Grover Furr: The Fraud of the "Testament of Lenin"

Speech by Professor Grover Furr to the Institute for the Critical Study of the Society (ICSS) of Oakland, California, on his book "The Fraud of the ‘Testament of Lenin" (Erythros Press and Media, 2022). You can watch the video of the discussion here: https://youtu.be/3qkB_EDabMc

I’d like to begin with this short preface. Persons who are, or were, in or around the “Old Left” are usually more or less familiar with the allegations of crimes levelled against Joseph Stalin by anticommunists and Trotskyists. My talk today is directed mainly to you.

 

Lenin and Stalin in Contemporary Russia: What the Data Actually Shows

More than thirty years after the counterrevolutionary upheaveals and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union, public attitudes in today's Russia toward its most emblematic leaders remain remarkably stable —and, in some respects, increasingly favorable. 

 

The available polling data, primarily from the Levada Center, does not support the idea that decades of fierce anti-Soviet and anti-communist discourse have fundamentally reshaped mass perceptions.

 

There Is One Marxism: Against “Western”, “Eastern” and “Third-World” Marxism

On False “Anti-Imperialism,” Campism, and the Abandonment of Class Analysis 

By Nikos Mottas

The recurrent attempt to divide Marxism into “Western,” “Eastern,” “Third-World,” or other geographically marked variants reflects a deeper theoretical retreat from Marxism as a scientific worldview and a revolutionary method. Such distinctions implicitly transform Marxism from a universal theory of capitalist society and class struggle into a set of culturally conditioned perspectives, shaped primarily by geography rather than by objective social relations. From a Marxist-Leninist standpoint, this approach is fundamentally mistaken. Marxism is one, not because it ignores historical and national specificity, but because it rests on objective laws of social development that operate globally wherever capitalism exists.

German state's plan to rename streets honouring Lenin is an assault on socialist history

In recent days, a fresh wave of reactionary anti-communist agitation has swept through the Federal Republic of Germany. In the name of celebrating the 35th anniversary of capitalist German “unity,” representatives of the state apparatus are pushing to erase the names of Vladimir Lenin and other socialist heroes from public spaces.

At the center of this offensive stands Evelyn Zupke, the Federal Commissioner for the so-called "Victims of the SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) Dictatorship". 

The attempt to vilify Lenin in capitalist Russia: On the occasion of the reactionary film "The Mummy"

A new “documentary”, "The Mummy," which premiered in Moscow on June 26, has ignited a firestorm of debate surrounding the legacy of Vladimir Lenin and his final resting place.  

 

Produced by the fervently religious Christian channel “Spas” (Saviour), the film argues for the destruction of Lenin's Mausoleum, portraying it as a satanic temple and a bleeding wound on the soul of the Russian nation. The “documentary” presents a fantastical narrative, linking the Bolsheviks and their leader to a range of dark forces, including Egyptian pharaohs, Babylonian ziggurats, and Masonic conspiracies aimed at global domination by Satan. 

 

Ukraine's regime destroys the last Lenin monument

The reactionary Ukrainian authorities have dismantled the country's last statue of the great Soviet leader and revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, authorities and activists reported on Monday. 

The monument stood in the village of Rudkovtsy in the western Khmelnytskyi Region and was taken down by the local utility service following a request from a group named "Decolonization Ukraine." 

 

According to the group, this was the last known Lenin monument in the country.

 

Anticommunism in Kyrgyzstan: The world's largest monument dedicated to Lenin to be dismantled

Kyrgyzstan has joined the group of former Soviet republics in which socialist-era monuments are dismantled. According to eadaily.com, the local authorities of the city of Osh decided to remove the tallest memorial dedicated to the leader of the 1917 October Revolution and founder of the USSR, Vladimir Lenin.

As TASS reminds, Osh is the second largest city after Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. The administration assured that the decision was made based on expediency, and not because of Russophobia.

Lenin's popularity hits record high on his 155th birthday

By Nikos Mottas

This April marked the 155th birth anniversary of the leader of the 1917 Great October Socialist Revolution and founder of the first socialist state in the world, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. 

The name of Lenin is identified with two dialectically connected issues. On the one hand, there is his revolutionary activity and practice as the leader of the 20th century's most significant event- the 1917 Great October Socialist Revolution. On the other hand, there is his theoretical work which is the development of the revolutionary theory of Marx and Engels in the era of Imperialism. 

155th birth anniversary of V.I. Lenin: Joint Statement of Communist and Workers’ Parties

Joint Statement of Communist and Workers’ Parties
on the 155^th anniversary of the birth of V.I. Lenin

The Communist and Workers’ Parties, which co-sign this Joint Statement, would like also in this way to honour a great revolutionary and theorist of scientific socialism, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, as  22 April marks the 155th anniversary of his birth. 

Russia: After 95 years on public display, Lenin's body will be laid to rest in Ulyanovsk

101 years after his death and 95 years on display in the famous Red Square Mausoleum, Vladimir Lenin will share the fate of ordinary people. The decision by the Russian Interior Ministry, made three days ago, is already causing major reactions, both from communists and Russians regardless of ideology.

