Lenin and Hitler clashed in chess. Did Lenin play chess with Hitler? Picture of Lenin playing chess

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August 24th, 2009 , 03:14 pm

The photo of Hitler (below) is highlighted with a cross.

Another photo from that time.
Does he look like the player from Levenstamm's painting?

Anyway, did Hitler play chess?
It seems that yes, precisely in Vienna, in coffee shops.

And Molotov is good for anything: “Ribbentrop was extremely disposed towards “people with hard faces.” Ciano probably would not have believed his eyes if Ribbentrop had ever smiled at him as friendly as he smiled at the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs. Only occasionally did Molotov reciprocate, when a cold smile slid across his intelligent chess-player's face. This short Russian, with lively eyes behind the glasses of an old-fashioned pince-nez, constantly reminded me of a mathematics teacher. The similarity was not only manifested in his appearance: Molotov was distinguished by a certain mathematical precision and unmistakable logic in the manner of speaking and presenting arguments. In his clear diplomacy, he dispensed with flowery phrases and gently reproached, as if in a lesson, Ribbentrop, and then Hitler, for lengthy and streamlined generalizations." (Paul Schmidt “Visit of V. M. Molotov to Berlin. 1940”)

Molotov actually played chess - Erofeev said that his father and Podtserob, Molotov’s employees, were once playing chess and Molotov found them playing chess: “But in short, they were playing chess. Molotov absolutely hated those people who do not work. It was absolutely correctly said that Molotov was a hard worker, he always worked. They often worked so that dad slept on the sofa right there at work and continued to work. And when suddenly Molotov found his assistants playing chess, he said - “I also played chess, in prison - when there was no light and there was nothing to do.”

Both Lenin and Hitler were born in the same month - April - 19 years apart. Lenin - April 22, 1870, Hitler - April 20, 1889. What do these two leaders have in common, besides fanaticism and the most brutal acts of the twentieth century?

This is our conversation on the KP television and radio broadcast with historian, writer, Doctor of Philosophy Andrei Burovsky.

ULYANOV AND SCHIKELGRUBER

Andrei Mikhailovich, do Lenin and Hitler have anything in common? Usually Hitler is more compared to Stalin, after all, they directly opposed each other in World War II.

Hitler's favorite gesture.

It’s true that in the minds of many people a dual connection has arisen: Hitler and Stalin. This is a wrong association. For the name "Stalin" there should be, for example, "Kim Il Sung", but for the name "Lenin" - only "Hitler". These couples are close. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov and Adolf Aloizovich Schicklgruber are both subverters and destroyers. Both clearly defined their actions: the old world is dying, our job is to finish it off. Both Hitler in Germany and Lenin and Trotsky in Russia sought the main thing - destruction. The first text of the Internationale contained the words: “We will burn everything, we will destroy everything, we will extinguish the old sun, we will light a new sun.” Let's destroy everything and build a new world. But Hitler, oddly enough, was still “more modest” in his destructive desire. He, of course, was an insane aggressor, but at the same time a soil scientist who tried to find some roots for the future Germany in ancient German history, in medieval history. Lenin destroyed everything that was in Russia. But in their hatred of the entire material world that exists outside of ideology, these two figures are surprisingly similar.

Everyone saw the footage of both the screaming Hitler and the screaming Lenin. Why did they captivate people so much? Because they were brilliant logical speakers?

Neither Hitler nor Lenin were brilliant orators, much less logicians, and both were terrible hysterics. These distraught facial expressions, shaking, ragged gestures, like those of an insect or rodent. There is a concept in psychiatry - induction. Both Lenin and Hitler very clearly induced a psychopathic state. Such hysterical speakers should not be logical or consistent. On the contrary, they talk as much nonsense as possible and ignite the crowd with their screams. But a considerable part of people react precisely to such leaders.

OWN AND OTHERS

Did Lenin and Hitler love their peoples?

They didn't even love themselves. Hitler beat everyone in the name of his people. Lenin beat his people in the name of everyone else. That's the difference between them. There is a phrase that is brilliant in its idiocy, showing the way of thinking of the Nazis: “We need to explain to the Germans that they are a Nordic race. Because now the majority of the educated layer has believed in this Jewish-French fiction, as if the Germans had many Slavs, French, Jews and other non-Nordic types in their roots.” How does Lenin’s idea of ​​inventing the Soviet people differ from this idea? In both the Soviet and Nazi versions, we are dealing not with real peoples, but with ideological fictions.

Long before the rise of Nazism in Germany, the leader of the proletariat, Lenin, also liked to raise his hand.

But did Lenin at least love the proletariat he blessed?

While speaking about the welfare of the working class, Lenin simultaneously felt a fierce hatred for skilled workers. Really talented workers, peasants who knew how to cultivate the land, who considered it their duty and a matter of honor to earn money for their family, and not just be proletarians, were decisively rejected by Lenin. For Lenin, only lumpen people were proletarians. In the works of Ehrenburg, in the works of Gorky, the peasant son is bad and disgusting, and the criminal is a real person. We raise him onto the shield. Here he is - a true proletarian. In general, the Soviet era created many myths about Lenin. For example, about his exemplary family. Although in fact, Lenin’s mother Maria Alexandrovna sometimes did not even know what middle name to write for her children in the birth certificate, because their father Ilya Nikolaevich was not their father at all.

Some historians are confident that the biological father of Volodya Ulyanov and several children in the family seemed to be the family doctor Ivan Sidorovich Pokrovsky, and that while studying at the university, Ulyanov even wrote his patronymic “Ivanovich” for some time.

There are many mysteries in this strange family that gave the world the leader of the proletarian revolution.

REPENTANCE OR FEAR?

Many myths exist about whether Lenin repented of what he did on the eve of his death. In Alexander Sokurov’s film “Taurus,” Lenin at the end of his life is an unhappy man who suddenly realized what he had done.

Chess: Lenin and Hitler. Vein. The etching was made in 1909 by Emma Lowenstramm, who taught painting to the young Adolf.

