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Lunacharsky on LeninForward
Lunacharsky as a biographer of Lenin Titov A.I.
The reader is offered the second, supplemented, edition of the collection of articles, speeches, reports and memoirs of A. V. Lunacharsky about Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
Leniniana... Having absorbed thousands of works of literature and art, for the past six decades it has been capturing the era of a gigantic, unprecedented turning point in history and an unforgettable image of a man who, in the words of Lunacharsky, "was its fruit and at the same time its engine" , in which "all the charm of this amazing era was personally affected."
The contribution to Leniniana of Vladimir Ilyich's comrades-in-arms in the revolutionary struggle and the construction of the world's first socialist state is invaluable. Their memoirs, reflecting immediate, personal impressions, especially excite readers; they seek and find in them the true touches of a great and simple, many-sided and complex man, such as Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was.
Anatoly Vasilievich Lunacharsky belonged to the number of people who, together with Lenin, shared the bitterness of forced emigration, the joy of revolutionary battles, the successes and difficulties of creating the young Republic of Soviets. He was one of those who stood at the origins of Leniniana. Lunacharsky's literary heritage includes about a hundred articles, essays, speeches and memoirs about Lenin.
Lunacharsky's first essay on Lenin was published in 1919 in the book The Great Revolution. (October Revolution)". Already in it, the author of the memoirs sought to outline the main milestones in the life and struggle of the leader of the victorious proletarian revolution against a broad historical background, to show that Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, whose revolutionary, transforming activity unfolded in an era of unprecedented social storms, both objectively and in terms of his personal qualities - "Certainly one of the biggest figures in world history." Of course, not everything received sufficient “drawing” in this first publication, something was only outlined, but it is important and valuable for us because it provides, as it were, a guideline for all subsequent work on recreating the image of Lenin.
The book was a success and rightfully took its place among the most talented testimonies of contemporaries about the Great October Socialist Revolution, about its organizers and leaders. Reviewers of that time noted the richness of the book with facts taken “not from literature”, but from life itself, as well as “the experienced hand of the artist and the sharp gaze of a subtle observer” (“Book and Revolution”, 1920, No. 3-4, p. 25) .
In 1923, on the basis of previously published memoirs, Lunacharsky's book "Revolutionary Silhouettes" was published, which opens with the essay "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin". This book is with a dedication inscription: “To Vladimir Ilyich Lenin with the deepest respect and ardent love. A. Lunacharsky. 14.V.” kept in the personal library of V. I. Lenin in the Kremlin.
In the essay, Lunacharsky did not yet set the goal of giving a complete political portrait of the leader. “For such broader and more meaningful portraits,” he wrote, “the time will come.”
The premature death of a loved one mentally and physically shocked Lunacharsky. It was then that the idea of creating a "deeply scientific, factually true and at the same time exciting biography-poem" was born, which should become "one of the most beautiful books of world literature." He understood that the creation of this kind of biography is "a task both fascinating and grandiose", that this requires a combination of literary talent and psychological sensitivity, great political experience and sociological depth. In the preface to the second edition of Revolutionary Silhouettes in February 1924, Lunacharsky wrote that he would be happy if the grains needed to create such a book were found in his works. "Leniniana" of Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky himself contains many such "grains".
First of all, these are “commemorative speeches,” as he called them. Many of the transcripts of these speeches - "the direct response of feeling to the mournful facts" - were published.
In our opinion, Lunacharsky’s public speeches, especially since 1924, can no longer be spoken of as separate episodes, but as a purposeful system of propaganda of the life and work of V. I. Lenin, Leninism as a whole, as an authoritative source that captured a whole historical epoch — the epoch of the collapse of the old and the formation of the new world.
Lunacharsky spoke in many parts of the country, his listeners were workers, Red Army soldiers, peasants, teachers, people of science and art, and youth. Speeches, reports, lectures by Lunacharsky are an example of propagandistic skill and party conviction, the ability to describe in the best possible way, in the most intelligible form for each given audience, the unique personality of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - a fiery revolutionary, a sober politician, a brilliant organizer and leader of the political vanguard of the working class of Russia - party of a new type, the most profound scientist, far-sighted statesman. Many of Lunacharsky's public speeches subsequently formed the basis of articles or were published as separate pamphlets.
