never gets used to the cage - and beats against the iron bars of the cage day and night. Krupskaya remembered this Russian wolf 15 years later, in the winter of 1916/17, in Zurich...

“In the middle of February (1916),” writes Krupskaya, “Ilyich needed to work in the Zurich libraries, and we went there for a couple of weeks, and then we kept postponing and postponing our return to Bern and stayed to live in Zurich...

Let's go rent a room. We went to see a certain Frau Prelog, who looked more like a Viennese than a Swiss. This was explained by the fact that she had long served as a cook in some Viennese hotel. We settled in with her, but the next day it turned out that the previous tenant was returning. Someone pierced his head and he was in the hospital, but now he has recovered.”

Housing was rented from the family of the Social Democratic shoemaker Kammerer in an old, almost 16th-century, gloomy house. The room was long, uncomfortable, with a window overlooking the courtyard. And since there was also a sausage factory in the basement, the yard smelled of rotten meat and the window was only opened at night. “It was possible,” writes Nadezhda Konstantinovna, “for the same money we could have gotten a better room, but we valued the owners...

The apartment was truly international: the owners lived in two rooms, in one - the wife of a German soldier-baker with children, in the other - some Italian, in the third - Austrian actors with an amazing red cat, in the fourth - we, the Russians. There was no smell of chauvinism..."

For the first couple of months we continued to go to Frau Prelog for dinner. After the death of Elizaveta Vasilyevna, Nadezhda Konstantinovna’s mother, in March 1915, they ate in Bern in a cheap (65 centimes per lunch) student canteen. And after such a kitchen, the Viennese cook really liked the food. The crowd who dined with her was quite varied. There was a hospital nurse, a prostitute, and some obviously criminal types. “Very soon we felt,” writes Krupskaya, “that we had found ourselves... in the very bottom of Zurich... No one was shy about us and, I must say, in the conversations of this public there was much more human, lively than in the decorous dining rooms of some "some decent hotel." But it was obvious that here “you could easily get caught up in some wild story,” and for emigrants it was doubly unsafe.

Therefore, Frau Prelog had to refuse the services. Moreover, the new owner, Frau Kammerer, managed to teach Nadezhda Konstantinovna what her mother could not teach during all the years of emigration: how to quickly, cheaply and satisfyingly prepare lunch and dinner. “Once,” says Krupskaya, “while the hostess and I were frying each piece of meat in the kitchen on a gas stove, the hostess exclaimed indignantly: “Soldiers need to turn their weapons against their governments!” After that, Ilyich did not want to hear about it. to change rooms."

Sometimes we went to visit. In Bern, where the Zinovievs, Armands, and Shklovskys lived nearby, this happened more often. Vladimir Ilyich became especially attached to Styopka, the son of the Zinovievs. And in June 1916, already from Zurich, Lenin wrote: “... greetings Styopka, who must have grown so much that I won’t be able to throw him to the ceiling!” . Well, in Zurich we visited the Kharitonovs, whose daughter turned only two years old in February 1917.

On this day - Sunday February 11 (January 29) - Vladimir Ilyich and Nadezhda Konstantinovna went to buy a gift ahead of time. “In the toy store,” Lenin himself later said, “our eyes ran wide. We look: there are a lot of all kinds of toys on the shelves and racks all around; We were confused and didn’t know what to choose. “Let’s buy that beautiful doll over there,” says Nadya. “No, it won’t work,” I answer, “we won’t buy a doll, we’ll look for something more interesting.” The seller kept giving us toys: there were hares, bunnies, kittens, balls, etc. “No, - I say, “everything is not right.” I look around shelf after shelf and suddenly on the top shelf I see this very little dog. She has one ear sticking up, a red ribbon with a bell on her neck, a sharp muzzle, and she has such a rogue r-r-revolutionary look. “Here,” I say to Nadya, “we’ll take this dog!”

Well, what is it? Like? “Vladimir Ilyich, Kharitonova herself recalls, laughed so infectiously, showing us the toy from all sides and admiring it himself, that we were all delighted.”

On ordinary days, the daily routine was quite monotonous. From 9 o'clock - library. From 12 to 1 o'clock, when it was closed for lunch, we went home. By 1 o'clock they returned to the reading room and sat there until six, until closing. On Thursdays, when the library was closed after lunch, we went to the mountain - Zurichberg. “Ilyich usually bought two blue chocolate bars with roasted nuts for 15 centimes... and we went to the mountain. We had a favorite place there in the thicket, where there were no public, and there, lying on the grass, Ilyich read diligently.”

In general, Vladimir Ilyich worked a lot. Here, in Zurich, he wrote many articles for the next issues of Sotsial-Demokrat and Collection of Social-Democrat. Among them are “On the Junius Pamphlet”, “Results of the Discussion on Self-Determination”, “Imperialism and the Split of Social Democracy”, “On the “Peace Program””, “On a Separate Peace”, etc.

He paid great attention to regular correspondence with the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, the St. Petersburg and Moscow committees, and exiled Bolsheviks in Siberia. Organized the transport of illegal literature from abroad to Russia. Maintained contact with internationalist leaders of European countries. He directed the activities of the Bureau of the Zimmerwald Left. In April 1916, he participated in the international socialist conference in the mountain village of Quintal. He spoke at international rallies and meetings. Traveled with abstracts...

Of course, this was written, as he himself put it, in a state of extreme fatigue “and in a bad mood.” Such a condition, such as that of Zinoviev, for example, could have become chronic if... If Vladimir Ilyich had not had a kind of “outlet”. If only his working day in the library did not often end with “philosophical readings”...

He first became interested in this kind of literature while still in exile. Many works of Hegel, Feuerbach, Kant and the “neo-Kantians” were studied by him even then. The work on “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism” in 1909 became, as it were, a “second reading” of the philosophical classics. Now he was walking along the “third circle”. Moreover, as before, the range was quite large: from Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle to Hegel, Kant, Feuerbach, Marx, Engels and modern European philosophers.

Page 14 of 53

It is known that attempts to exalt Lenin’s personality were observed already during his lifetime. How did Lenin himself feel about this? Can the concept of “cult of personality” be applied to Lenin?

E. Wittenberg: Indeed, the desire to exalt Lenin, to endow him with some supernatural qualities appeared already during his lifetime and was caused by many factors of an objective and subjective order. Among them are the cult syndrome of the 300-year rule of the Romanov dynasty, the low political culture of society, the lack of strong democratic traditions in the country, etc.