There is a tendency in Russia to feel sorry for the unfortunate. We are probably the only country in the world where they feel sorry for a criminal. We should feel sorry for the victims, not the criminals. Most likely, Vladimir Ilyich, who drenched Russia in blood, did not repent, but was simply frightened when he realized what he was on the threshold of, when the smell of hellish fire from the other world was upon him. Just as, by the way, Hitler did not repent. In the last moments of his life, he struggled in a paroxysm of complacency. Hitler’s last phrase in the bunker: “If Germany is not worthy of me, let her perish,” this is the desire to take with him the material world - his country, his people, let them perish with me, since they did not accept me.

How relevant are Lenin and Hitler now?

Extremely relevant. We live in an era of collapse of the world system, in an era of choosing a new channel of evolution. And here many remember Lenin, and Hitler, and Mussolini, and Stalin. Another thing is that Lenin’s socialist ideas are now turning into another form - for example, Islamic fundamentalism. Isn't Islamic fundamentalism the Leninism of our day? Take Muammar Gaddafi's Green Book. Both Vladimir Ilyich and Adolf Aloizovich would have burst into tears of delight if they had read Muammar Gaddafi. In the Arab Muslim world there is a huge wave of a bizarre combination of Islamic religious fundamentalism, local pochvennichestvo and the ideas of socialism. Why not Hitler? Why not Lenin?

There is an engraving of Lenin and Hitler playing chess in Vienna, 1909. Could this happen? A 39-year-old Russian revolutionary and a 20-year-old aspiring Austrian artist, who, by the way, was taking lessons from the famous Austrian Jewish artist, met in one place.

In principle, they could meet. They are contemporaries, especially since Lenin lived most of his life in Europe. But there is no evidence that Lenin and Hitler met. It's even sad that this picture is a fake. It would be logical if this were reality. Then a lot of things would fall into place...

FROM THE KP DOSSIER

Andrey Mikhailovich Burovsky, 56 years old, writer, archaeologist, Doctor of Philosophy, Candidate of Historical Sciences, professor. Lives in St. Petersburg. Author of more than a hundred scientific works, dozens of books on Russian history, including “The Greatness and Curse of St. Petersburg”, “The Truth about Pre-Petrine Rus'”, “The Man of the Future”, “The Great Civil War” and many others.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Ulyanov)

Lenin and chess is a topic that has repeatedly become the subject of analysis not only by historians, but also by professional chess players. It is reflected in the notes of Lenin himself, widely represented in the memoirs (of relatives, comrades in the Bolshevik Party, even in the memoirs of political opponents), in scientific and popular biographies of the leader of the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet government. Books specifically devoted to this topic have been published.

For most of his life, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was involved in chess: he played chess, solved chess problems and studies, was actively interested in the events of chess life in Russia and abroad, and met with fairly famous chess players of his time. In his political speeches and articles, he used images and vocabulary familiar to chess players.There are dozens of works of painting and graphics on this subject (most of them were created in the USSR in the 1930s-1970s), and a number of photographs have been preserved showing Vladimir Ulyanov playing a chess game.

Lenin's passion for chess was actively used in the USSR to popularize this game throughout the 20-80s of the 20th century. In 2010, this topic again became relevant in Europe and the United States due to the appearance at auctions of rarities that some art critics and historians associate with the name of Lenin and can be attributed to his chess activities.

Sources

The first page of V.I. Lenin’s letter to D.I. Ulyanov about the chess problem. February 17, 1910

Chess appears occasionally in Lenin's own letters and is occasionally mentioned in his theoretical and revolutionary works. Lenin himself in a letter from exile in Shushenskoye Mark Elizarov

Mark Timofeevich Elizarov (March 10 (22), 1863, Bestuzhevka village, Samara province - March 10, 1919, Petrograd, Russia) - Russian revolutionary, Soviet statesman, first People's Commissar of Railways of the RSFSR (1917-1918).

(which, as Lenin mentions in the letter, won against Emanuel Lasker game in a simultaneous game)

Emanuel Lasker(German: Emanuel Lasker, in Russian sources the name is often written as Emanuel; December 24, 1868 - January 11, 1941) - German chess player and mathematician, representative of the positional school, second world chess champion (1894-1921). Lasker retained the title of world champion for twenty-seven years, a record achievement in chess, and continued to compete at the highest level until he was 68 years old.

pays attention to the game of his correspondent, which he forwarded to him in his previous letter, and notes that Elizarov began to play much stronger. In another letter, he regrets that he did not take chess into exile. In another letter, Lenin and Krupskaya They call chess one of Lenin’s main entertainments in exile.

Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya , (February 14 (26), 1869, St. Petersburg, Russian Empire - February 27, 1939, Moscow, RSFSR, USSR) - Russian revolutionary, Soviet state, party, public and cultural figure, organizer and main ideologist of Soviet education and communist youth education. Wife of the 1st Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

Lenin and Krupskaya again mentioned chess in their letter only in 1907.

A large number of references to this topic are contained in letters and memoirs of close relatives of Lenin and his wife. Memoirs of Lenin’s passion for chess were published by his younger brother - Dmitry Ulyanov. In 1926, his article “How Lenin played chess” appeared.

Dmitry Ilyich Ulyanov (4 (16) August 1874, Simbirsk - July 16, 1943, Gorki Leninskie) - Russian revolutionary and Soviet party leader, younger brother of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

Nadezhda Krupskaya briefly mentions in her letter from Shushensky about Lenin’s parties against Lepeshinsky,

Panteleimon Nikolaevich Lepeshinsky (1868 - 1944) - professional revolutionary, party leader, writer. Husband of biologist, academician O. B. Lepeshinskaya.

about making a chess set with his own hands - Lenin cut out figures from bark and consulted with his wife about what shape to give them. In her memoirs, Krupskaya adds that sometimes Lenin even screamed in his sleep, announcing his move to an imaginary opponent. She talks about playing chess in the Ulyanov family circle. Such stories were reproduced almost verbatim in anthologies that were popular in the USSR and contained fragments from various articles and works by Krupskaya about Lenin, in particular such an anthology is the book “About Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.” In two more letters she mentions that they played chess from morning to evening, and Lenin won victories over everyone. In a letter to M.A. Ulyanova, Krupskaya reports that a certain famous chess player who could become a good opponent for Vladimir Ilyich may come to the village of Ermakovskoye (located near Shushenskoye) for permanent residence.