A special place in his "Leniniana" is occupied by the work "On the Characteristics of Lenin as a Personality." Under this title, it was published in January 1926 in the Izvestia newspaper. Our recent search work allows us to assert that Lunacharsky originally prepared this material as a preface to a collection of his articles on Lenin, which he intended to take as a basis for "funeral" speeches. It was planned to release this collection in 1925.
The author tried to sum up, as it were, all his previous work, focused on creating a political portrait of Lenin, to rethink what had already been done in this direction, to highlight those facets of the personality of Vladimir Ilyich, which by that time had not yet found sufficient reflection.
Thus, another page of Lunacharsky's work was opened, another highly fruitful idea of his was revealed: on the basis of a comprehensively thought-out and motivated generalization, to give an integral socio-psychological description of the personality of the leader and man.
Unfortunately, the collection conceived by Lunacharsky was not published. However, a generalizing article published on the pages of the central newspaper, which was based on the material intended for the preface, reached the mass reader. It is distinguished by a greater, in comparison with previous works, rigor and polished formulations, a clear predominance of the analytical approach over memoirs, and the formulation of a number of important general sociological problems. Lunacharsky, in particular, drew attention to such a distinctive feature of Lenin's "extraordinary communist nature" as "the absence of any personalism in him." He assessed it as a phenomenon "very deep and deserving of careful study in communist literature."
For many years Lunacharsky nurtured the dream of writing a biography of Vladimir Ilyich. This is evidenced by diary entries, personal and official correspondence. Lunacharsky repeatedly said that such a book would be the most significant work of his life. Its meaning and purpose is to reveal “the type of genius and hero”, “the model and example of humanity”. Morally, he felt ready to start working on a book, and in 1930 he wrote to his wife: "For this I have everything ... except time." In order to be able to work systematically and purposefully, he makes a decision: "not to scatter as before", "to change the rails" of life. Sudden death did not allow to carry out a magnificent plan.
However, if you collect and systematize Lunacharsky's disparate publications about Vladimir Ilyich, you can get a fairly complete biography, in which, through the prism of Lunacharsky's personal perception, the image of Lenin is revealed in all his greatness and originality.
A few years ago, on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lunacharsky *, such work was carried out, in creative collaboration with the staff of the APN Publishing House and the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, the daughter of A. V. Lunacharsky - I. A. Lunacharskaya.
* A. V. Lunacharsky was born on November 23, 1875. —Ed.
The result is a book in which the reader has the opportunity to see Lenin through the eyes of Lunacharsky - a revolutionary, a statesman, a scientist, a publicist, a man; get acquainted with Lenin's assessments of culture in its broadest sense, with his opinions about Russian writers, expressed in the course of direct conversations with the author of the memoirs. The book excites with emotionality, with the constant "presence effect" of its author.
The materials of the collection, in our opinion, may be of interest to researchers studying the problem of "Lunacharsky as a biographer of V. I. Lenin", because they allow us to visually trace the author's methodological principles in the study and disclosure of this topic, his uncompromising struggle against simplification and distortion in the coverage of the image leader.
We found it expedient to provide this edition with an appendix - a list of Lunacharsky's works on Lenin, which is an extract from the bibliographic index prepared by the State Order of Lenin Library named after V. I. Lenin - the most complete list of works by A. V. Lunacharsky. This list, in addition to fairly well-known essays, articles, memoirs, brochures, collections, etc., also includes materials little known - not only to the general reader, but also to specialists.
The systematization of Lunacharsky's works carried out in recent years makes it possible, in our opinion, not only to present his contribution to Leniniana more fully, but also to put his name as a biographer of Lenin on a par with the name of N. K. Krupskaya.
In the collection offered to the reader's attention - the most complete collection of Lunacharsky's works on Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - the problem-thematic and chronological principles of the arrangement of the material are intertwined.
In preparing the book, a great difficulty was caused by the fact that a significant part of the materials included in it are not works specially prepared by Lunacharsky for publication, but transcripts of speeches, often delivered "hurriedly and in the order of improvisation." Often speeches devoted to one topic were delivered, albeit with a small interval in time, but before different audiences. In such cases, Lunacharsky, leaving the bulk of the questions unchanged, introduced, depending on the nature of the audience, new facts that were of interest to this particular group of listeners.
As a rule, these performances are important in content, bright and original in form. However, it is obvious that it is not advisable to include works of the same type, repeatedly repeating the same provisions in the collection in full. Therefore, in some cases, the materials of the collection are published with abbreviations.
