MOSCOW On a sunny, frosty morning, the marshal Georgi Zhukov a group of people gather at the foot of the equestrian statue. Flowers are unwrapped and distributed. The crowd is quite old, you hardly see young people in this crowd.
The purpose is to count flowers Vladimir Lenin at the foot of the mausoleum, because today, Sunday, 100 years have passed since the death of the leader of the revolution.
In this group, Lenin is not remembered as a bloody Soviet dictator.
– In fact, the figure of Vladimir Lenin is so great that it has an inescapable significance not only for Russia but also for the whole world, says Darja Mitinaone of the conveners of the morning gathering.
He believes that even the most developed European countries can thank the October Revolution of 1917 led by Lenin for their social standards.
Darja Mitina is a former Member of Parliament and Secretary for International Affairs of the Central Committee of the United Communist Party OKP.
It is one of the groups that broke away from the Russian Communist Party KPRF. As so often in the history of communism, the “scene” in Russia is scattered.
Darja Mitina says that communism has a future, in Russia and in the world.
– You can say that the first experiment was not successful, but there are others ahead, which will be more successful, he says.
Secretary of another small communist party, KPSS Gennadi Tibenin says that Lenin is very current.
– People understand that the capitalist system as such has exhausted itself. We have no future with capitalism.
He believes that communism is achievable when all left-wing forces unite.
In Russia, people like to remember that Lenin recognized Finland’s independence in 1917. How do modern communists feel about NATO-Finland?
– I think that there are the same kind of workers in Finland as in Russia. There is nothing that separates me from working Finns, Gennadi Tibenin sets his words.
Like many Russian politicians, Darja Mitina believes that by joining NATO, Finland has made itself a US colony.
– I think that it is not comfortable for ordinary Finns to be, so to speak, a native in a new colony. We seriously warn all Europeans that it is a harmful path.
Darja Mitina says that Lenin had a positive attitude towards Finland.
– We know how tenderly Finns preserve Lenin’s memory, how many places in Finland are associated with Lenin’s name.
He apparently hasn’t heard that Finland’s last Lenin statue on display was moved to storage in Kotka in October 2022 and that Helsinki’s Lenin Park is changing its name.
The revolutionary leader left a difficult legacy
The group lines up towards the mausoleum. The police won’t let them carry the flags with them, so they are piled up at the foot of Zhukov’s statue to wait.
Later, more people start to gather at the statue. The leadership of the Russian Communist Party KPRF is expected at the mausoleum. The party’s presidential candidate Nikolai Kharitonov flowers are to be laid at the mausoleum. The KPRF is an opposition party loyal to the Kremlin.
There are also Muscovites in the crowd at the statue Julia Lyskova and his friends Jelena Polyatchok from the nearby town of Himki. Young people have come to remember a significant historical figure, but they do not yearn for Soviet communism.
– Communism was really quite harsh at that time. I feel like it’s better now. During communism, there were few commodities, they were queued up. Now everything is plentiful and available, Julija Lyskova reflects.
– If the Soviet Union hadn’t broken up, we wouldn’t have freedom, says Jelena Poljatšok.
– In fact, the Russian Federation is no worse than the Soviet Union. That is why we remember that country and live in this country that exists now.
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov aka Lenin (1870–1924) is a more difficult figure for Russia’s current rulers than his successors Joseph Stalin. Stalin can be celebrated for his victory over Nazi Germany. The millions of victims of his regime, on the other hand, do not like to remember.
Lenin was above all a revolutionary, and the current Russian leadership does not like revolutions.
the president of Russia Vladimir Putin according to Lenin, it is precisely Lenin who can be considered the architect of modern Ukraine, i.e. the state against which Putin’s Russia is now waging war.
In Putin’s opinion, Lenin created a state structure that crumbled Russia. Darja Mitina regrets Putin’s views, which she considers historically incorrect.
– We should not forget that Putin, like Yeltsin, was shaped in the party bureaucracy of the late Soviet era. Putin’s formation as a politician already took place under the influence of the oligarchic big bourgeoisie, Mitina explains.
– On the other hand, we see that our management is able to learn from mistakes, including their own. I’m sure sooner or later that rhetoric will change, he says hopefully.