Among Lenin's friends and associates who left memories of Ulyanov-Lenin's chess hobby, Panteleimon Lepeshinsky (1868-1944) stands out - a professional revolutionary, party leader, and writer. In the 1920-30s, he was actively and professionally involved in the history of the Bolshevik movement (in 1927-1930 - director of the Historical Museum, in 1935-1936 - director of the Museum of the Revolution). Lenin met him in exile in the village of Shushenskoye. Lepeshinsky was a good chess player, but Lenin usually gave him a head start - an easy piece. He published several articles on the topic “Lenin is a chess player”; "How Vladimir Ilyich played chess."

P. N. Lepeshinsky

Lenin - chess player

Winter 1889/90. A chess handicap tournament is taking place in Samara. Among its participants is such a figure as Hardin. At that time there were no chess players in Russia who did not know this name. After all, Hardin was quite rightly considered one of the strongest chess players in Russia, a rival of Chigorin, who stood among the best players in the world. The winner of this tournament is Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov.

Vladimir Ilyich learned to play chess at the age of 8-9 years. By the age of 15, he began to beat his teacher - his father, a big fan of chess and a strong player. And five years later he met Hardin himself at the chessboard. The forces, of course, were unequal. Hardin was an excellent theorist, a researcher of a number of openings, and had more than thirty years of chess experience. His opponent knew only 2 - 3 of the most famous openings. And yet Hardin was little stronger: he gave Vladimir Ilyich only a pawn forward.

“... Vladimir Ilyich, of course, could soon catch up with him... and go further if he seriously took up chess literature, if, for example, the summer months that he spent in these years in the village of Alakaevka, he dedicated to chess and the theory of this game. With his systematicity, perseverance and mental strength, he would have become a major figure in chess in a few years. This is undoubtedly...,” writes his brother, Dmitry Ilyich.

But Vladimir Ilyich did not put chess above all else. They were for him only entertainment, rest, preserving and preparing strength for another, more serious struggle.

He played chess, gorodki, hunted and swam with equal enthusiasm.

Lenin not only played chess well, he also loved solving chess problems and sketches. Here, for example, is the sketch and the problem that he solved. They are far from easy.

In exile and in exile, Lenin devoted a lot of free time to chess. His constant partner Lepeshinsky in the book “At the Turning” talks a lot about Lenin the chess player. Here is a description of one of the “battles”:

“... I, Starkov and Krzhizhanovsky began to play with Ilyich in consultation. And, oh happiness, oh delight! Ilyich “drifted”... Ilyich is defeated. He has already lost one figure, and his affairs are completely unimportant. Victory is assured for us.

The faces of the representatives of the chess Entente are cheerful, roguish...

They laugh evilly at the opponent they are finishing off and in playful chatter express their genuine delight, savoring the successful consequences of that brilliant move by White, which turned out to be very fatal for Black, and meanwhile they do not notice that the half-broken, but not yet capitulated enemy is sitting in a frozen pose above board, like a stone statue, personifying superhuman tension of thought. Drops of sweat appeared on his huge forehead, his head was bowed low to the chessboard, his eyes were fixedly fixed on that corner of it where the strategic main point of the battle was concentrated... The goal of his life at this moment is not to give in, to resist so as not to admit defeat. It’s better to die from a cerebral hemorrhage, but still not capitulate, but still get out of a difficult situation with honor...

The frivolous Entente does not notice any of this.

Its leader was the first to sound the alarm:

Ba, ba, ba, this is something unexpected by us... - in a voice full of anxiety, he reacts to the magnificent maneuver made by Ilyich. “Hm... hm... the strained juice needs to be chewed,” he mutters under his breath...

But alas, it was necessary to chew it earlier, but now it’s too late. With two or three “quiet” moves, the stubborn enemy of the “Entente”, under the guise of its premature jubilation, created a situation completely unexpected for the allies, and their battle “luck” betrayed them.

From this moment on, their faces become more and more elongated... The allies begin to quarrel among themselves, reproaching each other for being rude, and their winner smiles cheerfully and wipes the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.”

After the revolution, Lenin almost did not play chess at all. The gigantic struggle for the world's first socialist state left no time for a chess fight.

“... All the power of his mind, all his enormous will are mobilized completely, without reserve, for victory, at any cost. His beautifully designed head is working hard... on a kind of chess problem. Take a closer look at this “game”. Here he is pushing forward pawn democracy against the citadels of domestic capitalism. Here he “plays a gambit”, agrees to the Brest sacrifice. Here he makes an unexpected castling - the center of the game is transferred from Smolny to the Kremlin walls. Here he deploys forces with the help of the Red Army, Red cavalry, Red artillery, defends himself, protects the results of the conquests made, and, if possible, attacks. Here he “occupies” the enemy - he throws out the idea of ​​concessions. It’s as if he’s retreating and making “quiet moves” fraught with consequences - coming to an agreement with the peasantry, taking a liking to the electrification plan, etc. Here he’s taking pawns to the line where they turn into big figures - through the apparatus of the Soviet and party organizations, preparing from the workers -peasant environment, new intelligentsia, major administrators, politicians, creators of new life. And... the whole world will be shocked by the ending of the game: Ilyichevsk’s “checkmate” against capitalism will put an end to the “game”, which will be carefully studied by subsequent generations for hundreds and thousands of years.”

smena-online.ru

Several valuable comments on the topic belong to Maxim Gorky, including in Lenin's obituary written in 1924.

Maksim Gorky(real name -Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov ; It is also common to use the writer’s real name in combination with a pseudonym -Alexey Maksimovich Gorky ; March 16, 1868, Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Empire - June 18, 1936, Gorki, Moscow region, USSR) - Russian writer, prose writer, playwright. One of the most significant and famous Russian writers and thinkers in the world.

If in the original edition of this obituary chess was briefly mentioned only once, then in the final edition Gorky inserted a story about Lenin’s games against Alexandra Bogdanova on the Italian island of Capri.