As the volumes of V.I. Lenin’s “Biographical Chronicle” testify, Vladimir Ilyich received many welcoming telegrams, letters, resolutions, etc. after the October Revolution. In them, love for Lenin sometimes took forms close to the deification of his image. Facts also show that Lenin sharply opposed such practices. So, on February 25, 1920, Lenin received a telegram from Ishim with greetings on behalf of the district party conference and on it he wrote the following resolution to the member of the Narkompochtel board, A. M. Nikolaev: “Bring to court the bearers for sending a greeting telegram” 1 .

Of course, he understood that such greetings were only external manifestations of a more complex social phenomenon. The realization that he was dealing not with individual facts, but with a social phenomenon, came to Lenin already in the early autumn of 1918. Thus, in September 1918, in a conversation with a number of leading workers, he stated: “I note with great displeasure that my personality is beginning to be exalted. This is annoying and harmful. We all know that it's not about personality. It would be inconvenient for me to prohibit this kind of phenomenon... But you should gradually put the brakes on this whole story” 2.

However, the process of exalting Lenin’s personality continued against his will, which was reflected in the press. Numerous materials dedicated to him, addresses, greetings, etc. were published in newspapers and magazines. Remaining true to himself, Lenin tried to fight these facts here too.

"What is it? How could you allow it?.. Look,” Lenin was indignant, turning to V.D. Bonch-Bruevich, “what they write in the newspapers?.. It’s a shame to read. They write about me that I am this way and that, everyone exaggerates, they call me a genius, some special person, but here there is some kind of mysticism... Collectively they want, demand, wish me to be healthy... So what good , perhaps, they will get to prayers for my health... After all, this is terrible!.. And where does this come from? All our lives we have ideologically fought against the exaltation of the individual, the individual, we have long ago resolved the issue of heroes, and here suddenly the exaltation of the individual is again! This is no good! I'm just like everyone else..." 3

Attempts to place Lenin on a pedestal of cult were also observed among intellectuals. Suffice it to recall the article by A. M. Gorky “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin”, published in 1920 in the magazine “Communist International”. In this article, Gorky compared Lenin with Peter the Great, called him a “legendary personality”, “a man standing in the center and above everything”, believed “that in the era of the predominance of religious sentiments Lenin would be considered a saint”, emphasized that Vladimir Ilyich “possesses the gift of foresight, the brilliant intuition of a thinker-experimenter,” etc. 4

It is difficult to imagine what outraged Lenin more when he read the article - either Gorky’s unbridled praises addressed to him, or attempts to make him a fanatic or to present the October Revolution as some kind of crazy experiment on a people who, supposedly, were only capable of humbly enduring someone's cruel experiences. More likely, both, and the third. Lenin’s reaction to Gorky’s article was extremely negative: he proposed that the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) make a decision recognizing “it is extremely inappropriate to place in No. 12 of the Communist International Gorky’s articles, especially the leading one, because in these articles not only there is nothing communist, but a lot of anti-communist stuff. In the future, in no way should such articles be published in the Communist International" 5

The spread of cult sentiments was also facilitated by the rapidly growing strength of the Soviet bureaucracy, for which, like any other bureaucracy, “the idolization of authority is its way of thinking” 6 .

The desire to exalt Lenin could also be observed among the leaders of the party and the Soviet state. As you know, this was especially evident during the celebration of his 50th anniversary, and a lot has already been written about this. Let us only recall that in this case, Vladimir Ilyich categorically opposed attempts to glorify his personality and resolutely insisted on stopping the “praiseful verbal flow” 7.

Of course, the highest epithets were addressed to Lenin by party leaders not only on the days of the anniversary. This raises a number of difficult questions. What prompted extraordinary people to contribute to the development of cult phenomena, what are the real motives for attempts to consciously or unconsciously elevate Lenin? Of course, there cannot be a single answer here, because each of the leaders of the revolution had a fairly pronounced individuality. There can be as many explanations as there are people.

And yet there were some things in common. It seems that this is, first of all, a recognition of the real role of Lenin and the desire to elevate the one next to whom they turned from the leaders of a small illegal party into people who possessed enormous power, wide fame and popularity. By exalting Lenin, they thereby exalted themselves, since they were considered his comrades-in-arms and students.

Under these conditions, the danger of the emergence of a cult of Lenin's personality was quite real. The only one who uncompromisingly and consistently fought against it was Vladimir Ilyich himself. And while he was alive, he still managed to hold back the general campaign of exaltation and praise of his personality. However, after his death this barrier was removed, which Stalin took advantage of. Exalting Lenin, he sought to exalt himself, introducing into the mass consciousness of people the false idea that it was he, Stalin, who was Lenin’s only faithful student and successor of his work.

It is noteworthy that, perhaps, N.K. Krupskaya was one of the first to understand the danger of the development of cult phenomena. During the mourning days of 1924, she addressed the workers with the following words: “I have a big request to you: do not let your sadness for Ilyich go into external veneration of his personality. Do not arrange monuments for him, palaces named after him, magnificent celebrations in his memory, etc., he attached so little importance to all this during his life, he was so burdened by all this. Remember how much poverty and disorder there is still in our country. If you want to honor the name of Vladimir Ilyich, set up nurseries, kindergartens, houses, schools, libraries, outpatient clinics, hospitals, homes for the disabled, etc. and most importantly, let’s implement his behests in everything” 8. But in practice, much has been done just the opposite.

During the era of Stalinism and later, thousands of monuments to Lenin were erected throughout the country, including tasteless and pompous ones, tens of thousands of streets, enterprises and cities were named after him. At the same time, the canonization of Lenin’s views took place in their simplified and distorted Stalinist interpretation. Any scientific research, any theoretical innovations were considered revisionist and were prohibited with references to... Lenin.

During the period of perestroika, a positive process of overcoming the cultic understanding of Lenin began. Lenin's views are cleared of alien layers, and primarily of Stalinism, and are examined from the standpoint of constructive-critical analysis.

The process of liberating our lives from many cult attributes has also begun. However, we are an incorrigible country of extremes. And if earlier we dealt with our history with immeasurable cruelty, mercilessly destroying churches and historical monuments, now some are trying to erase the entire post-October period of the country’s development and start again from scratch. Is it permissible, fellow citizens, to once again treat our long-suffering history from the standpoint of vandalism?!

