The Lenin Cult

One of the most prplexing moments in Soviet history was the decision to have Lenin's body immortalised in a public mausoleum for all to see. In retrospect, one cannot help but view this as deeply antithetical to the radically materialist and atheist political culture of the Bolsheviks, whose scientific outlook was bound up with a sharp critique of superstitions and religious practices. The transformation of Lenin as a sacred idol entombed within a majestic temple-like structure cannot help but recall the Orthodox saints of Russia's past or Egyptian Pharaohs of another era. Indeed, this criticism was not lost on many Bolsheviks. Trotsky and Bukharin sharply critiqued the preservation of Lenin's corpse as a form of religious relic worship, and Lenin's widow Krupskaya privately objected and never visited the mausoleum.

Yet, the Bolsheviks who spearheaded this morbid initiative vehemently rejected any connections between Lenin's preservation and traditional religious practice; Enukidze had defensively noted that "it is obvious that neither we nor our comrades wanted to make out of the remains of Vladimir Ilich any kind of 'relic," insisting that the embalming was intended to preserve Lenin's features in perpetuity so future generations could witness the great Soviet hero. A closer look at the history of Lenin's "immortalisation" reveals that this process was shaped by ideological currents in utopian Bolshevik thinking, particularly Russian Cosmism and God-Building. In this way, Lenin's preserva­tion marked a significant departure from other historical instances of mummification, as it was never treated by the leadership as being connected to an afterlife, but was instead related to techno-futurist themes of scientific mastery over nature and biological renewal. At the same time, the emerging Lenin cult absorbed symbolic and emotional functions typically associated with spiritual devotion, and the mausoleum became a natural expression for this. In this connection anthropologist Alexei Yurchak writes:

While the politburo was isolating the living Lenin from the political world, it was simultaneously engaged in canonising Lenin's public image. ''It was at that time, [from 1922 and] until Lenin's death in January 1924, that most mythological images and institutions that were formed around Lenin's cult were created. A precondition for this was the loss by Lenin at that time of his unmatched personal aura.'' More than a year prior to Lenin's death, and in spite of his active protestations, the party leadership introduced the term ''Leninism'' into public circulation.

However, Leninism assumed a flexible form, its emphasis shifting depending on how it could be politically instrumentalised by those seeking to brandish their communist credentials and affirm their fidelity to what was presented as the one true Leninism. Just as American political actors continually reinterpret the Constitution to legitimise competing visions of governance, Soviet leaders treated Lenin as a foundational text; his personhood was dissolved into the Party's abstract, total authority and Leninism then became inseparable from the foundational central institutions that constituted the Soviet state.

Lenin was the central symbolic object of Soviet communism. Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev each represented their governance as a break from that of their predecessor, and each, in different ways, appealed to a return to Lenin, presenting themselves as orthodox interpreters of the USSR's foundational figure. Lenin's status as the greatest Bolshevik was an ironclad consensus formed in the early history of the Soviet Union. Trotsky had written that "Marx was a prophet with Mosaic tablets and Lenin is the greatest executor of the testaments." Similarly, Zinoviev referred to Lenin as "a god-sent leader, one of those who is born to mankind once in a thousand years." The Old Bolshevik Bonch-Bruevich praised Lenin as a "prophet of the proletariat." The decision to preserve Lenin for eternity can only be understood within this context of quasi-religious devotion in which, surprisingly, uncompromising Bolshevik atheists drew on the imagery and rhetoric of the Christian Bible to express the extent of their adoration of Lenin.

[The Stalin Era]

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Frontier Autumn Number
Vol 58, No. 14 - 17, Sep 28 - Oct 25, 2025