Vladimir Lenin's Cult of Personality
"[A cult of personality] is the complete identification of a nation with its leader. What is good for the leader is good for the nation. What is good for the nation is what the leader says is good for the nation."
-Ted Gottfried, author of The Stalinist Empire
Following his death on January 21, 1924, a cult of personality was developed around Vladimir Lenin. It was the first communist example of the cult of personality, to which that of Joseph Stalin was the second.
"Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live.” -Caption of poster |
"With Lenin dead, an extraordinary thought took root in the minds of some of the Russian Communist Party: do not bury Lenin, but mummify his body- just like some Pharoah of old- and keep it in a mausoleum where everyone could come to see it. This was done, and since 1924 millions of people have been to Moscow to see Lenin. The mausoleum is so sacred that photography is forbidden inside it, and no one may even stop and stare; you must keep moving when in the tomb. How Lenin would have hated it all if he were still alive!" -Martin McCauley, author of The Stalin File |
"Lenin is dead. Leninism lives. It lives in our great party, in the Communist International, in the revolutionary movement of the whole world. When the proletarian revolution is victorious throughout the world that will be first and foremost the victory of Lenin."
-Grigory Zinoviev, Bolshevik revolutionary