Notes:

1 Lenin V.I. Poli. collection op. T. 51. P. 146.

2 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin: Biography: In 2 volumes, 8th ed. M., 1987. T. 2. P. 114.

3 Bonch-Bruevich V.D. Izbr. cit.: In 3 vols. M., 1963. T. 3. P. 296-297.

4 See: Communist International. 1920. No. 12.

5 Lenin V.I. Complete. collection op. T. 54. P. 429.

6 Marx K., Engels F. Soch. 2nd ed. T. 1. P. 272.

7 See: Lenin V.I. Poli. collection op. T. 40. P. 325; Vladimir Ilyich Lenin: Biogr. chronicle. M., 1977. T. 8. P. 444.

8 Krupskaya N.K. Selected works. P. 112.

“The opportunistic interpretation of events and facts of the past was practiced in all states and at all times,” says professor Vladlen Loginov, a researcher of the early Soviet era.

He was once known as a “liberal” historian. In the sixties and eighties, as far as possible then, he removed the textbook gloss from Lenin and prevented the mythologization of the events of the Civil War.

As an employee of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, he was a member of the artistic councils of Mosfilm and the Taganka Theater - with his status he protected films and plays about the first years of Soviet power from censorship attacks. And he himself was involved in art - in collaboration with Mikhail Shatrov, Vitaly Melnikov, Alexander Zarkhi, he wrote scripts for several feature films.

Times have changed. Old myths have been replaced by new ones. Compared to them, Loginov now looks like an “orthodox” historian. But he considers himself neither “liberal” nor “orthodox.” He simply continues his research, dismissing accusations of both “denigration” and “whitewashing” of the Soviet past.

At the recent Non/Fiction international fair in Moscow, he took part in the presentation of the first five volumes of the collected works of Mikhail Gorbachev. More than ten more are currently in work. Vladlen Loginov is the leader of this project.

"They think that the documents have not been preserved"

- Has Mikhail Sergeevich really expanded himself into fifteen to twenty volumes of memoirs?

This is not a memoir. This is a unique collection of speeches, articles and other documents. There are speeches at Politburo meetings, various kinds of recordings of conversations and telephone conversations... These documents reveal the events of those years from a new, sometimes unexpected side, show how certain processes arose and developed (remember: “the process has begun”), what that's an idea. We include all this in volumes. And there will be more than twenty of them. Editors, proofreaders, and most of them are already middle-aged people, are now reading this with great interest. You know how funny and sad it is to read about a time that you yourself remember.

- I can understand why it’s sad. Why is it funny?

It’s funny, first of all, against the backdrop of memoirs of political figures of the Gorbachev era. It is written as if the authors are absolutely sure that no documents have survived, and they can weave whatever they want. You know, in Russian history there are two periods that can compete with each other. This is 1917-1921 and the time called Perestroika.

- Compete in what?

In slander and spitting. Everyone lies. And even in small things. In the first versions of their memoirs, Kravchuk and Shushkevich told how much and what they and Yeltsin drank in Belovezhye. And in his last interviews, Shushkevich says that they didn’t drink there at all - they say they worked so hard that there was no time for drinking. It's funny to read this. After all, how many empty bottles were later taken from there! And this happens literally in every episode. And read what Gorbachev’s former comrades write about the August putsch! What I respect about our youth is that they don’t take their word for anything.

Prophet "predicting back"

- Pasternak has the following lines: “Once Hegel inadvertently / and undoubtedly at random / called the historian a prophet / predicting backwards.” Do you agree with this interpretation of the historian's profession?

I partly agree. But before, at least the historian did not earn his bread with such ease and ease as now. It was a profession, firstly, labor-intensive, and secondly, dusty. “And having shaken off the dust of centuries from the charters...” - here “dust” is not only in a metaphorical sense. And now historian-designers have proliferated. They construct a story from blocks. There is some set of cubes, and different combinations are made from them. All these cubes are well known: the Civil War, collectivization, the Great Patriotic War, Stalin's repressions... Everyone interprets these events in accordance not with historical truth, but with their political views.

- The struggle for their own interpretation of history also captivated politicians. For example, in Lithuania the hammer and sickle, the five-pointed star and other symbols of the USSR are prohibited. They are equated with the symbols of the Third Reich. And Ukraine accuses Russia of famine.

Political holidays on graves, dancing on bones - it always smells bad. The victims of mass famine during the period of Stalin's collectivization with a repressive system of grain procurements were not only Ukrainians, but also Russians, Kazakhs, Germans, the peoples of the North Caucasus... The famine of the 30s, which swept the Volga region, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine (and even Ukraine , no one denies) was a humanitarian disaster. A common misfortune of the peoples of the USSR. And not “an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people.” But if some statesman tomorrow needs to prove that, say, Ukraine made the greatest contribution to the victory over fascism, there will immediately be historians who will serve this political installation. As for the hammer and sickle, these are symbols of labor all over the world. Their denial is a denial of the place that labor occupies in society. One prominent English economist said recently that Russia will not get back on its feet unless it restores the prestige of honest work in the minds of ordinary people.

-Have you had to “predict backwards”, adjust historical facts to the desired “result”?

The Institute of Marxism-Leninism, where I served, essentially did just that. For example, he equipped the “general line” with Lenin quotes. Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev returned from America, the corn epic begins. The director of the IML has an urgent task: find something from Lenin about corn. And they found it. Then Khrushchev is removed. And a new order arrives: with the help of Lenin’s quote, make sure that corn is forgotten. Please! Lenin immediately found some note that said that it is necessary to grow this or that agricultural crop only where there are favorable natural and climatic conditions for it. Such government orders were received periodically. But in parallel, scientific work also developed. There was official science, but there were also serious, deep historical studies. Even under censorship.

- When did Russian historical science experience a “golden age”?

It never had its own “golden age” - it always experienced pressure from fanatical apologists of various teachings, corrupt politicians, greedy temporary workers and power-hungry rulers. Read the greatest expert on Russian chronicles, Shakhmatov: political, moral influence, or even just physical violence against chroniclers, erasures and corrections, insertions and entire fragments rewritten anew - there are a great many such facts in Russian and not only Russian history.

- And Karamzin, Klyuchevsky, Soloviev? Were they not impartial in their historical research?