In view of the specific nature of the publication, some of Lunacharsky's articles and memoirs were also reduced by excluding what was not directly related to the topic. This made it possible to focus attention on the main problems, to highlight them more clearly. This approach seems to us logical and justified.
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The book consists of four sections. The formation of the first section is based on the problematic principle. This approach makes it possible to more clearly imagine the main idea of Lunacharsky's proposed book: to reveal a new type of leader and person in its socio-psychological structure, inextricably linked with "the history of the great Russian revolution in its most burning years, with the history of the world revolution for a quarter of a century." The leitmotif of many memoirs and articles included in the collection: Lenin was created by the entire course of the Russian revolution, by the powerful will of the mature proletariat of Russia, by the great struggle of the workers and peasants of the whole world. “Lenin is out of touch with the proletariat, and not only with the proletariat, but also with the previous peasant-intellectual revolution, Lenin is out of touch with the party with which he grew up, which he raised and which raised him, Lenin out of touch with the world proletariat and Marxism - what is it? Is it Lenin? It will be as similar to Lenin as a glass of water scooped into the sea is similar to the sea.
As a scientifically minded revolutionary, Lenin combined in himself - and this was repeatedly emphasized by Lunacharsky - the profound objectivity and sobriety of a scientist with the courage and determination of the greatest strategist of class battles. The significance of Lenin as the leader of the Bolshevik Party, which managed to rally "the most steely, most active elements of the people from the working class, the intelligentsia and the peasantry", lead the Great October Socialist Revolution, which brought Russia to the brink of eras, is vividly shown.
“The life of our leader is most inextricably paid with the history of the Russian Communist Party,” A. V. Lunacharsky wrote in 1924 in the journal Kommunist, the organ of the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Committee of the RCP (b). “No one can write the history of the Russian Communist Party from its inception to the present day without making this book a detailed biography of Vladimir Ilyich, and no one can describe the life of Lenin without the book becoming the history of our party.”
At the same time, Lunacharsky portrays Lenin as a historical figure on a global scale, a leader to whom “a whole sea of hands and hearts reached out from all sides,” as a genius. a theoretician who sees the trends prevailing in the world and the future of every social formation, as a person who lived with hope, faith, the conviction that the struggle of the working people of all countries “soldered into an integral system” will lead to “breaking the fate of mankind from capitalism to communism”. “Vladimir Ilyich,” Lunacharsky wrote, “played the most difficult chess game in the world, but he knew in advance that the game in which he is a figure of great importance, led by the proletariat, will certainly be won.”
Lunacharsky, in our opinion, succeeded deeply and comprehensively, better than anyone else, in capturing the “charming” personality of Lenin. With great skill and tact, he was able to convey to us some of the features of Vladimir Ilyich, inherent only to him and nevertheless of enormous social significance.
The first thing that catches the eye, Lunacharsky notes, is the gigantic mind of Lenin, which manifested itself “not only in great works or great acts of his wonderful life,” but also in everyday work, in solving every problem that life put before him.
In the Council of People's Commissars, at the "long table of the greatest revolutionaries and new people of our time," Lenin was rightfully the first. “It was fun and expensive,” recalls Lunacharsky, “to sit in the Council of People’s Commissars and look closely at how Vladimir Ilyich solves problems, how he listens in the most attentive way, ponders, weighs, revises everything for each question—and there are many questions—and how he summarizes then a question. Summarizes - and there are no more disputes and no more disagreements; if he took the side of some against others or agreed on the views of some and others in an unexpected synthesis, then with such arguments that you cannot go against.
Among the inimitable Leninist traits vividly depicted by Lunacharsky, we also note the enormous will, "constituting half of his appearance," and the "tremendous greatness of the heart." “To the marrow of his bones” Lenin was devoted to humanity, he loved it “as it is, for its suffering, for its lack of roads and darkness.” And at the same time, he could not stand sentimentality, beautiful phrases about love for people, about serving them. “If we talk about the heart of Vladimir Ilyich, then it affected most of all in his fundamental love. It was not love-kindness in the sense in which the layman understands it. When he occasionally spoke about the truth, about primordial human morality, about goodness, it was felt how unshakable this feeling was in him, and it warmed him and gave him this support, which made him powerful, steel in carrying out his share. If he hated - and he hated political enemies, he had no personal enemies ... then he hated in the name of that love, which was wider than today and today's relations.
