Evening star., 1924-08-15
RUSSIA SINCE LENIN
The truth about today, uncensored
spent studying conditions
BY SEYMOUR B. CONCER.

friction between the bolsheviSt gem
eral headquarters in Moscow and the
foreign Communist organizations.
Lenin, they forget. wrote his precepts
almost exclusively on Russian condi-
tions and in the haze of ignorance
and misinformation about the outside
| world which hung over isolated Rus
sia down to the time of his final ILL
| ness.
Trials for Herexy to Lenin-
Trials for heresy to the Lenin re-
ligiCn are already in vogue. In the
great party purge now in progress
members are examined first of all on
the Lenin texts, and Il large share of
the expulsions are based on non-con-
formity or ignorance of Leninism.
Angelica Balabanova. one Of the most
prominent international representa-
tives of the Russian movement, was
expelled for example as a hereto to
Leninism. Trotsky is suspected largely
because he fails to quote Lenin often
enough and because he criticized this
slavish adherence to the letter Of the
Lenin law regardless Of altered condi-
tions to which it is applied
Among the outward symbols of the
Lenin cult are the Lenin pictures and
busts with which the ikons (religious
pictures) of the Russian orthodox
,, Christians are replaced in every boil
shevist household, and the "Lenin
corner" or chapel. which, by order
Of the party, must be established in
every factory, railway station, bar
racks and bolstevist meeting place.
Another manifest station of Leninism is
the remaining of streets, towns and
even whole provinces for the prophet
under his political nom de guerre
Lenin, his real family name Ulianov
or his patronymic Ilytch.
American readers are familiar with
the remaining of st. Petersburg, or
Petrograd, into Leningrad. His ratal
town, Simbirsk, is now Uliansk
Simbirsk Province has become Clia-
novskaia, and the number of smaller
towns, counties, city streets which
now perpetuate his name and fame
is legion. Bolshevist newspaper edi-
tors are unable to keep track of
all of them, but slips by the COM
NOR ality are punished, the post office,
for example, exacting a fine from,
unlucky recipients of letters ad-
| dressed to the old designations of
Leningrad. Uliansk and the other me-
mortal towns and streets. The day
of the prophets death already has
been made a national day Of mourn
ing. A movemer is on foot to make
his birthday a public holiday as we'll.
Lenin Becomes mmercialixed,
Commercialism, as was to be ex-
| pected, has crept in. Swarms of ped
dlers, with Lenin buttons, pins and
Lenin souvenirs, poster visitors to the
Lenin tomb in Red Square. A regu-
| lar industry has grown up in the
| production and sale of Lenin busts,
| pictures, biographies and memorials,
and the bolshevist general executive
orders against the use of Lenins pic
| ture or name to advertise cigarettes,
candy, soap, toilet preparations and
| check popular hysteria, caused by
stories about miracle-working mani
festations of the Lenin body or
name, have also been necessary,
miraculous properties attaching in the
| ignorant Russian mind to the SUPER
natural preservation of the mortal
remains of Russian saints, and hence
| by easy transference to the embalmed
body Of the bolshevist prophet, ex-
| hibited for several months after his
death in the temporary mausoleum
in Red Square.
The same urge which led to the
establishment of the Lenin religion
| to meet the instructive demand of the
bolshevist followers, for a faith and
creed has also operated to make the
campaign to destroy the old religions
futile, to turn 1t instead to the dis
advantage of bolshevism, as I will
show in the following article on re-
lIgion.
Copyright. 1924. BY Public Ledger O.,