Alexander Alexandrovich Bogdanov (real name -Malinovsky, other pseudonyms - Werner, Maksimov, Private; August 10 (22), 1873, Sokolka, Grodno province - April 7, 1928, Moscow) - Russian encyclopedist scientist, revolutionary figure, doctor, utopian thinker, science fiction writer, one of the largest ideologists of socialism. Member of the RSDLP in 1896-1909, Bolshevik, member of the Central Committee from 1905. Organizer of the group “Forward” and party schools of the RSDLP in Capri and Bologna. In 1911, he retired from active political activity and focused on developing his ideas about new sciences - tectology, and the “science of social consciousness”; anticipated some provisions of the systems approach and cybernetics. In 1918-1920 - ideologist of Proletkult. Since 1926 - organizer and director of the world's first Institute of Blood Transfusion; died while experimenting on himself.

A series of amateur photographs taken in Capri in 1908 (between April 10 (23) and April 17 (30)) when Vladimir Lenin was visiting Gorky has survived. The photographs were taken from various angles and showed Lenin playing with Gorky and Alexander Bogdanov, a famous Marxist revolutionary, doctor and philosopher.

Bogdanov, Gorky and Lenin play chess. 1908

"Behind the Chessboard", April 1908, Capri, Italy. Standing: M. Gorky, Z. Peshkov and N. Bogdanova. Sitting: I. Ladyzhnikov, V. Lenin, A. Bogdanov

All of these photographs (or at least two of them) were taken by Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky, the son of the actress of the Moscow Art Theater Maria Andreeva and the stepson of Gorky, and in the future - a major Soviet cinematographer, director and screenwriter. At that time he was a twenty-year-old youth.

Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky, Maria Andreeva and Maxim Gorky, 1905

Yuri Andreevich Zhelyabuzhsky (1888, Moscow, Russian Empire - 1955, Moscow, USSR) - Soviet cameraman, director, screenwriter. Member of the CPSU.

Moskovsky V.P., Semenov V.G.

Books about Lenin

LENIN in ITALY, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, POLAND - 1908. AT GORKY'S IN CAPRI

1908 AT GORKY'S IN CAPRI

The path lay through Switzerland and Italy, through Milan, Parma, Florence, Rome and Naples. A mountainous country, Italy was not inferior in beauty to Switzerland, but already at first glance the differences were noticeable - the villages were poorer and less well-groomed.

V.I. Lenin wanted to get to know this country better. While still a high school student, he read a lot about the Roman Empire. At an oral exam in history and geography, he brilliantly answered questions about the struggle of the plebeians with the patricians, about raising children in Rome, about the most important cities of Italy - Venice, Genoa, Naples, Turin, Florence, Palermo, which by that time stood out as large commercial and industrial cities centers.

The Ulyanov family honored the national hero of Italy, Garibaldi, whose 100th birthday was celebrated in 1907. An organizer of the defense of the Roman Republic and a participant in the war of liberation in southern Italy, Garibaldi lived a long life. In 1871, the celebrated hero of Italy welcomed the Paris Commune. Gorky called him the “Titan of Italy”.

Garibaldi was the favorite hero of V. I. Lenin’s older brother. In the family, the children had a game. They reproduced the famous Sicilian campaign of 1860, when Garibaldi's ships went to support the rebellious Sicily. The cry of the leader of the revolutionary Italians echoed throughout the world: “Freedom is higher and better than life! Everyone rise up to fight the enemy, and we will fight until we overcome!” And even Latin, which was disliked by high school students, sounded different to Vladimir Ulyanov when he read Cicero and other ancient Roman classics from memory. His fellow student D. M. Andreev recalled what an impression Vladimir Ulyanov’s reading of Cicero’s speech against Catiline made:

- How long, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?

The class froze, listening to the familiar words, into which Ulyanov managed to breathe new life. His sharp boyish voice trembled at low notes, his hands were tightly clenched into fists, his pale face and wide open eyes struck with inner fire and strength.

“Ulyanov soon infected everyone with his inspiration,” writes D. M. Andreev, “We felt like Romans, we heard the speech of the immortal speaker and experienced his words, which fell into the very heart. The Latinist, sitting at the pulpit, listened, covering his eyes with his hand. He did not move, and when Ulyanov finished, he silently walked up to him and hugged him.

- Thank you, boy! “he said affectionately and wanted to add something else, but at that moment the bell rang, and the teacher, waving his hand, left the class.”

And now, two decades later, Lenin entered the soil of Italy. Before the night express to Naples there was time to wander around the Italian capital, and he walked along the Via 3 Milazzo reading Italian inscriptions.

3 Via - street (it.)

I went to a cheap cafe to have a snack and listen to the conversations of working people. Then he took a cab, drove along Via Nazionale to the Forum, and examined its ancient relics. Went up to Capitol Hill.

On the way to Naples, Lenin read in the newspaper Avanti (Forward) Gorky’s article “On Cynicism,” which he already knew from its publication in one of the French publications. The editors of Proletary returned it to the author, since it set forth the ideas of “God-building.” For the same reason, the editors did not publish his other article, “The Destruction of Personality.” Vladimir Ilyich objected to these publications. Motivating his position, V.I. Lenin wrote to Gorky on February 25, 1908 that his refusal to redo the article or cooperate with Proletary would cause an escalation of the conflict among the Bolsheviks, and this would weaken the revolutionary Social Democrats in Russia.

Almost a year has passed since their meeting at the London Convention. Alexey Maksimovich was delighted with the speeches of the workers' delegates. And now he could not discern the true face of the Machists and “god builders” led by Bogdanov.

Vladimir Ilyich changed his mind a lot on the way to Gorky.

A few blocks from the station to the pier - and the famous Bay of Naples appeared before our eyes. The city descended in a huge semicircle towards the water. And then - countless boats, boats, longboats, boats for various purposes; piers extending far from the shore, and walkways on which people scurried, bustled, walked, and sat. They all seemed to be talking at the same time, gesticulating vigorously, and it seemed as if no one was listening. A large section of the embankment was occupied by a market where freshly caught fish and other seafood were sold: squid, crabs, lobsters - almost the entire fauna of the Tyrrhenian and Mediterranean seas. But everyone could see all the fauna on the same embankment - in the Naples Aquarium Museum. Vladimir Ilyich will come here later, together with Alexei Maksimovich.