Lunacharsky foresaw that the time would come when Lenin's personality would become the subject of careful and loving study, for the biographical in him was of great human value. Such a time has come. Millions of people in all corners of the globe are showing great interest in the biography of Vladimir Ilyich, in his personality, in his teachings. According to UNESCO, Lenin is "the most widely read author"; in terms of the number of publications, his works are in first place in the world.
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The materials of the second section are arranged chronologically.
This edition of the collection, in addition to the previous one, includes memories of the third and fourth congresses of the party. Their main theme is Lenin's irreconcilable struggle against Russian and international opportunism, for the creation of a new type of party. Lunacharsky shows that the creation of such a party by Lenin was an enormous step forward in the development not only of the Russian, but of the entire international working-class movement. The split at the Second Congress, writes Lunacharsky, "drawn a world line": Bolshevism became an international force that entered into a direct struggle in Europe, Asia, America against international Menshevism, which finally took the path of betraying the cause of the working class, reconciling with the bourgeoisie, justifying the existing order of things .
The main content of the section is Lunacharsky's memoirs about meetings and joint work with Vladimir Ilyich for more than two decades. They describe events known to the author not from literary memoirs or documentary sources, but from "the evidence of his own eyes and ears."
The first emigration ... "Dull, petty-bourgeois" Geneva. The measured, monotonous course of life of local townspeople is similar to the course of the watches they make. The small group of Bolsheviks was crushed on all sides by the emigration and the students, who at that time mostly followed the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries.
However, Lenin "boils politically." After all, it was Geneva that turned out to be the most suitable place to create first Iskra, and then a number of magazines. “It was here,” testifies Lunacharsky, “that the divergent lines of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks began to take shape, it was precisely here that the physiognomy of our proletarian, revolutionary, Marxist policy came to light more and more strongly.”
Petersburg in the period of the “revolutionary upheaval” of 1905 is shown differently. The city lives an intense political life. The revolution is on the rise. Lenin "reminds a captain on the deck of a ship surrounded by thunder clouds...".
The revolutionary wave subsided, reaction triumphed, and the days of forced emigration dragged on again, when the ability to “realistically wait” is developed, to develop work on the political enlightenment of the masses, to gather strength in order to subsequently “make a powerful revolution”.
It is impossible to read the description of the last days, hours, minutes before Lenin’s departure for Russia without excitement: “When I looked at him smiling on the platform of the departing train, I felt that he was internally full of such a thought: what I was created for, what I was preparing for, what the whole Party was preparing for, without which our whole life was only preparatory and unfinished.
And, finally, the “explosive atmosphere” of October 1917, Smolny “on the great night”, unforgettable days of the long-awaited victory. How well we understand the words of Lunacharsky: "Whoever lived through this will never forget it."
Lunacharsky's memoirs mostly reflect Lenin's political activities. However, sometimes he allows himself to "intrude" into the forbidden for many area of Lenin's personal experiences. “Vladimir Ilyich,” he recalls, “usually could not stand even close people to his personal experiences. He was above all a politician, so hot, so inspirational, so inspiring. He turned this policy for everyone who approached him into the center of life. The conversations in which Lenin was more intimate with him than usual, Lunacharsky considered the best hours of his life.
Unfortunately, Lunacharsky did not keep a diary at that time, did not make any notes that would allow him to restore in detail numerous conversations with Lenin. Subsequently, he regretted that he “reminded himself late”, because what he heard “from the lips of a revolutionary genius” would have been enough for him to “create a very interesting book”, more than once complained about the imperfection of his memory, about the impossibility of recreating every word of Ilyich intact. However, he was able to select and, if possible, clarify the main, most valuable thing that he had heard from Vladimir Ilyich.
Lunacharsky wrote: “It is always very scary to recall something from conversations with Vladimir Ilyich, not for myself personally, but for publication. Still, you don’t have such a vivid memory that each word is imprinted in the brain, like an inscription carved into a stone, for decades, and meanwhile, referring to the fact that it was said by a great mind, allowing for the possibility of some kind of distortion, is very creepy. It is this thoroughness and sense of responsibility, combined with the sociological depth of the scientist and the brilliant talent of the writer, that make Lunacharsky's memoirs a most valuable contribution to the annals of Lenin's life and work.
True, such a thorough approach is not always present in Lunacharsky's presentation of the general problems of the history of the revolutionary movement, as well as individual events in which he was a direct participant. There are inaccuracies, wording is not always thought out. This kind of negligence was often used by Lunacharsky's political opponents and ill-wishers.
