.
Just in time for the holidays.
Needless to say, these creepy Christmas portraits were not Lenin’s idea. One can only guess how horrified he would have been if he had lived to see them. Christmas was abolished as an official holiday by the Bolsheviks starting 1918, roughly a year after the October Revolution. By 1935, however, Stalin’s government decided to reintroduce Santa to the children of the USSR. Poskrebyshev, a member of the Central Committee, enacted the reform.
Well, to expand a bit, it wasn’t Santa quite as we’d think of him. It was based on the old Russian version — Ded Moroz [дед Мороз], that is — different from Western Santas in several ways: 1. he isn’t jolly/fat; 2. rather, he’s tall and somewhat menacing. Some important modifications were made for (anti)ideological reasons: 1. ded Moroz no longer wore blue, as he had been turned red by communism; 2. now he wore a more festive hat instead of a boyar’s cap, as this would have harkened back to the feudal past.
Anyway, sometimes Santa was entirely superfluous. Lenin was all you needed. “I don’t know how to break it to you, little Vadim. God’s not real, and was never born, but I brought you some gifts anyway.”
Thanks to Anatolii Krasnopivtsev for the original post in Russian, which I just happened across today. Enjoy!
Hi! In fact in my Soviet childhood Ded Moroz was always dressed in blue and not in red. Actually lots of Russians believe is the main difference between Ded Moroz and Santa)
I guess all of the pictures in your post come from different editions of “Lenin and Kids”, kid’s classic book in the tines of USSR. The funny thing that most of the stories in this book including this one were based on real events but were inspired by true events. I can’t remember exactly but I think it was based on Lenin’s visit to an orphanage. Of course they had no tree there) My great grand mother as a school teacher at that time and she was supposed to visit her pupils’ families to make sure none of them had a Christmas tree!
If you interested I can probably find you a copy of lenin and Kids. There are also stories about Lenin training a dog and Lenin teaching kids to finish the meal to the last crumb.
Those pictures had nothing to do with Christmas but with New Year celebrations during the USSR-period. The tree is called a New Year tree. During USSR-times New Year was the most important and most celebrated holiday of the year. Of course, one of its pupposes was to give the population an alternative for Christmas and so to diminish the Russian Orthodox church even more. Christmans as far as it survived in USSR times was and still is celebrated after new year in Russia and most other former USSR countries.
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Anastasia , what a bunch of nonsense.
What do YOU know about it? Anastasia is right
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Thank you, Anastasia and Armand. That is what I remember too.
As far as I am informed, these somewhat ridiculous pictures reflect a story told by Krupskaya. She was at an orphanage for recovery after a sever illness and Lenin visited her and made friends with the children (of course). He also stopped by at christmas, with presents which were, however, stolen in a robbery. Krupskaya recalls that there was indeed a tree, but without religious meaning. You can find the story in Krupskaya’s reminiscences.
As commentators Anastasia and Julia point out, there was actually a basis for these paintings, however silly they may seem given how Lenin is usually portrayed as a rather dour figure.
To quote Krupskaya’s: “At the beginning of 1919 (Old-Style Christmas) the school arranged a fir-tree party for the children. With us in Russia the Christmas tree was never associated with any religious rites; it was just an evening party to amuse the children. The children invited Ilyich to the party. He promised to come. He asked Bonch-Bruyevich to buy as many presents as he could for the children. On his way to me that evening with Maria Ilyinichna, his car was held up by bandits. The latter were taken aback when they learned who it was they had attacked. They made Ilyich, Maria Ilyinichna, the chauffeur Gil and Ilyich’s bodyguard—whose hands had been engaged holding a jug of milk—get out of the car and drove away in it. At the forest school we were all waiting for Ilyich and Maria Ilyinichna and wondering why they were so late. When they reached the school at last they looked rather queer. Afterwards, in the passage, I asked Ilyich what the matter was. He hesitated for a moment for fear of upsetting me, then we went into my room and he told me all about it.” (Reminiscences of Lenin. New York: International Publishers. 1970. pp. 494-495)
(Also for the record I’m not the same “Ismail” as the person making the rude comment back in 2014)
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