Lenin's Week

Twenty-three years had passed since Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's death. Two scientists last week assured the ikon-loving Russians: "We are convinced that Lenin's body will remain in its present state for hundreds of years." Lenin's place in the Soviet hagiology, however, was not equally secure; he was becoming a mere peg on which to hang verbal votive offerings to Russian nationalism and to Stalin.

Comrade Pompadour. At last week's memorial ceremonies, a huge, floodlit portrait of Lenin looked down from the fac,ade of Moscow's Bolshoi Theater. But when the official party arrived, the crowd's eyes turned from Lenin's benignly sly features to those of Premier Stalin. Inside, on the red-draped stage, Georgi Fiodorovich Alexandrov, chief of the Party Central Committee's Bureau of Propaganda and Agitation, delivered the memorial address:

"Consolidating its ranks around Comrade Stalin, the party smashed the enemies of the people, all manner of counterrevolutionary Trotskyites, Bukharinites and other traitors and capitulators. . . . It is common knowledge that. . . Britain and the United States launched their biggest [military] operations only after . . . it had become clear that the Soviet Army was able to ... liberate the peoples of Europe from the German fascist yoke . . . without Allied assistance."

From Soviet ex-Minister to Sweden Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontay, 74 (also known as the Madame Pompadour of the Russian Revolution), came a bit of rhapsodic reminiscence: "I remember the room in Smolny where the Central Committee met. The windows looked out on to the Neva, and a strong wind from the river rattled the panes. One electric lamp burned dimly over a small table around which the Committee members met. The situation was tense. ... On Lenin's right sat Stalin in his dark Russian shirt, his silent self-possession forming a strong contrast to the excited tirades of some of our number. . . . Stalin was the very personification of strong will, clarity of purpose and coolheadedness."

In 1920, Kollontay had temporarily broken with the party and led the Workers Opposition Movement; now she gave what looked like a coy explanation of why she took so long to be converted to Stalinism: "Stalin . . . always seemed engrossed in his thoughts, so that when we met him, we hesitated to accost him for fear of interrupting his chain of thought."

Whoosh! Next day, U.S. Communists got around to paying their tribute to Little Father Lenin at Manhattan's Madison Square Garden. Climax of the memorial rally was unquestionably a song (see cut). The words were by C.I.O. Organizer Vern Partlow, music (a prolonged monotone) by leftist, talented Earl Robinson (Ballad for Americans, Porterhouse Lucy). Robinson rendered it in person, strumming his guitar and crooning close to the party line:

We hold this truth to be self-evident

That all men may be cremated equal. .. .

Atoms to atoms and dust to dust,

If you listen to the moneybags, something's bound to bust. . . .

Listen folks, here is my thesis:

Peace in the world or the world in pieces

Whooooosh!*

* (c) 1947 by People's Songs, Inc.

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