Lunacharsky was once warned against this by Lenin. In November 1907, for example, during a sharp ideological struggle with the enemies of Marxism, he wrote to him about the forthcoming pamphlet "On the Party's Relationship with the Trade Unions": "An interesting and excellently written piece. Only one thing: there are many external indiscretions, so to speak, that is, such that all sorts of Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Syndicalists, etc., will find fault with. We deliberated collectively, to retouch or stipulate in the preface? We decided the latter, because it’s a pity to retouch. ”*
* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 47, p. 115.
Separate materials included in this collection are also not free from "carelessness", sometimes controversial definitions. Some clarifications are given in the notes.
The third and fourth sections contain Lunacharsky's speeches, memoirs, and articles commenting on Lenin's views on socialist culture, the difficult paths of its formation and development, and its role in the radical reorganization of society on fundamentally new, communist principles.
Encyclopedic knowledge, twelve years of activity as People's Commissar of Education allowed Lunacharsky to cover the phenomena of cultural life in all their diversity and depth. He was among the first theoreticians of socialist culture who had to speak "in an almost uncultivated field", directly supervised a large complex of institutions of public education, science and art.
With all the strength of his enormous, multifaceted talent, Lunacharsky propagated Lenin's ideological heritage, which he considered the most reliable compass in determining the specific paths of the country's cultural development, in the formation of a new, socialist culture.
Lunacharsky's numerous speeches and articles give a convincing interpretation of the Marxist-Leninist theory of culture and the cultural revolution, substantiate its significance as one of the most important conditions for socialist transformations, reveal the specific tasks of the cultural revolution in our country, and show the leading role of the Communist Party in its implementation.
In the most complete, systematized form, the sum of these issues is covered in the large article "Lenin and literary criticism" (see the fourth section of the collection) - a major scientific study written for the Literary Encyclopedia, in which, as the author himself testifies, "more or less everything Leninist that can serve as a basis for Marxist-Leninist literary criticism, directly or semi-directly, because indirectly the whole of Lenin can serve this!” (from a letter from A. V. Lunacharsky to his literary secretary I. A. Satsu). It shows that the Marxist-Leninist theory of culture took shape in the course of the development of all the constituent parts of Marxism-Leninism - philosophy, political economy, scientific communism, reveals its inseparability from other aspects of the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin.
Lunacharsky was one of the first who resolutely opposed attempts to oppose Marxism to Leninism. With his characteristic strength and irresistibility of argumentation, Lunacharsky substantiates the continuity of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine as a whole as a single and integral system of views, worldview and worldview of the proletariat. One cannot be a Leninist, he argues, without being a Marxist, for the entire theory and practice of Lenin and his party are based on Marxism.
This continuity is equally inherent in the theory of culture: “It goes without saying,” we read in the article, “that in its basic features Lenin’s teaching on culture is the same as that which we find in Marx and Engels. The concept of culture embraces in them, in essence, all forms of social life, with the exception of direct production. The concept of culture includes all the so-called superstructures. These include not only "pure" forms of ideology, religion, philosophy, science, art, but also such forms of culture that are directly related to everyday life: morality, not only theoretical, but also directly existing in life, law, again and in its ideological and practical forms, etc. All these forms of culture are in continuous interaction with each other and, to a certain extent, also put pressure on the economic foundation of society. The determinant of all forms of culture and all its dynamics is, in the final analysis, the process of production.
Organic interconnection, the interdependence of material and spiritual culture, the inseparability of culture from the whole life of society, the recognition of the active role of social consciousness in the history of civilization - these and many other aspects of Lenin's doctrine of culture were the subject of Lunacharsky's research.
Along with considering the general provisions of Marxism concerning culture, in his works he paid special attention to Lenin's "most valuable and original thoughts", which opened a new page in the theory of culture and in the practice of cultural construction.
The question of creating a socialist culture, Lunacharsky emphasized, confronted Lenin primarily as a practical question. He notes that “for Lenin, the cultural revolution was a colossal process”, justifies the wide scope of its goals, including the fight against illiteracy, the reform of the school, the proletarianization of universities, the restructuring of the principles of the theater, cinema, etc.
Lenin did not forget to repeat, Lunacharsky stressed, that neither the sword nor the machine by themselves can ensure the building of socialism, that this requires a huge peaceful cultural upsurge of the masses, because thanks to it it is possible to industrialize the country, to achieve co-operation in agriculture, not only legally, but and in fact to ensure a genuine democratization of all public life.
