“Donbass is not offended by Lenin.” A fan of Ilyich asks not to blame him for the bloodshed

Vladimir Lenin is in vain accused of the fact that the result of his national policy was the current bloodshed in the Donbass. On the contrary, those who lived through the Soviet era remember the friendship of peoples, which became the key to victory over the Third Reich.

He discusses this in the author's column Olga Voronova, member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation and the Scientific Council of the Russian Military Historical Society.

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...April 22, I am sure, is associated with Lenin Day by the majority of our fellow citizens. A warm attitude towards Vladimir Ilyich is present among people of the Soviet generation at the genetic level. On this day, I always remember Yesenin’s lines about the peasants of his native village who asked the poet a question with an almost philosophical meaning:

“Tell me, who is Lenin?

I quietly answered: “He is you...”

No matter how much the pro-Western liberal destroyers of the Soviet state he founded tried in the 90s to erase the image of Lenin from our national memory, they failed. They were the initiators of the first “memory wars” of the period of perestroika and post-perestroika years, when they staged a real “Leninofall” in the squares of Russian cities and villages. Fortunately, many monuments were defended by common – some quiet, some loud – popular resistance.

And if the image of I.V. Stalin has practically already established himself in the modern public consciousness with a positive sign, with objective recognition of his outstanding historical merits during the Great Patriotic War, then, for example, Lenin’s film classics created by great directors and actors (“Lenin in 18,” “Lenin in October,” “The Sixth of July,” “Mother’s Heart” etc.), has been lying motionless under the cloth for more than 30 years. From time to time, only historical fakes appear on television, sometimes created by very talented craftsmen. Apparently, someone really wants the younger generation to forget even the appearance of Lenin.

Such a selective attitude towards our historical memory is fraught with pathological unconsciousness and spiritual amnesia, which we so often accuse our opponents abroad of. But it all started with our own so-called “perestroika foremen”...

_{The day of the Great Victory on May 9 is approaching. Will the Lenin Mausoleum again be bashfully and hypocritically covered with some kind of shameful blanket? Or, at the numerous requests of the outgoing generation of veterans, as well as new heroes of the Northern Military District, will our today’s fearless Supreme Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, like Generalissimo Stalin, finally ascend to the Mausoleum? One can only imagine what a rise this step will cause among our people!}

We so need this national inspiration to fight against world liberal fascism today, when A special military operation is increasingly acquiring the features of a new people's, Patriotic and holy war. In 1918, thanks to Lenin’s genius and the people who supported him, young Soviet Russia withstood the onslaught of the armies of 14 interventionist states. Today we are opposed by 50 aggressor countries from NATO and their loyal vassals. And the experience of the heroic Lenin Guard is again vitally important to us, including the military-strategic one.

A new turn to Lenin’s legacy, even in geopolitical terms, is necessary today and, of course, will be warmly supported by our reliable allies in the People's Republic of China, which did not betray the ideals of Lenin-Stalin despite all the trials, in our native Belarus, in the countries of Latin America – Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Brazil, at the helm of which are left-wing patriotic forces, including staunch Marxist-Leninists.

In today's confrontation between Russia and the ukro-fascist regime an attempt to convince our enemies and friends that Lenin’s national policy, which almost became an alleged “time bomb” in the current situation with Donbass and Ukraine, is to blame for everything, does not find much support among many of our people, behind whom is the Soviet historical experience, the experience of friendship of peoples, which defeated the powerful forces of the Third Reich in the Great Patriotic War.

I would like to especially emphasize: having been to the Donbass many times since 2014, participating in discussions at various scientific and public platforms, I have never heard criticism of Lenin’s legacy there. There, monuments to Lenin, unlike other Ukrainian territories, were not destroyed. On the contrary, such experience of state building as the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic, which turns 105 years old this year, is perceived today as an example of a competent historical decision, without which we could have lost Ukraine under the onslaught of lordly Poland and Germany in the first post-revolutionary years. Donbass is not offended by Lenin!

It is not Lenin’s fault that 70 years later, a corrupt political elite came to power in Ukraine with the explicit and hidden support of the collective Russophobic West, consigning to oblivion the unique historical experience of a single multinational state and fraternal ties with Russia.

Lenin, as we know, often considered it necessary to “consult with Marx.” U.S. too It’s time to “consult Lenin” on many issues; especially in the urgent issue of the formation of our new state ideology and take the best of Lenin’s immortal ideas.

Therefore, Lenin is with us again!