According to the decision, the Mausoleum will be permanently closed and Lenin's body will be buried in his birthplace, Ulyanovsk, on September 3, 2025, in an official ceremony attended by high-ranking government officials.

 

On imperialism and the current situation in the world

By Andreas Sörensen

The development in the world the past year has sharpened the contradictions inherent within the imperialist system and has thus also accentuated the need for a deepened analysis of the mechanisms that push the development forward.

To be able to do this, this presentation will focus on the analysis presented by Lenin in his pamphlet Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Here, he explored the mechanisms that decided and decide the development of international capitalism. In the course of this article, the mechanisms and features that he identified will be discussed, and light will be shed on problematic approaches that readers take to Lenin.

Lenin on Antisemitism

Speech of Vladimir I. Lenin recorded on gramophone in March 1919 as a response to the 1919 Anti-Jewish Progroms, Included in Lenin’s Collected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972 Volume 29, pages 252-253:

"Anti-Semitism means spreading enmity towards the Jews. When the accursed tsarist monarchy was living its last days it tried to incite ignorant workers and peasants against the Jews. The tsarist police, in alliance with the landowners and the capitalists, organised pogroms against the Jews. The landowners and capitalists tried to divert the hatred of the workers and peasants who were tortured by want against the Jews. 

Victory Day Parade: Lenin's Mausoleum... magically disappeared from the Red Square

Well, not so magically... 

 

While they attempt to appropriate the history of the Soviet Union and the Red Army, presenting themselves as the heirs of the People's Great Anti-fascist Victory, the authorities of capitalist Russia managed to... cover Lenin's Mausoleum during Thursday's Victory Day parade in Red Square.

Photos and videos from yesterday's impressive parade in Moscow shows the entrance of the Mausoleum being hidden behind giant scaffolding with banners. 

 

Vladimir Mayakovsky — "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" (1924)

The great poem "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin", dedicated to the leader of the 1917 Great October Socialist Revolution, was written by the renowned Soviet poet and playwright Vladimir Mayakovsky.  

 

The first fragments of the poem appeared in October 1924 in several Soviet newspapers, and it came out as a separate edition in February 1925 by Leningrad's Gosizdat. Mayakovsky himself dedicated it to the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). 

 

Anna Louise Strong — LENIN

Poem by American journalist and activist Anna Louise Strong (1885-1970) dedicated to the leader of the 1917 Great October Socialist Revolution, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. 

 

In the late 1920’s and into the early 30’s, Strong traveled in China and throughout the Soviet Union, interviewing ordinary workers and people in the street as well as senior Soviet leaders; she visited Spain in 1937 and accompanied the Red Army into Poland and Berlin in 1945, and visited China during the latter stages of the war of liberation. 

Emma Stone to portray Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin's wife, in Yorgos Lanthimos' new film

After “The Favourite”, “Poor Things” and the soon to be released “Kinds of Kindness”, Academy Award winning actress Emma Stone and Greek film director Yorgos Lanthimos are once again joining forces towards a very promising project focused on the life of the great bolshevik revolutionary and father of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. 

As Lanthimos has revealed, Stone will portray Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin's faithful wife who played a significant role not only in Ulyanov's personal life, but also in the political scene during the first years of the October Revolution. 

KKE honors Lenin's 100th death anniversary: "Hold high the flag of socialism-communism, the red flag of Lenin"

In the fully-packed conference hall at the headquarters of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) in Athens, people of every age, workers, people of Letters, Sciences and Culture, young men and women, attended on Wednesday 20 March an event in honor of the 100th death anniversary of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the 20th century's greatest revolutionary.

The event, organized by the Party's Central Committee, consists part of a series of political and cultural events in honor of the Bolshevik revolutionary and father of the Soviet Union, on the occasion of the 100 years since his death. 

 

Aleka Papariga — Lenin on the role of the revolutionary vanguard, the Communist Party

By Nikos Mottas.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's death, an important event titled “Lenin on the role of the revolutionary vanguard, the Communist Party” was organized on Wednesday 13 March in the fully-packed “Studio” cinema, in the heart of Athens. 

The keynote speaker was Aleka Papariga, the former General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), former MP and currently member of the CC. The speech was followed by the screening of the 1937 Mikhail Romm classic film “Lenin in October”. 

Vladimir Lenin: Lodestar of Revolutionary Advance For Human Emancipation

By Sitaram Yechury*

In a short span of 54 years, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin left an inerasable imprint for the advance of the global proletarian revolution.  He not only mastered the essence of the creative science of Marxism, but updated it to his contemporary times and led the Russian Revolution to victory leading to the establishment of the first socialist country in the world – the USSR.  

He enriched Marxism combating all forms of deviations and protected the revolutionary movement from derailment. He was a master tactician adopting correct and appropriate tactics for every twist and turn of the revolutionary movement.  

Communists from the U.S and Mexico: Lenin Lives! — Comunistas de Estados Unidos y México: ¡Lenin vive!

In a joint statement regarding the 100th death anniversary of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the Communist Party of Mexico (PCM) and the Communist Workers’ Platform of the USA stress out:

Lenin Lives!

Lenin,
alive
again, calls:
-¡Proletarians,
Line up
For the final struggle!

Vladimir Mayakovski