LENIN ON HIMSELF

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 254, 7 August 1937, Page 3

LENIN ON HIMSELF

HIS ONLY BIOGRAPHY. ANSWERING QUESTIONNAIRE. Lenin never wrote a hook about himself or his memoirs, says a writer in the “Manchester Guardian.” He considered himself so fused Yvith the process of history that there was no need to detach himself from it. He talked about “class,” about the “proletariat,” but never about Lenin. There was greatness in this attitude toward his own “ego,” hut at the same time a neglect of other people’s ego. That too was in his eyes only a particle of a friendly or a hostile class, only a screw in his own or a strange machine. I remembered once entering his office at the, Smolny Institute. Papers, telegrams, reports, and protests were scattered all over the-table. Suddenly he exclaimed, “Oh, if only one could describe everything that is happening around us!” But even then he did not mean describing himself but the revolutionary pace of events. And yet there was a moment wlien Lenin indirectly wrote something like a full autobiography. On February 13, 1922, he filled in a form during the general census of the members of the Communist Party. In his short answers to the common questions, he threw light on several particulars of his life that Yvere as yet unknown. Some of the answers may seem like artificial gestures of modesty which the leader makes foy the sake of party pedagogics, but it was not so. Details of Early Life. He answered the first question, on his name and party membership: “Born in 1870, my name is Vladimir Iljitch Ulianov; iny party card is No. 224,332. Belong to the party nucelus of the Kreml district where the ‘Sovnarkomj (Soviet of People’s Commissars) sits.” The information on Lenin’s education is of interest. He wrote that ho graduated from a classical secondary school in iBB7, where he spent eight years. (In that same year his brother, Alexander Ulianov, was hanged for a terrorist attempt on the Tsar). Four years later—in 1891—he got his law degree. To the question; “Have you any religious convictions?” he answered: “None. Since the age of sixteen i have been an unbeliever.” What ‘ is your mother tongue ? Russian. “What other languages can you speak freely?” is the next’ question. Lenin answered siihply: “Freely, not one.” Then came the type of question of' which Russian citizens were most afraid at the time of the Revolution: their social origin and that of their father and grandfathers. There were usually two parts in a man’s social biography; up to and after 1917. Lenin tells us that his father was inspector of elementary schools, but of his grandfather (on his father’s side) he said: “I do not know.” Work as a Writer. From his twenty-seventh year he began to earn his living “as a writer.” For twenty years—between 1897 and 1917—he remained in this profession. It is something new for us to hear that the other main source of his income was “salary from the party.” That party salary was certainly a very small one as no one had ever heard much about it. Lenin’s life changed considerably after 1917. When asked in what kind of work or institutions he had lately been engaged he answered in a few words which implied historic revolution: “Since October, 1917, I have been chairman qf the Sovnarkom.” The form continued asking quite innocent questions as': Do you work for wages? Have you been elected or appointed ? This latter question Lenin answered very strangely: “I am appointed.” This was actually a statement which* contradicts all laws of the Soviet Constitution. Peoples Commissars are elected. But Lenin did not care for paper laws, and in 1922 he did not need any elections. He was appointed to his position, by whom? By his party perhaps, or perhaps simply by himself. In these words was contained a hit of the real, unwriten Constitution. He then goes on to answer questions about his salary: My salary, according to the seventeenth wage-scale, is 4,700,000 roubles. So that people should not he astounded at that sum (it sounds like a whole Civil List) the “Pravda” (of January 21, 1937, where this form was published) adds: “At that time the Soviet rouble was not yet stabilised and labour wages were reckoned in large figures.” Incidentally, he tells us that of his family, “Besides myself there are two members who work for their living and two whom I have to support.” “A Professional.” Most characteristic is Lenin’s status in the Bolshevik aristocracy. Lenin described himself as a “professional of the party,” and gave the year 1895 as the moment when he actually joined the movement. “Did y r ou ever have the opportunity of taking part directly in revolutionary activities in the old Russia?” the form asked. Lenin did not mention any strikes, street demonstrations or armed revolts. He only mentioned his participation, since 1887, in the students’ movement and illegal workers’ groups. But in comparison with the persecutions suffered by many other well-known revolutionaries in the old Russia Lenin had a relatively easy fate. He spent only a year and two months in prison, three years in exile (Lenin did not escape from exile like other Socialists; he remained quietly abroad writing his book, “The Development of Capitalism in Russia”). Two more questions and the form is

completed: “Have you served in any Army—in the Tsarist, the White, or Red Army?” Lenin had one answer to all these questions: “No.” “Do you read newspapers and journals regularly?’’ His answer is once again characteristic: “I read them, but not regularly.” (Lenin Ava.s ahvays more interested in the publications of his political opponents than in those of bis oAvn party. “I know beforehand what they are going to Avrjte,” he used to say.)