There is no need to create illusions regarding the absolute objectivity of Solovyov, Karamzin, Klyuchevsky, Kostomarov and many other truly great historians. In 1823, Karamzin wrote to the publisher Pogodin that he had managed to make a discovery that would overturn existing ideas about the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry on the orders of Godunov. Karamzin was going to inform readers about his new version in the tenth volume of “History of the Russian State” that was being prepared. Imagine Pogodin’s amazement when, having received this volume, he did not see any innovations in the indicated plot. The murdered Tsarevich Dmitry was, as is known, canonized, and it was not recommended to rewrite the lives of the saints.

- Is rewriting history to suit the political situation only a Russian tradition?

No, it was like that everywhere and always. For example, when in England someone needed to prove their belonging to the dynasty of lords, the necessary ancestors were instantly “searched for.” The same thing happened in France. And here Ivan the Terrible cleaned the chronicles - he personally crossed out some boyar names with his own hand. The drama of historical science is that this science is in close contact with politics. The authorities of any state always look for support in the past.

- And the romanticization of the not always glorious past?

This is typical for many countries. Take the British with their colonial policy and remember the famous lines of Kipling: “West is West, East is East, and they cannot come together.” This is poetry, this is adventure! Or take America. The extermination of the indigenous population and Indians there became the plot of countless Westerns. And in our country, if you believe today’s books and films, no matter the era, it’s a cesspool.

- Well, we have also been fairly successful in romanticizing our past. Even Okudzhava, whose father was repressed, praised the “commissars in dusty helmets” and promoted a Komsomol member to a “goddess”...

By romanticizing, say, the Civil War, we were throwing some other period of our lives into the mud. And according to the laws of the “reverse wave”, all this then turned one hundred and eighty degrees. “Reds” - “whites”, Stalinism - anti-Stalinism... Today, mass ideas about what happened are constructed from such cubes. All this has nothing to do with the real picture of the past, and even more so with the new era that has begun.

The truth of history and the truth of art

- Works of literature and art about events of the past often cause nervous tremors among historians. Writers and directors are being accused of either “denigrating” or “varnishing”...

This is an eternal problem. As soon as a historical character becomes the object of close study by society, he is instantly mythologized. In Rus', every village hut had, as you know, a red corner. What hung there before 1917? An icon of the Mother of God, Saint Nicholas, one of the other saints, and certainly a portrait of the Emperor. After the overthrow of the tsar - again the Mother of God, Nicholas the Saint, but this time together with Marx, Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg. Always like this. Who is Stalin? Lenin's faithful disciple. Who is Khrushchev? A faithful successor to Lenin's work. The legitimacy of a ruler is sought in the past.

- I'm talking about something else now. How does, say, “The Captain’s Daughter” relate to the history of the Pugachev rebellion? How accurate is Pushkin in depicting real events?

To show Pugachev in detail, Pushkin needed to write a whole series of episodes, including the famous episode with the sheepskin coat. And thus the reader saw in Pugachev a living person in his most varied manifestations, and not a complete villain. To understand the character and actions of a historical figure, an artistic image is sometimes more convincing than tons of documents. And the path to scientific truth sometimes lies through poetic insights. “The abyss has opened, it is full of stars/, the stars have no number, the abyss has its bottom.” Lomonosov wrote this even before the scientific discoveries about the infinity of the Universe.

- You worked a lot in cinema. In your opinion, does a playwright, or indeed any creator of a work of art, have the right, when turning to real events of the past, to sacrifice historical truth for the sake of artistic truth?

It seems to me that it is counterproductive to contrast one with the other. There is a measure for everything here. A blind, literal reproduction of historical texture, not warmed by feeling or artistic imagination, never leads to a worthy result. But endless fiction and disregard for facts is a sure path to profanation of a historical topic. And why invent something that never happened? History sometimes presents such plots, gives such concatenations of events that a playwright cannot imagine even in a nightmare.

- You consulted on several films about Lenin. Was everything in them really consistent with historical truth?

The ideological pathos of these films may irritate someone today, but each episode there had a documentary basis and was based on real facts and events. Here's an example. Evgeniy Gabrilovich is working on the script for the film “Lenin in Poland”. There is an episode to be written about how a large group of Russian workers arrives in Poronino, where Lenin is located, to participate in a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. Gabrilovich tells me: “There should be some kind of warm, human contact between Lenin and the workers here. Lenin hasn’t seen people from Russia for a long time. It’s impossible that the meeting would not happen without drinking. See if there is documentary evidence of this.” “Okay,” I say, “I’ll take a look.” I turned to the archives - yes, Lenin got on his bicycle, went to the store, bought several bottles of alcohol, the workers added chicken to the table, lard from their travel supplies, and he really got drunk. But if I, as the official consultant of the film, had not given a written conclusion that this episode was confirmed by such and such documents stored in such and such an archive, Poronin’s feast would not have been included in the script.

- Has your attitude towards Lenin changed?

It is unlikely that we can talk about some kind of “relationship” here. I just know a lot about Lenin. Four years ago I published the book “Choice of a Path” - the first of the large biography of Lenin that I had planned. This book contains the childhood and youth of the future leader. Another one will come out soon. It contains the year 17 - that piece of Lenin’s biography that is associated with the revolution. I'm skipping some periods for now. Now, bypassing the Civil War and the NEP, I am starting a study under the code name “The Death of Lenin.”

- It’s hard for me to believe in your impartiality. Any biographical narrative is always colored by the author’s personal attitude towards his hero. And as for the biography of Lenin... It is impossible to write it detachedly.

This is exactly how I try to write - detachedly. “I went there, met with so-and-so”... I am not involved in interpreting Lenin’s biography. Just the facts. As for the figure of Lenin himself, I will only recall the words of his worst opponent Karl Kautsky: “You have to be crazy to deny the greatness of Lenin.”

- In Soviet times, the historian was not free from ideological shackles. But even now he is not free from them, and to be convinced of this, it is enough to leaf through some school history textbooks. Do you feel the pressure of prevailing theories and “correct” concepts today?

No, none of this affects me. Here, after all, a lot depends on you. Remember what Saltykov-Shchedrin said? “And times would not be so vile if we ourselves were not such scoundrels.” At any time, you can remain a decent person, not go against your conscience and your convictions. But I don't blame anyone...

