I know about the excesses and tragedies of that era. Yes, today we look at him in a different light and we don’t approve what has been done against humanity. Yes, we saw some documents that were still sealed away from public view yesterday and constituted a state secret. The image of Lenin is finally cleared of propaganda husks, which makes it possible to free oneself not only from imposed ideological dogmas, but also from deliberately intentional libel. It cannot be ruled out that tomorrow historians will discover new facts and supplement the image of the communist leader with new touches. But be that as it may, the scale of man, under whose direct leadership the change of historical epochs has taken place, will not change.
Kalmykia always respected Lenin, whose paternal grandmother was a Kalmyk. You remember, the times when monuments to Lenin were demolished under the onslaught of the so-called liberals. There is such monument in Elista, and I hope it will always stand. And not because the people of our republic are alien to the ideas of freedom and equality. People in Kalmykia believe that by destroying the memory of the past, we deprive ourselves of the future.
You should remember a discussion about the removal of Lenin’s body from the mausoleum in the late 90s. You can have a different attitude to this idea, given the testament of Lenin who asked to be buried next to his mother. But the mausoleum is not just a grave. The mausoleum is also a tribute to the millions of people who performed military and labour feats with the name of Lenin on their lips. We then proposed to let us, Kalmyks, transfer the body of Lenin to Elista.
Let us recall what the founder of "the world's first state of workers and peasants" did for people. Lenin became the creator of “social elevators” for talented but poor youth, for children who would not get a single chance to become scientists, artists or managers, when the number of very poor people increased.
And it would be nice to remember that we still live in the remnants of the state built by Lenin. So when someone sceptically smiles when recalling the leader of the world proletariat, let's recall that today, before our very eyes, the capitalist model of society is in widespread collapse.
It is quite symbolic that the collapse of the capitalist system began on the 150th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich, who devoted his life to the struggle against capitalism, the exploitation of man by man, and who said that the collapse of capitalism is inevitable. The greatness of Lenin lies in the fact that he turned out to be right.