Lenin’s Illness

p The creation of the USSR was destined to be the last great achievement under Lenin’s direct guidance. The immense work, beyond all ordinary human capacity, that he had undertaken and carried through had broken his health.

p The grievous wounds inflicted by two poisoned bullets in August 1918, had also had their effect. From the winter of 1921 onward his doctors had repeatedly had to induce him to set his work aside and go off for a brief rest.

p In May 1922, he suffered cerebral haemorrhage, resulting in some loss of function of the right arm and leg and some impairment of speech. He underwent treatment and rested at Gorki, near Moscow. Upon recovery, in the early part of October 1922, he returned to Moscow and resumed his work. After two and a half months of strenuous work symptoms of serious overstrain reappeared.

December 12, 1922, was Lenin’s last day of work in his Kremlin office. A relapse of his ailment occurred on the night of December 15, which laid him up for a lengthy spell. Lenin fully realised that his ailment could at any moment result in death. This realisation prompted him, as soon as he had somewhat improved, that is, towards the close of 1922 and in early 1923, to dictate a number of letters and articles in which he reviewed and summed up the construction of socialism in the USSR and outlined the tasks that lay ahead. These letters and articles were the political last will and testament that he left his Party and his people.

Industrialisation:
Economic Foundation for Socialism

p Lenin urged developing the country into a mighty industrial power capable of providing all the various branches of the national economy with modern equipment and assuring the country’s economic independence and defence capacity; for this he considered to be an all-important precondition, from an economic point of view, in building socialism. He particularly emphasised the importance of developing heavy industry, the production of means of production, and the role of nation-wide electrification.

Lenin drew attention to the tremendous difficulties associated with the accomplishment of this task. The economic history of the capitalist states showed that backward countries had been able to develop their heavy industry only with the help of long-term and extensive borrowing from the more developed states. The Soviet state had not had recourse to such borrowing, he pointed out, and had thus to finance the development of its heavy industry out of its own savings. It was necessary to cut costs as much as possible by staff reductions in the apparatus of government and even at the expense of schools, but funds had to be found in the state budget for the reconstruction and development of heavy industry. "If we are not able to provide them,” wrote Lenin, "we shall be doomed as a civilised state, let alone as a socialist state."  [67•1  He was firmly convinced that the Soviet people would know how to overcome the difficulties and would achieve the country’s industrialisation.

Lenin on Co-operation

p Large-scale collective farming was the second important precondition of success in socialist construction, in Lenin’s opinion. This, he wrote, should be made as understandable, accessible and advantageous as possible to the working peasants— through co-operation. Co-operatives of the simplest kind should be introduced in rural areas as a first step, for they would offer the peasants definite material benefits, demonstrate the advantage of, and give them training in, collective economic management, and thereby promote a gradual and voluntary association of peasants in large production co-operatives (collective farms or kolkhozes) employing modern machinery and equipment.

p Lenin repeatedly warned that "The proletarian state must effect the transition to collective farming with extreme caution and only very gradually, by the force of example, without any coercion of the middle peasant”,  [68•1  and that "Associations are only worth-while when they have been set up by the peasants themselves, on their own initiative, and the benefits of them have been verified in practice".  [68•2  Lenin urged the fullest possible support of the peasant movement to join in co-operatives and all manner of state aid to those who did.

There was yet another precondition that Lenin considered indispensable to the success of socialist construction in the USSR, including a change to large-scale socialist farming. This was a cultural revolution that would completely banish illiteracy, introduce universal compulsory education in the languages of the country’s various nationalities, create a genuine intelligentsia of the people, inculcate socialist principles in the people, and raise science, literature and art to the highest level.

Soviet State—
Main Tool in Building Socialism

p Politically, Lenin pointed out, the most important factor assuring success in the construction of socialism and communism was the Soviet state founded on an indissoluble alliance of workers and peasants, and he called upon the people to unceasingly strengthen this alliance, to cherish it as the apple of their eye. He believed this alliance would guarantee the complete victory of socialism and communism.

p The power and strength of the Soviet state rests also on friendship, mutual trust and unity among the peoples. Maintenance and incessant development of this friendship was one of the most important requirements for achieving success in socialist construction, Lenin taught.

p Lenin considered it highly important to improve the apparatus of government and reduce its overhead expenses, to link it more strongly with the people, to draw the workers and peasants increasingly into state administration. Proper organisation of Party and government control was of the greatest importance in this respect. Lenin suggested that the bodies exercising Party and government control both centrally and locally should be combined, and that all sections of the working people should be induced to participate in their work.

p If the Soviet state is to be the main weapon in the hands of the working class in its effort to build socialism, wrote Lenin, it must be headed by the Communist Party—vanguard of the working class; and the Communist Party, if it is to be the directing and guiding force of the Soviet state, must maintain strict unity in its ranks, unceasingly strengthen its links with the masses, teach them and learn from the masses, get millions and tens of millions to take part in the work of communist construction.

