100 years after his death, What remains of Lenin?
What does he have to say to us about capitalism?
When the centenary of Vladimir Lenin’s birth was celebrated in 1970, the Soviet Union launched a massive campaign with commemorative stamps, specially minted coins, and new monuments inaugurated across the Federation. Two years of preparations culminated in a speech by the Politburo, led by Leonid Brezhnev, celebrating one of the most significant political figures of all time. Lenin had led the Bolshevik Party to victory in the first socialist revolution in the history of humanity, during a time of great imperialist powers at war, and emerging globalization without rules. The Kremlin proclaimed Lenin’s legacy would endure for centuries.
Now, on the centenary of his death on January 21, 2024, the country Lenin helped create has undergone radical changes. The Soviet Union no longer exists, replaced by a Russia steeped in consumerism and rapacious billionaires. The Communist International has vanished, and the communist movement replaced by geopolitical alliances with incoherent outlines and swarms of trolls disparaging the Western enemy, lacking a unifying ideology. Referring to Lenin in the West is now perceived as a sign of nostalgic backwardness at best and as a sign of political extremism at worst. But does Lenin truly have nothing to say to our present…