The Leninist party considered the achievement of universal literacy to be a necessary condition for such an upsurge. Reading, writing, counting - that's what tens of millions of people need to be taught first of all.
Enlightenment, in all its fields, as Lunacharsky rightly noted, is part of Lenin's work, imbued with Lenin's principles. One of these principles is the inseparable interaction of general education, technical education and political enlightenment of the masses, which "should be twisted into one bundle, turned into an iron rope of a single system of education."
This required "enlighteners themselves", administrators, business executives of a new type, capable of replacing the bourgeois apparatus of government. And there were very few of them.
What is the way out? “There is only one way out,” Lunacharsky answers in his report “Lenin and Youth,” “to appeal to the youth.” It is precisely this group—the proletarian and peasant youth—that is the “wonderful, but as yet unprepared material” from which specialists must be trained.
Lunacharsky reveals the main provisions of Lenin's "brilliant and profound speech" at the Third Congress of the RKSM, which gives an answer to the main question with exhaustive clarity: what to teach and how to teach?
Lenin said, we read in the presentation of Lunacharsky: “Learn everything, assimilate the entire bourgeois culture, and after that figure out what suits you and what does not. Add your proletarian instinct to the knowledge you have acquired, add your proletarian philosophy, your Marxist school, and they will illuminate all the material for you in a new way. But remember that you can teach and build only when you study for a long time.”
Lunacharsky shows Lenin's deep faith in the younger generation, his conviction that the ideological arming of the youth will greatly contribute to the successful struggle for socialism.
In those years, the attraction of more than half a million of educators to the side of the Soviet government was of particular importance. “We must make the teachers themselves,” Lunacharsky recalls Lenin’s advice, “the very enlightened masses as conductors not only of general culture, but also of our communist ideas to the very depths of the village, not to mention the city. Of course, it is very important to educate among the Communists, especially in the Komsomol, advanced cadres of cultural workers; the time will come when they will be of high quality and powerful enough, and the sooner that time comes, the better. But during the entire intervening time you will not, of course, achieve a position where you could build education with communist hands alone.
In a number of works by Lunacharsky included in the collection, it is shown that Lenin paid great attention to the development of science, literature, familiarizing the working people with the treasures of art that were previously at the disposal of the exploiters, the preservation of the cultural heritage of the past, Lenin's views on the culture of the past, on its merits are comprehensively considered. and limitation, his demand to critically select in the old culture what is needed for the construction of a new society is revealed. “Lenin paid tribute to Western culture,” says, for example, in the article “Culture in Our Country and in the West.” - Of course, this does not mean that he took all Western European science, and even more so Western European culture, for something positive. Of course, he clearly saw that shameful stigma of bourgeois narrow-mindedness, which so far stains both culture in the West and even its noblest part, science. But Lenin knew the virtues of this culture, and in particular of exact science, from the most abstract theories to applied technical disciplines.
Carefully, bit by bit, Lunacharsky collected Lenin's thoughts about the "artistic education of the people", about the role of art in the construction of socialism. He emphasized that Vladimir Ilyich showed great interest in film making, he believed that cinema was the most important of all arts. Vladimir Ilyich cared about the production of films imbued with communist ideas, reflecting Soviet reality, about how to "promote healthy cinema to the masses - in the city, and even more so in the countryside."
Lenin was the initiator of a broad organization of monumental propaganda, the creation of monuments that would serve for the people, especially for young people, "an object lesson in history ... - in a word, they participated in the education, upbringing of new generations."
In general, the materials of the third and fourth sections of the collection, showing the role of Lenin, the party, the Soviet state in the development of socialist culture, reveal, in contrast to the nihilistic ideas about the socialist revolution as an act of destruction, its active creative principle.
In his reports "Lenin and questions of education", "Lenin in his attitude to science and art" Lunacharsky figuratively speaks of three fronts: political, economic and cultural. These fronts do not follow one after the other. Political, economic and cultural work are intertwined, forming one inseparable fabric. Both the political struggle, and economic construction, and the cultural upsurge of the masses—this is all for human happiness. “There is no need for a transition to socialism,” sums up Lunacharsky, “if people do not become wiser, more beautiful because of this.”