Dismissed for "White Guard"

In 1979, the magazine "Youth" published the chronicle novel "February" - a documentary story about the February Revolution. Its authors were Mikhail Shatrov and Vladlen Loginov. The publication aroused the ire of high party leaders. For its “objectivist approach to history, belittling the role of the Bolshevik Party,” the novel was declared “White Guard.” His book circulation was put under the knife. “At that time I was an employee of the history department of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU,” says Loginov, “and for “literary White Guardism” I was kicked out of work.” The book “In the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee” was recently published. Its author, Anatoly Chernyaev, worked in the Central Committee apparatus for more than twenty years and kept a detailed diary. “From this book,” says Loginov, “I learned that my “case” was heard at the very top. By the way, Chernyaev later helped me get a job, since I was not hired anywhere.”

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Vladlen Loginov
Unknown Lenin

Chapter 1
Return

“I love my profession...”

“In mid-February,” writes Krupskaya, “Ilyich needed to work in Zurich libraries, and we went there for a couple of weeks, and then we kept postponing and postponing our return to Bern and ended up living in Zurich...

And for emigrants it was doubly unsafe.

Therefore, Frau Prelog had to refuse the services. Moreover, the new owner, Frau Kammerer, managed to teach Nadezhda Konstantinovna what her mother could not teach during all the years of emigration: how to quickly, cheaply and satisfyingly prepare lunch and dinner. “Once,” says Krupskaya, “while the hostess and I were each frying our own piece of meat in the kitchen on a gas stove, the hostess exclaimed indignantly: “Soldiers need to turn their weapons against their governments!” After that, Ilyich didn’t want to hear about changing rooms.” 5
Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. P. 117.

Well, in Zurich we visited the Kharitonovs, whose daughter turned only two years old in February 1917.

On this day - Sunday February 11 (January 29) - Vladimir Ilyich and Nadezhda Konstantinovna went to buy a gift ahead of time. “In the toy store,” Lenin himself later said, “our eyes ran wide. We look: there are a lot of all kinds of toys on the shelves and racks all around; We were confused and didn’t know what to choose. “Let’s buy that beautiful doll,” says Nadya. “No, it won’t work,” I answer, “we won’t buy a doll, we’ll look for something more interesting.” The seller kept handing us toys: there were hares, bunnies, kittens, balls, etc. “No, - I say, “it’s not the same.” I look around shelf after shelf and suddenly on the top shelf I see this very little dog. She has one ear sticking up, a red ribbon with a bell on her neck, a sharp muzzle, and she has such a rogue r-r-revolutionary look. “Here,” I say to Nadya, “we’ll take this dog!”

- Well, what is it? Like? “Vladimir Ilyich, Kharitonova herself recalls, laughed so infectiously, showing us the toy from all sides and admiring it himself, that we were all delighted.” 7
See: Memoirs of V.I. Lenin. T. 2. P. 361, 362.

In general, Vladimir Ilyich worked a lot. Here, in Zurich, he wrote many articles for the next issues of “Social-Democrat” and “Collection of “Social-Democrat””. Among them are “On the Junius Pamphlet”, “Results of the Discussion on Self-Determination”, “Imperialism and the Split of Social Democracy”, “On the “Peace Program””, “On a Separate Peace”, etc.

Lenin translated their works into Russian and took notes, sometimes writing out many entire pages of text. But least of all did he resemble an orthodox adept, enthusiastically listening to great teachers. “The great seem great to us,” he writes in the motto of the newspaper “Paris Revolutions” (1789–1794), “only because we ourselves are on our knees.” 9
Right there. T. 29. P. 18.

The pages of his notes are often divided vertically in half. On the left is a summary, on the right are not only remarks, but also reflections, an argument with what you just read. Here are critical notes addressed to Marx and Engels 10
Right there. pp. 23, 33.

And disagreement with certain ideas of Hegel and Kant. In other words, these are unique dialogues with the greatest thinkers.

He treated the classics with the deepest respect and tried to understand not only the essence of ideas, but also the logic of their thinking. “Actually!”, “Very good”, “Wonderful!”, “Deeply true!”, “Wonderfully said!” - these are remarks in the margins addressed to materialist Feuerbach. “The main idea is brilliant”, “Very deep and true thought”, “Witty and clever!”, “Wonderful!” - and this is about idealist Hegel 11
Right there. pp. 59, 60, 63; 81, 98, 131, 237.

The central place in the “philosophical notebooks” is occupied by Hegel’s main work “The Science of Logic”. Lenin studies all three of its components - “The Doctrine of Being”, “The Doctrine of Essence” and “The Doctrine of Concept”, in which laws, categories, and elements of dialectics are analyzed. And here his notes are not always complimentary. There is, in particular, a phrase among them that not a single philosophical “Lenin-eater” passes by. In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel subjected the ancient Greek materialist and atheist Epicurus to scathing criticism. Having snatched from him the phrase that the soul is only “a certain collection of atoms,” Hegel, in passing, venomously remarks that Epicurus’s entire theory of knowledge is “meager,” and what he writes about it is “empty words.”

In response to this, Lenin writes: Epicurus reflected on the secrets of the universe 2 thousand years before Hegel. And many of his thoughts “are brilliant guesses”, which later determined “the paths science." Essentially Hegel walked around Epicurus' theory of knowledge and started talking about friend, why Epicurus Here does not concern... Everything will be [meager] if distorted and stolen... Hegel simply scolds Epicurus." This is nothing more than “slander against materialism.”

And when Hegel writes again and again in this published work that the thoughts of Epicurus are “pathetic thoughts,” because in his picture of the world there is no place for God, for the “wisdom of the creator,” Lenin breaks down, like a fan breaks down when his favorite striker ten steps past the gate. And in the margins of the notes, after several dozen remarks - “Wonderfully true and deep”, “Very true and important”, “Very good and imaginative”, “Clever and witty”, a note appears: “I feel sorry for God!! Idealistic bastard!!” 12
Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 29 P. 263, 266, 267.

This was never intended for publication and was only a purely personal emotional expression of annoyance at a great and revered philosopher for allowing himself such petty arrogance.

As for the attitude towards Hegel, in the same notes Vladimir Ilyich writes: “Smart idealism is closer to smart materialism than stupid materialism.” Hegelian idealism “came close to materialism, in part even turned into him" 13
Right there. pp. 248, 250.

Reading Vladimir Ilyich’s notes, you are once again convinced that philosophy is a culture of doubt and creation. But in both cases it is anti-dogmatic. Therefore, Vladimir Ilyich’s conclusion is paradoxical: “The summary and summary, the last word and the essence of Hegel’s logic is dialectical method– this is extremely wonderful. And one more thing: in this the most idealistic Hegel's work just less idealism, more of everything materialism. “Controversial”, but true!”