The outlines of the island of Capri could be seen in the distance. The passenger ship, which constantly sailed between the city and the island, offered beautiful views of Naples and its surroundings. On the right, when looking at the city from the bay, Vesuvius towered. Along its far slope in 79 AD. e. Lava flows flowed down, burying the three cities of Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculaneum.

But here comes Capri. Yes, the island is indeed picturesque. No wonder A. M. Gorky wrote about it: “It’s amazingly beautiful here, some kind of infinitely varied fairy tale unfolds before you. The sea, the island, its rocks are beautiful, and people do not spoil this impression of carefree, cheerful, colorful beauty.” M.F. Andreeva called Capri an amazingly beautiful place on the globe.

At the Marina Grande pier there were many greeters and those who were waiting for the ship to leave for the mainland on the next flight. In the crowd, Vladimir Ilyich quickly spotted the tall, stooped figure of Gorky and next to him Maria Feodorovna Andreeva. Alexey Maksimovich joyfully waved his wide-brimmed hat, attracting the attention of his guest. Their meeting was very warm, as only a meeting of true friends can be.

Gorky and Andreeva led Vladimir Ilyich up the steep steps to the platform, then they went up in the cable car. Alexey Maksimovich did not fail to once again persuade Vladimir Ilyich to reconcile with his philosophical opponents. However, we only agreed that communication with the “Machists” should not give rise to theoretical disputes. The small, five-room, white stone villa “Settani” (its owner was Blesus) was located in the southern part of the island, on top of a fairly high hill. The facade of the house was facing the southern bay of Marina Piccola. A. M. Gorky lived in this villa (now not preserved) from November 1906 to March 1909. There was unusually clean, healing air here. However, I also had to experience some inconveniences, especially in cold weather. There was no electricity, they used gas lighting. In a house without stoves, they were heated in winter with braziers. Fresh drinking water was delivered to the island from the mainland.

Now, in the spring, these shortcomings were almost not felt.

Gorky worked well in Capri. Here he finished the novel “Mother” and wrote its second part, which was larger in volume than the first. Working fourteen hours a day, as he wrote to K.P. Pyatnitsky in February - March 1908, Gorky also created here “The Life of an Unnecessary Man”, “Summer”, “The Town of Okurov”, “The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin”, “Across Rus'” , “Russian Fairy Tales”, “Tales of Italy”, and not only these works. In addition to working on books, Gorky met and corresponded with many people, read manuscripts of other authors, and wrote reviews. After all, only in the year of V.I. Lenin’s first visit to him, Alexey Maksimovich read more than one hundred and fifty manuscripts. How many Russian and foreign newspapers and magazines did he have to read in order to keep abreast of events taking place in the world!

Vladimir Ilyich was given a small room overlooking the sea, next to Alexei Maksimovich’s office, and he was very pleased. In addition, Gorky had a good library, and some of the books were in the room where V.I. Lenin was placed. The son of Maria Feodorovna, Yura Zhelyabuzhsky, lived on Capri. He was fond of photography (he would become a famous Soviet cameraman in the future), and Alexey Maksimovich agreed with him that he would take as many photographs of Vladimir Ilyich as possible, but, if possible, he would do it unnoticed. Gorky knew that Vladimir Ilyich did not like to be photographed. Yura had a new film camera, and he was happy to prepare for filming. Thanks to Yu. Zhelyabuzhsky, there are photographs of V.I. Lenin from that period. They are all the more valuable because until these April days of 1908, Vladimir Ilyich, for secret reasons, had not been photographed since 1900.

Everyone in Gorky's house was interested in photography. Views of Capri, houses where Gorky lived, photographs of people close to him have been preserved, and humorous, montage photographs have been preserved, marked by Gorky’s inexhaustible talent for invention. Here is one such montage: Alexey Maksimovich is trying to return to Russia illegally. On the border post there is an inscription “Entry for decent people is prohibited!”

The soldier blocks the road with a gun, and Gorky defends himself with an umbrella. A whole stack of photographs was shown to Vladimir Ilyich, and he, laughing, said that one must be wary of Yura when he has a camera in his hands. Yura managed to take several photographs while playing chess on the veranda of Blezus’s villa, but then Vladimir Ilyich seriously asked to put the camera away.

On the very first evening, guests who then formed a Russian colony in Capri gathered at Gorky’s for dinner. A.V. Lunacharsky, A.A. Bogdanov and V.A. Bazarov came. Alexey Maksimovich really hoped that this friendly dinner would lead to the reconciliation of opponents divided by their philosophical views. After all, people have a single goal, Gorky thought. V.I. Lenin had already explained to him that unity of purpose does not guarantee against mistakes and misconceptions that lead away from the goal itself. The struggle is in the field of philosophy, but the party business remains a matter and everyone must continue to carry it out.

This thought gave Alexei Maksimovich hope that there would be no split, that if only a conversation could be started at the first general meeting, reconciliation would take place.

But V.I. Lenin knew that there would be no reconciliation and there was no point in starting a dispute. However, it was not possible to avoid the urgent topic - after all, only a spark was enough for a flame to arise.

Bogdanov, who received three notebooks (“declaration of love”) from Lenin, was eager to engage in a philosophical debate. He found a reason right away - Bogdanov grabbed the first one he came across.

There was no electricity in the house, like on the entire island. Maria Fedorovna, looking at the gas jets, remembered that the gas man was supposed to come, but did not come.

“Someday we’ll get electricity in Capri,” complained Alexey Maksimovich. “Science makes great discoveries, but we live like under Tiberius.” We warm ourselves with a brazier of coals and bring drinking water in bottles.

Bogdanov immediately took advantage of this tirade:

— Great discoveries also cause a lot of trouble, for example for philosophers. Because of them, Plekhanov fell into Kantianism.

