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The Cult of Lenin

Lenin's funeral, Moscow, Red Square, January 1924
Crowds at Lenin's funeral

Lenin died on 21 January 1924. His death revitalized the cult of Lenin upon which the regime now increasingly depended for its own sense of legitimacy.

EXTRACT FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY. Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924 (Pimlico, 1997), p. 804-806.

...Lenin's brain was removed from his body and transferred to the Lenin Institute. There it was studied by a team of scientists, charged with the task of discovering the 'substance of his genius'... [FULL TEXT 1066 WORDS]

Watch this film of Lenin's funeral. Which leaders can you spot - Kamenev, Zinoviev, Kalinin, Stalin? Was Trotsky there? What signs of the Lenin cult are already visible?

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