And it would seem completely seditious for the orthodox ear: “The thought of transforming the ideal into the real deep: very important to history. But even in a person’s personal life, it is clear that there is a lot of truth here... The difference between the ideal and the real is also not unconditional”; “...the world does not satisfy a person and a person decides to change it through his action.” In other words, “human consciousness not only reflects the objective world, but also creates it.” And therefore, Lenin writes elsewhere, “the continuation of the work of Hegel and Marx must consist in dialectical processing the history of human thought, science and technology" 14
Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 29 P. 104, 131, 194, 195, 215.

If only he knew that two decades would pass and all these “Hegelian things” would be taken by official “theorists” beyond the framework of Marxist philosophy, simplified for everyone’s understanding, due to their “incomprehensibility,” and dialectics, the most important tool for understanding reality, would often turn into scholasticism, the ability to evade the answer and confuse the simplest question.

So Vladimir Ilyich at one time rightly noted: “The philosopher Hegel was right, by God: life moves forward through contradictions and living contradictions are many times richer, more versatile, more meaningful than the human mind at first seems.” 15
Right there. T. 47. P. 219.

Then, in 1916, Lenin wrote: “It is impossible to fully understand Marx’s Capital and especially its 1st chapter without studying and understanding all Hegel's logic. Consequently, none of the Marxists understood Marx ½ century later!!” 16
Right there. T. 29. P. 162.

Hegel is truly complex, and Vladimir Ilyich himself sometimes notes: “The water is dark!”, “These parts of the work should be called: the best remedy for getting a headache!” 17
Right there. pp. 104, 158.

But, as they say, “it’s better to lose with a smart person than to find with a fool.” Only a stupid person can feel discomfort from communicating with an intellectually superior interlocutor. On the contrary, for an intelligent person such a conversation is both a school of intelligence and a pleasure. Such a dialogue establishes, as Dostoevsky put it, such a “high degree” of thought, such a high intellectual bar, that this level of thinking inevitably manifests itself in the transition from Hegel’s triads or Leibniz’s monads to the solution of those very “cases” and “tricks” that one is obliged to undertake a person who has chosen the “profession” of a leader.

Among the many phrases and aphorisms written by Lenin, there is one that belonged to Aristotle: “Only after everything necessary was present... people began to philosophize.” 18
Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 29 P. 82.

So, despite the pleasure derived from communicating with great thinkers, one had to think about daily bread every day.

In the first year of the war there was no problem of “finance”. In April 1913, Elizaveta Vasilyevna Krupskaya’s sister, O.V. Tistrova, died in Novocherkassk, a classy lady who had saved 4 thousand rubles over 30 years of teaching. She bequeathed this amount, along with silver spoons and icons, to Elizaveta Vasilievna. The monetary part of the inheritance was transferred to one of the banks in Krakow, where Vladimir Ilyich, Nadezhda Konstantinovna and her mother lived. However, with the outbreak of war - as the property of subjects of a hostile country - this money was subject to sequestration. Only with the help of a clever Viennese broker, who took half for the services, was it possible to obtain the remaining two thousand. With this money, Krupskaya recalled, they lived 19
See: Memoirs of V.I. Lenin. T. 1. P. 396.

However, already at the end of 1915, Nadezhda Konstantinovna wrote to M.I. Ulyanova: “All our old sources of livelihood are soon ending, and the question of earning money is becoming quite acute... We need to think about literary earnings.” 20
Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 55. P. 454.

Just at this time, Vladimir Ilyich completed work on the book “New data on the laws of development of capitalism in agriculture. Vol. 1. Capitalism and agriculture in the USA.” It analyzed the latest statistical data he received from America. At the beginning of 1916, the work was sent to Petrograd by A.M. Gorky for its legal publication. Krupskaya’s voluminous brochure “Public Education and Democracy” was also sent there, in which the European school was criticized for “depersonalizing the student” and suppressing his ability to think independently.

Vladimir Ilyich began to continue his research, for the second issue - about agriculture in Germany and Austria-Hungary. But it soon became clear that this work should be postponed, because there was a more realistic and urgent order.

At the end of 1915, Gorky wrote to Mikhail Pokrovsky in Paris that the Petrograd publishing house Parus intended to publish a series of brochures “Europe before and during the war.” And Alexey Maksimovich suggested that the Bolshevik emigrants take over the author’s work. The proposal was accepted: Pokrovsky and Lozovsky were to write about France, Rothstein - about England, Lunacharsky - about Italy, Larin - about Germany, Zinoviev - about Austria-Hungary, Pavlovich - about non-European countries. “But right away,” recalled M.N. Pokrovsky,” the question arose about an introductory brochure that would give meaning and illumination to the entire series: a brochure on imperialism. And it was clear at first glance that there was no one but Lenin to write it.” 21
Pokrovsky M.N. October Revolution. Sat. articles. 1917–1927. M., 1929.
P. 67.

Vladimir Ilyich agreed, because the topic was not new to him. While still in exile in Shusha, he studied the latest literature on the evolution of modern capitalism. I wrote articles about this. In 1904, he translated D. A. Hobson’s book “Imperialism”. And once again in Switzerland, he began to study this range of problems in Berne and then Zurich libraries. Therefore, already on January 11, 1916, Lenin wrote to Gorky: “I am sitting down to work on a brochure on imperialism.” 22
Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 49. P. 170.

The amount of work he did is difficult to take into account - among the latest literature there was a lot of amateurish rubbish that was discarded at once. But 20 “Notebooks on Imperialism” contained extracts: from 148 books (including 106 in German, 23 in French, 17 in English and 2 in Russian translations); of 232 articles (206 German, 13 French and 13 English), published in 49 periodicals (34 German, 7 French, 8 English) 23
Right there. T. 28. C. VIII.

In June 1916, the work “Imperialism, as the newest stage of capitalism” was completed. Perhaps the main difficulty was to fit the collected material into the framework of a five-page book, while maintaining the legality and popularity of the genre. And when the publishers, contrary to the previous agreement, demanded - following the example of other brochures - to reduce the volume of work to three pages, Vladimir Ilyich refused. “All the material, the plan and most of the work,” he writes to Pokrovsky, “were already completed according to the ordered plan of 5 sheets (200 handwritten pages), so it was absolutely impossible to compress it again to 3 sheets... Subtitle “Popular Essay” is certainly necessary, because a number of important matters are presented in relation to this nature of the work... I tried my best to apply “rigor” [censorship]: it’s difficult for me, it’s terrible, I feel that there are a lot of unevenness because of this. There’s nothing you can do!” 24
Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 49. pp. 256, 259.