“You are mistaken,” Lenin retorted, “it was the gentlemen of empirio-criticism who were frightened by the revolution in natural science and went crazy into idealism.” 4 .

4 Guseva Z. The distant shore. M., 1979, p. 111-112

Sparks were struck and the flames of controversy flared up. And Gorky realized that he was mistaken: the positions of the participants in the dispute were directly opposite.

In the essay “V. I. Lenin" A. M. Gorky described this dispute as follows:

“And so I saw before me Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, even more firm and unyielding than he was at the London Congress. But there he was worried, and there were moments when it was clearly felt that the split in the party was forcing him to experience very difficult moments.

Here he was calm, cold and mocking, sternly repelled by conversations on philosophical topics and generally behaved warily, A. A. Bogdanov... was forced to listen to very sharp and difficult words:

“Schopenhauer says: “He who thinks clearly, expresses clearly,” I think he didn’t say anything better than that. You, Comrade Bogdanov, are speaking unclearly. Will you explain to me in two or three sentences what your “substitution” gives the working class and why Machism is more revolutionary than Marxism?

Bogdanov tried to explain, but he really spoke vaguely and verbosely.

“Come on,” advised Vladimir Ilyich. “Someone, it seems, Zhores, said: “It’s better to tell the truth than to be a minister,” I would add: and a Machist.” 5 .

5 Gorky M. V. I. Lenin. M., 1981, p. 38-39

Vladimir Ilyich stayed with Gorky for only seven days. This, of course, was not enough to completely convince and defend Gorky. He pinned great hopes on Maria Fedorovna Andreeva. This talented actress was a strong Bolshevik, a brave revolutionary. Before emigrating, in her Moscow apartment, she hid N. Bauman from the police, smuggled illegal literature, supplied underground workers with documents, collected funds for the party, and became a financial agent of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. V.I. Lenin gave her the party nickname Phenomenon. During the years of the first Russian revolution, Maria Fedorovna provided communication between the Central Committee and the military-technical group, transported explosives for combat detachments, raised money for weapons, and during the days of the armed uprising she organized a dressing station and food for barricade fighters.

Vladimir Ilyich considered the matter of convincing Gorky to be the main party assignment of M.F. Andreeva.

Maria Fedorovna did not share the otzovism and god-building of Bogdanov and his group. She was worried about Alexei Maksimovich’s trusting attitude towards these people, and was worried about her forced proximity to them on Capri.

The influence of Bogdanov’s group could not but affect Gorky’s work itself. It was during that period that he wrote his “Confession” - a story that clearly reflected the ideas of “God-building” and which was replete with errors of a philosophical nature. The story provided material to justify the “new” religion.

Alexey Maksimovich felt uncertainty, the fragility of his position. Regarding the “Confession,” he wrote on August 31, 1908 to V. Bryusov: “I myself am very dissatisfied with it...”.

But he was not able to immediately abandon the ideas of Bogdanov’s group. He had too much to think through and decide for himself anew. The meeting with V.I. Lenin marked the beginning of a rethinking of philosophical, and therefore political, values.

During the days of V.I. Lenin’s first stay in Capri, they had a chance to be alone for a while. It was too crowded there then. Sometimes they went down to the sea, swam or went out on a boat with fishermen. On one of these sea trips, in a large fishing boat, which was driven by four oarsmen, Maria Fedorovna was with them. The first pair of rowers were the Spadaro brothers, friends of “Scrittore Alessio”. The eldest of them, Costanzo, a man with a rich imagination, knew many folk beliefs and fairy tales. Vladimir Ilyich listened enthusiastically to his stories, interspersed with singing. It was as if the soul of an Italian worker was revealed before him. He asked fishermen about their life, work, and earnings. Maria Fedorovna helped translate.

Vladimir Ilyich was in a good mood and, listening to Costanzo, laughed heartily. The old fisherman Giovanni, looking respectfully at the Russian guest, said:

“Only an honest person can laugh like that.”

And Vladimir Ilyich remembered the distant Volga. Watching the fishermen and noticing Gorky’s enthusiastic attention to them, he told Alexei Maksimovich.

- And ours work faster!

Alexey Maksimovich did not agree with him. And then Vladimir Ilyich asked him with sly reproach:

— Don’t you forget Russia, living on this lump?

Gorky did not forget Russia; he was connected with it by many threads. But he always admired when he saw people enthusiastically engaged in work.

It's time to leave. Lenin and Gorky left the island of Capri together. It was decided that Alexey Maksimovich would show Vladimir Ilyich Naples and its famous surroundings - Mount Vesuvius and the city of Pompeii.

They were seen off at the pier by Maria Fedorovna and Lunacharsky. In the essay “V. I. Lenin" Alexey Maksimovich recalled the following.

One late evening, numerous guests went for a walk, Lenin remained with Gorky and Andreeva. Thinking about Bogdanov, Bazarov and Lunacharsky, he said with deep regret:

“Smart, talented people, they have done a lot for the party, they could do ten times more, but they won’t come with us!” Can not. And dozens, hundreds of such people are broken and disfigured by this criminal system.

Another time he said:

- Lunacharsky will return to the party, he is less of an individualist than those two. An extremely richly gifted nature.

A small steamer, cutting through the blue waters of the bay, took them to Naples.

In the city they took a cab and went along a semicircle of the bay to Muller's hotel on Via Partenope, where Gorky usually stayed. Vladimir Ilyich did not want to waste a minute. First of all, it was decided to climb Vesuvius. Almost two thousand years have passed since that historical catastrophe, and the volcano still lives, breathes, accumulates gigantic energy in its depths and from time to time splashes it out. This happened shortly before Alexei Maksimovich’s arrival in Italy. This eruption brought a lot of troubles, there were casualties and destruction. Alexey Maksimovich retold what he heard from eyewitnesses to Lenin.

“Goethe said correctly about Vesuvius: “A hellish peak, erected in the middle of paradise,” he concluded his story.

“The picture drawn by Pliny the Younger about the destruction of Pompeii is even more terrible,” noted Vladimir Ilyich, “although Pliny observed the eruption not so close - in Stabia.”

