I looked at these two pictures for awhile today. I like them both, although the one in the wheelchair is my favourite.
Who was he? What was it like to spend an hour with Lenin?
The picture of him in full flight is inspiring, but it is a public photo. Even if he wasn't aware that he was being photographed he was in front of an audience and "on". The second photo seems quite candid although it is part of a series of photos that show he was aware of being photographed. Lenin died soon after this photo in the wheelchair.
What was it like to stand in the streets and hear Lenin speak without any of the cynicism or knowingness we have about Communism today. Trotsky wrote down his impressions:
When I try mentally with fresh eye and fresh ear to see and hear Lenin on the platform, as I did the first time, I see a strong and supple figure of medium height, and hear a smooth, rapid, uninterrupted voice, rather striking, almost without pauses, and at first without special emphasis.
Perhaps the other photo took place around this time:That evening Nadezhda Konstantinovna read aloud to Vladimir Ilyich. As soon as he had shown improvement she had begun reading aloud each day from the newspaper Pravda. She was now reading him a short story by Jack London. Vladimir Ilyich sat in an armchair gazing out of the window thoughtfully. The old trees of the park stood deep in snow. The windowpanes were frosted over with weird leaves of ice, magical flowers and ferns that brought back memories of his childhood.
I think when we're gone that might be it - the dead can never be known again. Sometimes you read in a biography that someone was handsome or beautiful but when you see an old photo you think: "Beautiful? Her?" Photos strip us of life. Ordinary people stuck and mounted on the pin of photography can be quite dazzling in life when their features are full of animation and charm.
It is the job of the historian to make the dead seem alive. This is magic, this is poetry, this is lies. I would like to walk with Lenin for awhile.
3 comments:
Lenin? His first name was John, wasn't it?
Ah, I loved that joke after he died; what would it take to get the Beatles back together again? (Three bullets was the answer, though now it would take only two!)
I think that Stan Haskins is wiser than Lenin ever was... and he lives in Orange County! You just wait until Stan gets back into full flight!
"Dem tatties, dem tatties!" ...or something like that.
Stan doesn't sing, but he does play the double bass; and very well too!
R (of Stan's supporters' club)
I don't think you're ever the same if you care that people are watching, reading... whatever.
Who was he? What was it like to spend an hour with Lenin?
I can't remember where I read this ('To the Finland Station' perhaps?), but it was an anecdote by one of Lenin's comrades about mountain climbing in Switzerland.
They spent all day struggling to the top of a peak in the alps, and when the reached the summit a magnificent vista opened up before them; snow and ice to the horizon, clouds streaming through the valleys below, a thunderstorm in the far distance. The narrator was struck dumb in awe and turned to Lenin to share the raw beauty of the moment with him. And Lenin turned to him and said:
'We MUST form a revolutionary vanguard and crush the mensheviks!' (Or something similar.)
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