Canadian Slavonic Papers

Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia by Nina TumarkinReview by: R. C. ElwoodCanadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, Vol. 26, No. 4 (December 1984), pp.364-366Published by: Canadian Association of SlavistsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40868346 .

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364 1 Revue Canadienne des Slavistes Décembre 1984

the movement: "almost nothing in the practice of the factory committees suggests that they rejected the concepts of state power ... or a centrally planned economy." Hence it is impossible to accuse the Bolsheviks of cynically using the movement for their own ends. They merely attempted to guide it into the most effective channels. Yet Lenin, as the Left Communists discerned, was doing a great dis- service to the Revolution in divorcing his concept of socialism from a close demo- cratic control over production processes at the lowest level.

The relations between the trade unions and factory committees come in for extended scrutiny, as do the collective bargaining techniques which the workers effectively developed within months, becoming skilled negotiators in wage contract discussions. Trade unions wished to raise lower-paid workers' wages, decreasing differentials. For instance the Printers' Union tried to upgrade unskilled workers by 90-100%, raising the skilled by only 50%. Angry scenes followed, some type- setters remarking that they were "putting the wretched water-carrier's nag on a par with the drayman's fine mare."

Overall this is a valuable study by a committed historian. He applauds the Bolsheviks' intent to introduce democratic socialism, while regretting their naivete about the long-term dangers of using compulsion.

D. N. Collins, University of Leeds

Nina Tumarkin. Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983. xiii, 315 pp. $20.00.

Before reading Nina Tumarkin's excellent book, I believed that Lenin was different from his successors in one important aspect. Stalin, to be sure, had his "cult of the personality;" Khrushchev and even Brezhnev had their mini-cults; but Lenin was somehow pure. One almost took it for granted that the creator of the Bolshevik Party, the leader of the October Revolution, and the first head of the Soviet state should be venerated after his death in 1924. The idolization which followed was seemingly a spontaneous and natural reaction of a grateful and grief-stricken nation. By contrast, the Stalin cult of the 1930s was an artificial aberration and a crude imitation of the real thing. Not only did Stalin lack Lenin's human and intellectual qualities, but also unlike his predecessor he promoted his own cult during his lifetime. Thus, it was appropriate that the "cult of the personality" should expire three years after Stalin himself died, while "Lenin lives" today almost sixty years after his body was laid to rest in the mausoleum.

It is a major contribution of Professor Tumarkin's book that it shows convinc- ingly how the glorification of Lenin, far from being spontaneous, was in fact a conscious exercise in myth-making begun by his associates during his lifetime and with his acquiescence if not active participation. This was done not so much out of love and admiration for Vladimir IPich as in an effort to exploit his name and

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Vol. xxvi, No. 4 Book Reviews | 365

authority and thereby stabilize and legitimize Bolshevik political power. These endeavours took root, Tumarkin suggests, because of elements in the Russian past - the veneration of Orthodox saints by the Russian peasantry, the glorifica- tion of revolutionary heroes by the Russian intelligentsia, the tradition of "naive monarchism," the apocalyptic literature of the Silver Age, and the politico- religious formulations of the Social Democratic "God-builders" - which made Soviet Russia fertile ground for the Lenin cult. Its first manifestation came in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Lenin's life in August 1918 (which he "miraculously" survived) and on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday two years later when his colleagues heaped praise and flattery on him. It reached its zenith with his funeral in January 1924 when a half-million Soviet citizens braved -35° temperatures to walk past his open coffin. This outpouring of national grief was then consciously channelled into "mourning meetings," party enrolments, and pledges of money and extra work. "Lenin Corners," "Lenin Evenings," and even little Lenins ("Vladlen" if a boy, "Ninel" [Lenin backwards] if a girl) became commonplace. Indeed, it took the authority of the "Immortalization Commission" to keep Lenin's facsimile off cigarette packages and candy wrappers which might otherwise end up under foot. Lenin in death became the emotional bond between the citizenry and the party; his cult was orchestrated in such a fashion as to inspire and to unify the Russian people behind his supposedly faithful colleagues and to offset the potentially destabilizing effects of his untimely death.