We traveled to the foot of the volcano in a carriage. The horses could not go further, and the funicular was not restored after the recent eruption. We had to walk to the crater. Lenin and Gorky refused the services of guides. Vladimir Ilyich was trained in mountain hiking, but he was afraid for Alexei Maksimovich.

And he suddenly showed ease and speed when rising. My habit took its toll - in my youth I walked a lot, sometimes walking sixty miles a day. Both earlier and on this day, Alexey Maksimovich told Vladimir Ilyich about his childhood and youth, about his wanderings around Russia. Lenin advised Gorky to write about all this. Subsequently, Gorky fulfilled this wish in the trilogy “Childhood”, “In People” and “My Universities”.

We reached the top, carefully approached the crater, felt the old, restless volcano breathing, and quickly returned to the surface. From here there was an amazing view of Naples, the bay, Sorrento and Capri. We sat down on a rock ledge. It was here, right next to the crater, that the slaves who rebelled under the leadership of Spartacus camped.

And here is the steep eastern slope. From here, the rebels made a daring descent along the stairs of wild grape vines, unexpectedly attacked the army besieging them and won a victory.

In 1918, V.I. Lenin added the name of Spartak to the list of great revolutionaries of the past, to whom it was decided to erect monuments.

V.I. Lenin returned to the image of Spartak in the lecture “On the State,” which he gave in July 1919 at Sverdlov University. V.I. Lenin said:“...Spartacus was one of the most prominent heroes of one of the largest slave revolts about two thousand years ago. For a number of years, the seemingly all-powerful Roman Empire, based entirely on slavery, experienced shocks and blows from a huge uprising of slaves, who armed themselves and gathered under the leadership of Spartacus, forming a huge army.

Then Lenin and Gorky visited the ruins of the ancient city of Pompeii. The city did not burn during the eruption - it was covered with a nine-meter layer of volcanic ash. Several centuries later, people removed the ashes and saw the city in the form in which the disaster found it. The petrified ash embalmed the bodies of the dead people, and they appeared in the poses in which death overtook them. Not only stoves were discovered, but also bread that had retained its shape, a tagan with a pot, various household utensils, and works of art. These items are exhibited in the museum, located not far from the entrance to the reserved city. Alexey Maksimovich took on the role of guide. He had already walked along these streets, visited the museum and listened to the explanations of the archaeological professor who led the excavations. He now retold everything he knew to Vladimir Ilyich.

There are inscriptions left on the walls of basilicas and in gladiator barracks - the voices of an ancient life that have reached us. They are made in Latin. Gorky does not know him and asks Vladimir Ilyich to translate the text. Tired, they returned to Naples and had lunch at one of the restaurants on the water near the Santa Lucia embankment. It turned out that there was still time to see the famous Neapolitan Aquarium, located here on the embankment. Gorky loved to come here and highly valued the activities of this scientific institution at the zoological station. With respect, he spoke to Lenin about the energetic, enthusiastic Professor Dorn, who turned to scientists around the world with a request to help create the station. Money was sent from many countries, scientists came here to work, including the Russian biologist Professor I. I. Mechnikov. Charles Darwin sent a thousand pounds from England to create the station.

“Well, we’ve been to the bottom of the sea,” Gorky said with satisfaction when he and Vladimir Ilyich finished examining the amazing inhabitants of the underwater world.

My stay in Naples left many impressions. In the evening we sat on the hotel balcony, looking at the southern starry sky, which was so different from the sky of northern and middle latitudes. We talked about new scientific discoveries. Gorky spoke about his meetings in Paris with Pierre and Marie Curie.

The next day they visited the National Museum. There were collected many interesting exhibits found during excavations in Pompeii, including household items, metal gladiator helmets, and economic tools.

Lenin and Gorky parted at the station. Thus ended Vladimir Ilyich’s first trip to Italy. He has not yet succeeded in convincing Gorky.

In addition to the desire to try to do this on his next visit, V.I. Lenin wanted to get to know Italy and its people better and visit the northern part of the country. He dreamed of a trip in the fall of 1908 with Maria Ilyinichna and Dmitry Ilyich.

V.I. Lenin wrote to Maria Alexandrovna:

"It would be nice if she ( M. I. Ulyanova - Author.) arrived in the second half of October here, we would then take a ride together to Italy. I’m thinking then of taking a week off after finishing work (which is already coming to an end). On the 11th I’ll be in Brussels for three days, and then I’ll come back here and think about going to Italy. Why not Mitya come here? He also needs to rest after dealing with the sick. Really, if you invited him too, we’d have a great walk together. It would be great to take a walk along the Italian lakes. They say it's good there in late autumn. Anyuta will probably come to you soon, and then you send both Manyasha and Mitya.”

The trip to Italy with my sister and brother was not destined to happen. So what about Gorky? What was he worried about when Lenin left?

“After his departure, Gorky was in a sad mood, which he could not cope with for a long time.” 6 , wrote Maria Fedorovna Andreeva.

6 V. I. Lenin and A. M. Gorky. Letters, memories, documents. M., 1969, p. 407

But she remembered Lenin’s instructions and did not lose hope that Gorky would return to the Bolsheviks. On Vladimir Ilyich’s second visit to Capri, Maria Fedorovna will tell him:

“I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to pull Alexei out of Bogdanov’s web.” I believed in their rantings with all passion and condemned your intransigence...

* * *

At the end of 1908, a terrible tragedy occurred in Italy. The ancient city and port of Sicily Messina was destroyed by a powerful earthquake. More than half of the city's inhabitants - over eighty thousand people - died under the ruins. Alexey Maksimovich Gorky deeply sympathized with the people's disaster. He transferred a large sum of personal funds to the Italian Bank and appealed through the press to provide assistance to the affected population. Money began to arrive from Russia in Gorky’s name, which he transferred to the bank.

Immediately after the disaster, Gorky went to Messina and stayed there for several days. He was struck by the heroism of the people who worked to clear the city and rescue the wounded, and the lack of panic and despair. Gorky gave the fee due to him for the book “Earthquake in Calabria and Sicily” to the victims.

