The renowned socialist statesman laments another ‘Red Scare’.
In a rent frozen apartment in New York one of the most influential, but frequently unacknowledged, architects of modern politics sits in a small, old-fashioned chair surrounded by books and papers. Beside him is an old black typewriter on which he will occasionally still bash out a few furious paragraphs. When he does so there is a great disturbance among his attendants. The writer finishes his work and seizes the paper as soon as he has finished. Clasping it in his hand, he snaps his arm back like a matador flinging aside a cape, and holds it aloft.
The attendants fight for the privilege of being the first to take the paper from the great man’s hand. Whichever is successful trembles in delight before scurrying off.
I am a rare visitor from outside Revolutionary circles. I ask where the paper is going.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin fixes me with a penetrating stare. He is a small man, and at 156 years old, exceedingly frail. There is something bird-like in the delicacy of his frame and the sharpness of his movements, and a man of such advanced years should not carry any sense of threat in his look.
And yet he does.
The eyes are black beads of utter darkness. After a full minute of uncomfortable silence, a clock ticks on the wall, and he shrugs.
“The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post….what does it matter?” Lenin says. His accent is clipped and precise, with none of its edges smoothed by years in New York. He takes a cigarette from a silver holder, lights it, and draws in a deep breath which ends with a contented sigh.
“I’ve been told to stop smoking, but I do not follow orders. I have never followed orders.”
The smoke escapes from the gaps in his flesh, and seeps out of the old grey military style trench coat he wears. I catch a glimpse of bone and black withered heart as he shifts in his chair.
I am the first non-Communist he has spoken to in just over a century. He taps the ash of the cigarette out on a white porcelain tray. “So, let us begin. You have many questions, I’m sure.”
I have, of course. There is much still to understand about this man’s past, about the chilling nature of it all. There is much we have forgotten, and to our cost. But I must start with the present. How he became so important in America, of all places? How he holds New York, one of the greatest capitalist cities in history, in the palm of his withered hand?
I start with the obvious.
“Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?”
It is the question that used to be asked of anyone likely to work in a post where they came into contact with the national security secrets of the United States of America.
There was a time, I dimly recall, when film directors could be asked it, too.
Lenin smiles. It never reaches the eyes. Those are the ice that burns.
“Of course not. You know, many people have put their little labels on me. Bolshevik. Communist. Marxist-Leninist. It is absurd. I am myself. Is it my fault that there is some accidental similarity between Lenin and Leninist? Nonsense. People will draw connections where none exist.”
“But you did take part in the Russian Revolution? You did serve as the first head of Soviet Russia between 1917 and 1924?”
“That was a long time ago. I am in America now. As soon as I stepped on this land and breathed this air….then I became an American. Russia is the past.” He waves a thin hand. The bones are distinctly visible. “This is my present and my future.”
“How would you describe your political philosophy today?”
“I am a true American patriot. As are all socialists, of course. There is nothing more American than opposing the excesses of capitalism and the oligarchy. I represent the working class. This is why I talk about the 1%. This is why I wish to peacefully seize the means of production and peacefully abolish the Supreme Court and peacefully end all borders and peacefully abolish ICE and prisons and so forth. All these are very American. You cannot be American unless you recognise that everyone on the planet is, of course, American.”
“So you’re a Democratic Socialist?”
“Yes, of course. I believe that every child has the right to decide that they are a different gender, and that life affirming care, like abortions up to the age of 16, are integral to a compassionate society. We Americans are a very compassionate people.”
“I’m sorry….did you say up to the age of 16?”
“Of course. A woman must have the right to decide that motherhood is not for her, we are not in the Stone Age. It is deeply misogynistic to expect a woman to be this silly little label ‘mother’, is it not? Mother is a form of imperialism and colonialism. It is vital to offer every mother the freedom to decide, ‘OK, I have tried this mother role for six months, six years, or whatever, and it does not appeal to me.’ Therefore quickly and humanely dispose of the collection of cells. Anything else is surely oppressive.”
“What other issues are important to Democratic Socialists such as yourself?. What do you think is the most important issue for Americans?”
He leans forward, radiating intensity.
“It is Gaza, surely you must see that the most important thing for the safety, security and wellbeing of America is that Palestinians must be free to murder as many Jews as they please, and must face no unjust retaliations or oppressive restrictions for what is an integral right.”
“Palestinians have an integral right to murder Jewish civilians?”
“Well, I slipped there myself of course. Language is important. We should not say ‘murder’. We should ‘mortality equity’ or perhaps simply ‘social justice’. You know, far more Muslims have died in the history of the world than Jews, although Jews get all the attention. Therefore to equalise these figures is the very essence of Social Democratic justice.”
“But there are of course many more Muslims. And there are 57 Muslim nations.”
“Each founded with the highest principles of humanity!” Lenin shouted suddenly, rising to his feet. “Each more American than you! Each a bastion of true freedom! Each a shining example to humanity! Muslims are, you know, the most natural Democratic Socialists. They understand the principles involved. So….Gaza is undoubtedly the greatest possible issue.”
At this point Lenin’s attendants became anxious that my questions were unduly disturbing the great man. As he collapsed back into his chair, two particularly husky young men moved me towards the door, none too gently.
Lenin was shaking. “It is absurd to call me a Communist. I am a patriot. There is nothing more patriotic than to open your nation to the timeless principles of…..”
The door curtailed the last, and I was left pondering, on the long trudge home, just what he could have meant.
This article was first published at Jupplandia.