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Anatoly Vasilievich Lunacharsky has always been an active conductor of the party line in matters of building a new culture, an executor of its will. He is the initiator of the decrees of the Soviet government on the preservation of historical and artistic values, the decisions of the party and government on real measures to familiarize the masses with the riches of national and world culture. At the same time, Lunacharsky was one of the first theoreticians and researchers of Soviet art, a prominent writer, playwright, critic, publicist, and scientist. His name appears in the brilliant galaxy of Bolshevik writers - such as V. Vorovsky, M. Olminsky, P. Lepeshinsky. As People's Commissar of Education, he worked in close collaboration with Ya. M. Sverdlov, M. I. Kalinin, N. K. Krupskaya, G. V. Chicherin and other party and state leaders.
The personality of Lunacharsky himself was formed to a large extent under the direct influence of Lenin. In many years of communication with Vladimir Ilyich, in his articles and speeches, personal conversations, Lunacharsky drew ideas about the majestic tasks of the upcoming transformations and concrete ways to implement them. Throughout his life he carried admiration for Lenin and strove to be his worthy assistant.
It seems to us that the fragments collected in this collection from Lunacharsky's articles and memoirs about Lenin will make it possible to more fully illuminate the new type of comradely cooperation between outstanding figures of the party and the state, born of the revolution and the struggle for the construction of socialism, based on deep devotion to the cause of the revolutionary transformation of the world, readiness to overcome any difficulties. , the ability to combine a daring dream with a sober practical calculation.
The scale of the transformations, the unexplored ways of building the world's first socialist state, the novelty of the work entrusted to Lunacharsky gave rise to many difficulties and did not rule out individual mistakes. It happened that he was "reprimanded" by Lenin, in particular for his half-hearted position on the question of the relation of the Proletkult to the state.
We have already noted that Lunacharsky's articles and speeches, some of which are included in the collection offered to the reader, sometimes contain controversial assessments. However, we must not forget that they were often the first in time, that the right path was not always found immediately. Much Lunacharsky subsequently overestimated himself.
He was greatly helped by the principled criticism of Lenin, who, appreciating and loving Lunacharsky, severely punished all omissions and blunders, restrained his carried away "artistic nature." In Memoirs from the Revolutionary Past, Lunacharsky wrote self-critically about some of his mistakes: “Of course, there was a great dissimilarity between me, on the one hand, and Lenin, on the other. He approached all issues as a practitioner and as a person with great clarity of a tactical mind and a truly brilliant politician, but I approached as ... an artistic nature, as Ilyich once called me.
On the whole, Lunacharsky occupied the right positions in his state and literary activities, and pursued the party course in the field of culture. His personal contribution to the formation and development of socialist culture was all the more significant because he, like no one else, was able to win the “creative hearts” of representatives of science, literature, and art belonging to different generations, to direct their knowledge and talent to serve the common cause. Lunacharsky maintained creative and friendly relations with outstanding representatives of the artistic intelligentsia of the world: Romain Rolland, Henri Barbusse, Herbert Wells, Bernard Shaw and many, many others. The colossal intellect of Lunacharsky, his unshakable faith in the triumph of the ideas of socialism, to no small extent contributed to raising the prestige of our country and our ideology in their eyes. He was, in the figurative expression of Rolland, "everyone respected the ambassador of Soviet thought and art."
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The second edition of the collection is published on the eve of the 110th anniversary of the birth of V. I. Lenin, which will be celebrated by millions of people around the world. This will be a tribute of deep respect and gratitude to the person whose name is associated with the entire heroic chronicle of the Great October Revolution, the beginning of a new historical era - the era of socialism; a thinker who developed, in relation to new historical conditions, the teachings of the founders of scientific socialism, K. Marx and F. Engels. In Lenin's theoretical heritage, people of various ages, political convictions, and life experience seek and find answers to the most burning questions posed by the course of modern social development.
“Now we are looking in his legacy, sometimes anxiously looking for advice, guidance in our struggle, our construction.” These words were spoken by A. V. Lunacharsky more than half a century ago. But how modern they are today!
The depth of content, the brilliant form, the psychological accuracy of Lunacharsky's works allow us to more fully imagine that unforgettable time, as if to feel our spiritual affinity with Lenin.
It is possible that the image created by Lunacharsky is somewhat subjective. But it is precisely the direct impressions of the leader's comrades-in-arms, their unique sensations that are especially dear to us, without them the image of Lenin would have been poorer.
A. Titov