page_title: Government of Vladimir Lenin
section_title: Lenin's Declining Health and the Soviet Union
hierarchical_section_title: Government of Vladimir Lenin / Consolidating revolution / Lenin's Declining Health and the Soviet Union
caption_attribution_description: English: One of the last photographs of Lenin. Taken in Gorki after May 15th 1923. Beside him are his sister Anna Ilyinichna Yelizarova-Ulyanova and one of his doctors A. M. Kozhevnikov.
context_page_description: Under the leadership of Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik Party seized power in the Russian Republic during a coup known as the October Revolution. Overthrowing the pre-existing Provisional Government, the Bolsheviks established a new administration, the first Council of People's Commissars, with Lenin appointed as its governing chairman. Ruling by decree, Lenin’s Sovnarkom introduced widespread reforms confiscating land for redistribution among the permitting non-Russian nations to declare themselves independent, improving labour rights, and increasing access to education.
  The Lenin party continued with the previously scheduled November 1917 election, but when it produced a Constituent Assembly dominated by the rival Socialist Revolutionary Party the Bolsheviks lambasted it as counter-revolutionary and shut it down. The Bolshevik government banned a number of centrist and right-wing parties, and restricted the activities of rival socialist groups, but entered into a governmental coalition with the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party.
context_section_description: A number of prominent Western socialists travelled to Russia, during which they met with Lenin; these included the philosopher Bertrand Russell in summer 1920 and the author H. G. Wells in September 1920, the latter having been introduced to Lenin through Gorky. He was also visited by the anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman in January 1920.
  In April 1920, the Bolsheviks held a party to celebrate Lenin's fiftieth birthday, with widespread celebrations taking place across Russia and poems and biographies dedicated to him being published. All of this embarrassed and horrified Lenin himself. Between 1920 and 1926, twenty volumes of Lenin's Collected Works were edited by Kamenev and published; that material which was deemed inappropriate for the needs of the Soviet government were omitted. He became increasingly concerned with the illness of his close friend Inessa Armand, who visited him at the Kremlin on several occasions; although she temporarily recovered, she subsequently relapsed. He sent her to a sanatorium in Kislovodsk, Northern Caucusus in order to recover, but there she contracted cholera during a local epidemic and died in September 1920. Her body was transported by train to Moscow, arriving there in October, where Lenin collected the coffin from the train station; observers noted that he was overcome by grief. Her corpse was buried beneath the Kremlin Wall.
  During his leadership of the Soviet administration, Lenin struggled against the state bureaucracy and the corruption within it, and became increasingly concerned by this in his final years. Condemning such bureaucratic attitudes, he suggested a total overhaul of the Russian system to deal with such problems, in one letter complaining that "we are being sucked into a foul bureaucratic swamp".
  Lenin had become seriously ill by the latter half of 1921, however continued working hard. He was suffering from hyperacusis and insomnia, as well as regular headaches. At the Politburo's insistence, On 13 July he left Moscow for a month's leave, spending the time at his Gorki mansion. There, he was cared for by his wife and sister, Maria Ilinichna, who visited on weekends. On 13 November 1921 he spoke at the Comintern Congress, although in December had to return to Gorki to recuperate. Lenin began to contemplate the possibility of suicide, asking both Krupskaya and Stalin to acquire potassium cyanide for him.
  In total, 26 physicians would be hired to help Lenin during his final years; many of them were foreign, and had been hired at great expense. Some suggested that his sickness could have been caused by metal oxidation arising from the bullets that were lodged in his body; in April 1922 he underwent a surgical operation to remove them at Soldatenkov Hospital. The symptoms continued after this, with Lenin's doctors unsure of the cause; some suggested that he had syphilis, although others believed that he was suffering from neurasthenia or cerebral arteriosclerosis, or a combination of these diseases.
  In May 1922, he then suffered his first stroke, temporarily losing his ability to speak and being paralysed on his right side. He convalesced at Gorky, and had largely recovered by July. He returned to Moscow in October 1922, although his condition again deteriorated the next month. In December 1922 he suffered his second stroke and returned to Gorky.
  Between June and August 1922, a trial of the SR leaders was held in which they were found guilty of conspiring against the government. Lenin urged for their execution, although other Bolsheviks cautioned against this, suggesting that they be kept imprisoned indefinitely under the threat of execution if any further SR attempts against the government were made. This attitude prevailed, and the SR leaders were kept in prison until later being killed during the Great Purges of Stalin's leadership. The Bolsheviks continued to oppose the Mensheviks and their calls for a more democratic basis to socialism.
  In March 1923, while Lenin was ill, the Politburo ordered the expulsion of any Mensheviks from state institutions and en
caption: Lenin in 1923
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