On July 2, he sent the manuscript by registered parcel to Pokrovsky in France. And it was precisely at this time that Krupskaya’s illness, which, as she put it, was “bitter”, worsened again and it was necessary to immediately go to the mountains. Just a few days later they went to the canton of Saint-Gallen, not far from Zurich, and settled about eight kilometers from Flums station, in the Chudivize holiday home, very close to the snowy peaks.

“The holiday home,” recalled Nadezhda Konstantinovna, “was the cheapest, 2½ franc per day per person... In the morning they gave coffee with milk and bread with butter and cheese, but without sugar, for lunch - milk soup, something from cottage cheese and milk for the third, at 4 o'clock again coffee with milk, in the evening something else - something dairy. The first days we actually howled from this milk treatment, but then we supplemented it with food of raspberries and blueberries, which grew all around in huge quantities.

Our room was clean, illuminated by electricity, unfurnished, we had to clean it ourselves and clean our boots ourselves. The last function was taken upon himself, imitating the Swiss, by Vladimir Ilyich, and every morning he took my and his mountain boots and went with them to the shed where they were supposed to clean the boots, laughed with other cleaners and was so zealous that once, even with general laughter, he brushed off the one standing right there. a wicker basket with a whole bunch of empty beer bottles" 25

They walked a lot along mountain paths. Vladimir Ilyich discussed his articles, and then sat down and wrote them down. Nadezhda Konstantinovna’s health improved significantly, and they were already thinking about returning to Zurich 26
V.I.Lenin. Unknown documents. 1891–1922. M., 1999. P. 189.

But sad news came...

On July 25 (12), 1916, at a dacha in Bolshiye Yukki, near the Finnish border, in the arms of Anna and Maria, her mother, Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova, died at the age of 82. Her body was transported to Petrograd and buried next to the grave of her daughter Olga. The coffin was carried by Mark Elizarov and Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich. Vladimir Ilyich probably remembered how a quarter of a century earlier, on May 10, 1891, he walked behind Olga’s coffin, supporting his quiet mother, taut as a string, by his arm. They walked “silently, lowering their eyes, suppressed to the last degree by the absurdity, wildness, meaninglessness of loss... I just somehow couldn’t believe myself [just like you don’t believe yourself when you are under the fresh impression of the death of a loved one]... When when you go for a dead person,” Vladimir Ilyich wrote then, “it’s easiest to cry precisely when words of regret begin to be spoken…” 27
Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 4. pp. 346–347.

And now, having received the news of his mother’s death, he did not tell anyone about it. He did not want to listen to any words of regret or words of sympathy. Vladimir Ilyich wrote only two letters to his sisters in St. Petersburg and “it was clear,” Anna Ilyinichna recalled, “how difficult this loss was for him, how painfully he experienced it and how much tenderness he showed towards us, who were also depressed by this death.” 28
Right there. T. 55. C. XXX.

Psychologists know that the best way out of a stressful state is work. Therefore, we decided not to return to Zurich for now, but to stay here – in Chudiviz. “In a holiday home,” writes Krupskaya, “where the price for maintenance 2½ franc per person, the “decent” public did not settle.” And from the Swiss hard workers, with their restraint and tact, one could not be afraid of either idle questions or intrusive interlocutors.

And again they wandered together along deserted mountain paths. And again he discussed his articles. Then, returning, he sat down by the window and wrote them down in neat handwriting. The house was old, wooden, with creaky steps. And under the window, in the evenings, “the owner’s son played the accordion and the vacationers danced at the top of their lungs. Until about eleven o'clock the tramp of dancers could be heard." 29
Memories of V.I. Lenin. T. 1. P. 426.

But that’s not what bothered me at all...

In August, Yuri Pyatakov, who was 26 years old in those days, sent an article “The Proletariat and the “Right of Nations to Self-Determination...””. Vladimir Ilyich was glad when Pyatakov and Evgenia Bosch, who had escaped from Siberian exile through Japan and the United States, appeared in Bern in February 1915. Together with Lenin, the “Japanese” began to publish the magazine “Communist”. But it soon became obvious that their positions diverged on a number of issues. The showdown began. And the article sent by Pyatakov showed that the “young” did not perceive the criticism at all, and often did not fully understand it. "We talk past each other" 30
Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 49. P. 346.

, - Vladimir Ilyich noted. There was something of youth in this, but much more of theoretical amateurism.

If we summarize the articles and letters of Lenin and his opponents, then the essence of the disagreement was as follows...

The fact that in the imperialist era the scope of democratic freedoms, as a rule, narrowed, was recognized by both sides. Using economic dependence and oppression of the mass of the population, the bourgeoisie skillfully manipulates votes. In order to achieve the decisions she needs, she – both directly and indirectly – bribes government officials and the government itself, thereby prostituting each and every “human rights”.

No one denied that at the beginning of the 20th century, under the guise of “defense of the fatherland,” as a rule, wars were waged to redistribute spheres of influence. And even more so, everyone understood that behind the desire of oppressed peoples for self-determination often hid the selfish policy of the national bourgeoisie, the desire to pit different nationalities against each other, as well as the petty-bourgeois conviction that "our bedbugs are the best in the world!”

But does this mean, as Pyatakov believed, that the fact of the “impossibility” of full democracy in the era of imperialism leads to the denial of democracy as such? What does the fact of the selfishness of the national bourgeoisie entail the denial of the struggle for self-determination of nations? And does it mean that understanding the essence of the ongoing imperialist carnage leads to the denial of all wars in general? Lenin gives a negative answer to all three questions. He decides to publish Pyatakov’s article in the “Social-Democrat Collection” No. 3, accompanying it with his article “On the caricature of Marxism and “imperialist economism”.”

““Revolutionary Social Democracy,” writes Lenin, “will not be compromised by anyone unless it compromises itself.” This saying must always be remembered and kept in mind” when this or that theoretical position of Marxism is "except direct and serious enemies... “they are attacked” by such friends who hopelessly compromise him - in Russian: they disgrace him - turning him into a caricature" 31
Right there. T. 30. P. 77.

Pyatakov’s problem is a lack of understanding of the dialectics of life. “He wants to turn denial of the defense of the fatherland into sample, withdraw Not from a specific historical feature given war, but “just in case.” This is not Marxism" 32
Right there. P. 65.