Russian sailors of warships, who were conducting exercises in the Mediterranean Sea at that time, provided significant assistance to the population. Rescue teams with food, medicine, tents, stretchers, and sapper tools were the first to arrive in the city. The Italian government established a gold medal with the inscription “Messina to the courageous Russian sailors of the Baltic squadron” and silver medals for distinguished sailors.

Later, in Messina, on the facade of the municipality, a memorial plaque was solemnly opened in memory of the feat of Russian sailors

* * *

In 1909, Bogdanov and his supporters organized a factional party school in Capri. From the very beginning, preparations for the school took place without the participation of the Bolshevik editorial office of the Proletary newspaper and were accompanied by agitation against it. Bypassing the general party centers, the initiators of the school came into contact with many local party committees in Russia, created an independent cash office and collected money, and organized their own agents. It was clear that under the guise of the school, an ideological and organizational center was being created, a faction breaking away from the Bolsheviks.

The task of selecting listeners was taken upon by N. E. Vilonov, a worker and Bolshevik. Vilonov, who fell ill with tuberculosis after being tortured in the royal dungeons, was helped by his comrades to go abroad for treatment, and he ended up on the island of Capri. Here he became close to Gorky, Lunacharsky and other members of the Russian colony of the island. He liked Bogdanov’s idea to organize a school, he went to Russia and soon returned with a group of workers-listeners.

Gorky, like Vilonov, was fascinated by the idea of ​​creating a school. He was sincerely delighted at the arrival of the workers, the opportunity to directly communicate with the revolutionary masses, and through them to come into contact with distant Russia. “The working people who came here are wonderful guys,” he recalled, “and I can mentally relax with them.” 7

7 Gorky M. Collection. op. in 30 volumes. M., 1955, vol. 29, p. 97

Gorky supported the school financially and provided a villa for classes. He enthusiastically read lectures on the history of Russian literature to listeners. Carefully preparing for them, I made notes and re-read Tolstoy, Turgenev, Korolenko.

The Capri school council sent a formal invitation to Lenin to come as a lecturer. Then the listeners wrote a letter to Vladimir Ilyich, in which they asked him to give them lectures on the most pressing topics. On August 18, 1909, Vladimir Ilyich replied that his attitude towards the school in Capri was expressed in the resolution of the expanded edition of Proletary. He wrote to its organizers that his view of the school“As an enterprise of a new faction in our party, a faction with which I do not sympathize at all, there is no refusal to give lectures to comrades sent from Russia by local organizations. Whatever views these comrades may hold, I will always willingly agree to give them a series of lectures on issues of interest to Social Democracy. Of course, I won’t go to Capri to give lectures, but in Paris I will read them willingly.”

At the Meeting of the expanded editorial board of Proletary in Paris on June 21-30, 1909, the issue “On otzovism and ultimatism” and the philosophical views of the otzovists of the group of Bogdanov, Bazarov, Lunacharsky and others were discussed. The emergence of a party school for active workers on the island of Capri, led by members of the Forward factional group, was also regarded as an attempt by otzovists and ultimatists to create a new center of the anti-Bolshevik faction.

The resolution of the meeting noted that the Bolshevik organization “cannot bear any responsibility for this school.”

Having indicated in the resolution that the otzovists, by organizing an anti-party school in Capri, were pursuing their own special, group goals, the meeting condemned this school as the new center of a faction breaking away from the Bolsheviks. And Bogdanov (Maksimov), who refused to obey the decisions of the meeting, was expelled from the ranks of the Bolsheviks, as the leader and inspirer of otzovists, ultimatists and god-builders, who took the path of revision of Marxism.

In the articles “On the faction of supporters of otzovism and god-building” and “Shameful failure” V. I. Lenin gave a detailed history of the school and its characteristics 8 .

8 Lenin V.I. Complete. collection cit., vol. 19, p. 74-108, 131-133

Party organizations, having learned about the anti-party orientation of the Capri school, adopted resolutions in which they condemned the school, recalled the students they had sent and invited them to go to Paris to see Lenin.

(To be continued)

In 2009, a unique painting was discovered in Vienna. In the drawing, dated 1909, young Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) and Adolf Hitler play chess. On the back there are authentic autographs of two future leaders of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany.
A wooden chessboard was found along with the painting, which may have been used for this game. The painting and plaque will be auctioned today, April 16, in Shropshire, England. The starting price of the lot is 40 thousand pounds.
The picture itself is under the cut.

The drawing was painted by Emma Löwenström, who taught art to Hitler in Vienna.

100 years ago, in 1909, young Adolf Hitler lived in Vienna, where he tried to make a career as an artist. Lenin, who was in exile, also lived there. In 1909, Hitler was 20 years old, and Lenin was almost twice his age. The house in which they are supposedly depicted was known at that time as a place where politicians gathered and discussions were held. This house belonged to a wealthy Jewish family that fled Austria on the eve of the World War, leaving both the drawing and the chess set to their house manager.

Now the butler's great-grandson has put both items up for auction.

The seller is confident of the authenticity of both items. This is evidenced by a 300-page document, including the results of research and examinations.

According to the Daily Telegraph, experts nevertheless question the drawing, expressing the opinion that it may not depict Lenin, but one of his comrades.

“This sounds too sensational to be true. However, there are results of research and examinations. Examination of the signatures on the back of the drawing confirms 80% of their authenticity. There is also data confirming the reality of the alleged author, Emma Levenströmm. The details of Lenin’s stay in Vienna have not been well studied. It is known that during this period he wrote “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism” and actually played chess,” the publication quotes drawing and chess seller Richard Westwood-Brookes as saying.

According to some experts, the drawing cannot be genuine, since according to the official version of Lenin’s biography, he spent 1909 in France, and nothing is known about his trips to Austria this year.

Researchers point out that by 1909 Lenin was almost completely bald, and in the picture Hitler’s rival has hair. Moreover, in exile, the future leader of the Russian revolution rarely used the pseudonym “Lenin,” which is indicated in the figure.

According to experts, it is likely that the drawing shows Hitler playing chess with some Austrian socialist from a section of the Second International.