Lenin Lives On, Russians Say     

   This month, Russians will ignore the centennial of the communist revolution. 

   Smithsonian magazine (October 2017) has a fascinating 31-page article, Whatever Happened to the Russian Revolution? The author has visited Russia many times, and likes the people and history. Among other insights, he believes Vladimir Lenin's tactics live on...in the USA. 

   For three days this week, with more to follow, Views will carry our favorite excerpts from the article.

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By Ian Frazier

   

   Now I've traveled enough in Russia that my affections are more complicated. I know that almost no conclusion is likely to be right. The way to think about Russia is without thinking about it. I just try to love it and yield to it and go with it while also paying vigilant attention - if that makes sense.

Vladimir Lenin    

   I begin in 1825, at the Decembrist uprising. These were young officers in the czar's army who fought in the Napoleonic wars and found out about the Enlightenment, and came home wanting to reform Russia.

   They started a secret society, wrote a constitution based on the U.S. Constitution and, on December 14, lost their nerve. Czar Nicholas I dispersed their forces with cannon fire. (Imagine) as if King George III had hanged George Washington and sent the other signers of the Declaration of Independence to hard labor in Australia. 

   Later (in the late 1800's), Marxism was colonizing the brains of Russian intellectuals like an invasive plant. The intelligentsia (a word of Russian origin), sat at tables in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities arguing Marxist doctrine and drinking endless cups of tea. 

Tomorrow: Recipe for revolution