Such were the most important directions given by Lenin in respect of the building of socialism in the USSR. Drawing upon the experience already gained in socialist construction Lenin showed that the Soviet Union possessed all that was needed to build a fully socialist society and declared himself deeply convinced that ”. . .not in a day, but in a few years—all of us together will fulfil it [the task of building a socialist society—Ed.] whatever the cost, so that NEP Russia will become a socialist Russia".  [69•1 

Lenin Gone,
His Behests Guide Country

p On March 10, 1923, Lenin suffered a third stroke, heavier than before, which resulted in complete impairment of speech and aggravation of paralysis of the right arm and leg. As from March 14 bulletins on his condition began to be published in the newspapers, which were read with great concern by the nation. Letters and telegrams flocked in from all over the country wishing him a speedy recovery.

p There was some improvement in his condition in May, and he was taken to Gorki. He fought stubbornly to regain his health, and there was marked improvement: he began to walk and read, learned to write with his left hand. On October 18 he came back to Moscow, went to his flat, called at his office in the Kremlin. On the following day he visited the agricultural exposition and then returned to Gorki.

p There was universal hope that Lenin would soon be back at work, and when, on January 19, 1924, M. I. Kalinin announced to the delegates at the llth All-Russia Congress of Soviets that Lenin’s treating doctors hoped he might soon be able to resume his duties as head of state there was a storm of applause.

p On January 21, however, there came a sudden grave turn for the worse, and at 6:50 p.m. Lenin died of cerebral haemorrhage. Great was the grief of the Soviet people who had lost their beloved leader and friend. "Never since Marx has the history of the great liberation movement of the proletariat produced such a titanic figure as our departed leader, teacher and friend,” said the message of the Party’s Central Committee to the Party and the people. "All that is truly great and heroic in the proletariat—a fearless mind, a will of iron, unbending, persistent and able to surmount all obstacles, a burning, undying hatred of slavery and oppression, a revolutionary passion that moves mountains, boundless faith in the creative energies of the masses, vast organisational genius—all this found splendid embodiment in Lenin, whose name has become the symbol of the new world from East to West, from North to South."  [70•1 

p On January 23 the casket with Lenin’s remains was brought from Gorki to Moscow and placed in the House of the Soviets, in the Hall of Columns. During the next five days a grieving throng streamed uninterrupted, day and night, past the coffin, workers and peasants, men and women, Red Armymen, youngsters. Delegations from all over the country were on their way to Moscow to render homage to the deceased.

p On January 26 a special meeting of the Second All-Union Congress of Soviets was convened. M. I. Kalinin, N. K. Krupskaya, J. V. Stalin and Clara Zetkin were among the speakers. On behalf of the workers and peasants, the Communist Party which Lenin had created, they pledged themselves to finish the work he had begun. The Congress adopted a resolution to perpetuate Lenin’s memory by changing the name of Petrograd to Leningrad, erecting monuments in the country’s leading cities, and publishing Lenin’s works. January 21, the day of Lenin’s death, was declared a day of mourning. Another resolution carried by the 71 Congress was to build near the Kremlin wall and the common graves of those who had fought for the Revolution a mausoleum to contain Lenin’s body, which would be open to the people.

p The funeral took place on January 27, 1924, at 4 o’clock p.m. There was a five-minute suspension of all activities throughout the country: trains stopped, factories ceased work, locomotive and factory whistles and sirens blew and wailed, as the country mourned the passing of its great leader. All over the world the working class observed a five-minute pause at the hour of the funeral; for the proletariat and the oppressed masses in the capitalist countries also took Lenin’s death as a great personal loss.

p Meetings and demonstrations in Lenin’s memory were organised in many cities the world over. The deep sorrow of the Chinese people is best described by the words of Sun Yat-sen, the prominent Chinese democrat and revolutionary, spoken at a memorial meeting in Canton. "Through the ages of world history,” he said, "thousands of leaders and scholars appeared who spoke eloquent words, but these remained but words. You, Lenin, were an exception. You not only spoke and taught us, but translated your words into deeds. You created a new country. You showed us the road of joint struggle.... You, great man that you are, will live on in the memories of the oppressed peoples through the centuries."  [71•1 

p Lenin’s death evoked a still closer rallying of Soviet workers round the Communist Party. Tens of thousands of workers filed applications for membership, and the Party Central Committee reacted to this initiative of the leading workers by announcing a membership campaign. In the course of three months over 240 thousand front-ranking workers joined the Party.

If Lenin was dead, his cause was immortal. Led by Lenin’s Party and with his teachings to guide it, the Soviet people went on building a new life with all the greater energy and determination, blazing a trail towards socialism for all mankind to follow.