The heart of this new secular religion was of course the granite mausoleum and the mummified body kept therein. Professor Tumarkin is at her best when describing the hasty construction of the first prefabricated wooden structure and the subsequent national competition to design a more appropriate lasting memorial (e.g., an Eiffel-type tower but taller, of course, or a gigantic screw hung with pro- paganda slogans). She notes that Trotsky and Kamenev as well as Krupskaia were opposed to the mummification and display of Lenin's body as a pseudo-religious relic. A greater obstacle was the mould that set in despite refrigeration and pre- liminary embalming. To counteract decomposition, V. P. Vorobev, a professor of anatomy rather than an embalmer, applied a secret formula which supposedly succeeded where the pharaohs had failed.

Ironically, the cult of Lenin went into eclipse soon after the permanent mausoleum was officially opened in October 1930. By then "Stalin was the Lenin of today" and a new cult was in the making. It was left to Khrushchev to rehabilitate Lenin and to renew his cult but with a different emphasis. The "martyred hero of genius" celebrated in the 1920s became "the dimpled gentleman of soft focus." The fervour and purpose which characterized the cult in the decade of Lenin's death gave way to the propagation of an unemotional and unconvincing myth.

It is remarkable that the history of the Lenin cult was not written long ago. To those interested in Lenin, in political mythology, or in social history this book will be stimulating and fascinating. It warrants what is apparently the highest praise given by the average undergraduate: it is "easy to read" and inherently

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366 1 Canadian Slavonic Papers December 1984

"interesting." Professor Tumarkin tells her tale with grace and wit. She has an eye for revealing detail and is not above repeating illustrative anecdotes. Her chapters are models of clear organization and her text has been complemented by twenty- five relevant photographs. As an added bonus, the book has been attractively produced and almost reasonably priced. My only complaint is that Harvard University Press has followed its usual practice of placing the "footnotes" at the end of the volume. This is a pity given the uniqueness of Professor Tumarkin's sources and the commentary often buried in these notes. One would never guess that Lenin Lives! started its life as a doctoral dissertation.

R. C. Elwood, Carleton University

Peter J. Potichnyj and Jane Shapiro Zacek (Eds.). Politics and Participation under Communist Rule. New York: Praeger, 1983. xvii, 282 pp. $29.95.

This volume contains ten papers presented at the Second World Congress for Soviet and East European Studies held at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in autumn 1980. The Potichnyj-Zacek team is no stranger to undertaking such an enterprise: it edited two volumes of essays delivered at the First Congress in Banff in 1974. The earlier books focused on change and adaptation in Soviet bloc countries and on detente, accurately reflecting the viewpoints of that period. The present volume adopts political participation in Communist systems as the dependent variable, in this way reflecting a more recent approach taken by Western specialists on Soviet- type systems.

The concern with the level of popular and group participation in the political process was triggered in the West by the social upheavals of the late 1960s. While Skilling was already at that time adopting a similar perspective to the study of Communist states, it was really not until the mid-1970s that scholars fully recognized the complex and institutionally pluralist nature of those regimes. The participa- tion model came into vogue then, but one wonders whether it might not seem as outdated or dead by the time of the Third Congress in 1985 as the détente viewpoint is today. The contributors to this volume provide evidence and arguments that, by and large, support this proposition.

In the one chapter that deals specifically with popular participation, and the first that discusses the concept of participation at any length, Adams convincingly demonstrates how "a formidable legislative groundwork has already been laid to improve mechanisms for ... 'authentic' as opposed to 'spurious' citizen participa- tion" (p. 189). But she immediately adds that Soviet citizens must "find ways and means of exercising these rights fully." Looking at participation by specialist groups yields no further support to the advocates of the participation perspective. For example, Khrushchev's approach to construction policy between 1954 and 1957 required participation by reform-minded groups, Martiny suggests, but his

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