Lenin explains: “Wars are an extremely variegated, diverse, complex thing. You can’t approach with a general template.” He clarifies: “We are not against at all“defense of the fatherland”, I’m not against it at all“defensive wars”. Never this nonsense in any resolution (and not in any of my articles) Not you will find. We are against the defense of the fatherland and defense in imperialist war..." 33
Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 49. pp. 288, 369.

If with both sides, as was the case in ancient times between Rome and Carthage, and now between England and Germany, the purpose of the war is robbery: the fight for colonies, for markets, etc., then the attitude towards war falls under the rule: if “2 thieves fight , let them both die" 34
Right there. P. 370.

And in order to save millions of people from inevitable death in such a war, it is necessary to turn arms against the instigators of this massacre. Against the government his countries.

In our current “historical journalism” quite often (sometimes out of ignorance, but usually out of intent) they replace “the defeat of their government” with “the defeat of Russia.” Meanwhile, “defeat of the government,” or more simply, its overthrow, means something completely different.

Even from a school history course it is known that the “defeat of the government,” that is, the overthrow of the king in 1793 in France, became the prologue to the triumphant march of the revolutionary French army across Europe. And Guchkov and his conspiratorial officers, who intended in the fall of 1916 to achieve the forced abdication of Nicholas II and the resignation of his cabinet, also believed that this would prevent the defeat of Russia.

The difference was that Guchkov wanted to use the palace coup to continue the war. And the Bolsheviks saw in the overthrow of the government the possibility of a revolutionary way out of the bloodbath. For “every victorious step of the revolution will save hundreds of thousands and millions of people from death, from ruin and hunger” 35
Right there. T. 31. P. 295.

Moreover, it was a question, Lenin emphasized, not of “war sabotage”, not of the murder of tsarist ministers, just as Friedrich Adler shot the Austrian prime minister in October 1916. This kind of action, Vladimir Ilyich believed, was harmful. He was convinced that “only a mass movement can be considered a political struggle... Not terrorism, but systematic, long-term, dedicated work of revolutionary propaganda and agitation, demonstrations, etc., etc.... against imperialists, against own governments against wars are what we need" 36
Right there. T. 49. P. 14, 312,313.

And this, Lenin believed, should be done not only by the Bolsheviks of Russia, by the internationalists of “not just one nation,” but of all warring states, as K. Liebknecht, R. Luxemburg in Germany, F. Loriot, A. Guilbeau in France, D. Serrati, A. Gramsci in Italy, D. McLean in England, Y. Debs in the USA and others.

But at the same time it must be remembered that in the imperialist era There can also be just, defensive, revolutionary wars. And if, for example, the question is “about the overthrow of a foreign national yoke,” then we need to fight. So “if during a war,” concludes Vladimir Ilyich, “we are talking about the defense of democracy or the fight against the yoke that oppresses the nation, I am not at all against such a war and I am not afraid of the words “defense of the fatherland” when they refer to this kind of war or uprising" 37
Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 49. P. 288, 324; T. 30. P. 262.

As for democracy, even under imperialism it cannot be denied "opportunity complete democracy within the richest nation when saving its domination over dependent nations. This was the case in ancient Greece,” explains Lenin, “on the basis of slavery.” But most importantly, “socialism is impossible without democracy in two senses: (1) the proletariat cannot carry out a socialist revolution if it does not prepare for it by fighting for democracy; (2) it is impossible for victorious socialism to maintain its victory and lead humanity to the withering away of the state without fully implementing democracy.” And even the dictatorship of the proletariat “is completely compatible with full, comprehensive democracy... (contrary to vulgar opinion)” 38
Right there. T. 30. P. 128, 386; T. 49. P. 380.

Of course, all “talk about “rights” seems ridiculous during the war,” writes Lenin, “for any war puts direct and immediate violence in the place of law...” It was the world war, he argues, that gave birth to the “era of the bayonet”: “This is a fact, which means we must fight with such weapons.” But at the same time, we must always remember that “in our ideal there is no place for violence against people.” Therefore, when Pyatakov and his terribly left-wing friends, rejecting the right of nations to self-determination, declared that one must be guided by economic expediency, and that “the will and sympathies of the population” are “historically illegitimate sentimentality,” Lenin replied that such views have nothing to do with Marxism and are nothing more than “imperialist economism”. “...It’s awkward to chew on the ABCs of Marxism,” concludes Vladimir Ilyich, “but what can you do when P. Kievsky [Yu. Pyatakov] doesn’t know it?” 39
Right there. T. 30. P. 68, 69, 122, 127; T. 49. P. 27.

A month passed during their stay in Chudiviz. There was no information about the fate of the pamphlet on imperialism. Only at the beginning of August it becomes clear that the manuscript was detained by French censors. The censors were apparently alarmed by the abundance of German sources and statistical data (“Oh, these Germans!” Vladimir Ilyich jokingly remarks, “they are to blame for the disappearance! If only the French had defeated them!” 40
Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 49. P. 274.

). I had to rewrite 200 pages again and send them again, this time using the secret communication channels of Sotsial-Demokrat. 41
Right there. pp. 265, 266, 274.

After a six-week stay in the mountains, Nadezhda Konstantinovna completely recovered. And at the beginning of September we decided to return to Zurich. Chudiviz had its own custom of seeing off. At about six in the morning the bell rang, vacationers gathered and “sang a farewell song about some kind of cuckoo. Each verse, writes Krupskaya, ended with the words: “Farewell, cuckoo!” So this morning all the “sanatoriums” gathered to see off the two Russians and sang the traditional “cuckoo”. “Going down through the forest,” continues Krupskaya, “Vladimir Ilyich suddenly saw porcini mushrooms and, despite the fact that it was raining, began to collect them with excitement... We were wet to the bone, but we collected a whole bag of mushrooms. Of course, we were late for the train, and had to sit at the station for two hours waiting for the next one...” 42
Memories of V.I. Lenin. T. 1. P. 427.

In Zurich it turned out that the manuscript on imperialism had been received in St. Petersburg, but the publishing editors, among whom the Mensheviks predominated, crossed out all polemics with Kautsky and Martov. And this was no longer an ordinary literary edition, to which Vladimir Ilyich gave full consent, but an invasion of the author’s plan, a continuation of those political “games,” or rather, squabbles, into which the polemics of the Bolsheviks with the Mensheviks and vice versa often turned.

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