30 years in cognitive dissonance: why we still had not bury Lenin

Sergey Baimukhametov

I quote from the website of the Union of Architects: “The All-Russian competition for the best concept for the re-use of the Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin on Red Square. The creative competition received the status of a special project within the framework of the Zodchestvo festival, which this year will take place from November 11 to 13... Applications are accepted until October 19. The best works will be exhibited from 11 to 13 November as part of the XXVIII International Architectural Festival Zodchestvo (Architectonics)... On the final day of the event, November 13, the winners of the competition will be announced. Participants of the competition are invited to develop a fore-sketch of the project of re-use of the V.I. Lenin on Red Square in Moscow as a museum dedicated to its design and construction... Other ideas for re-using the Mausoleum are not only allowed, but also welcome".

The announcement appeared on the website on August 26th. And it was noticed only by professionals. On September 12, the press reported about him. And - it began...

The competition was canceled two days later.

“I haven't met such aggression, such rejection of the project for a long time”, - complained the President of the Union of Architects of Russia Nikolai Shumakov. - A certain part of the society took the very idea very negatively. They called us, wrote to us - they used different methods, whatever. We received virtually no support, no positive feedback. In order not to cause further negativity, we decided to give up our positions”.

The intensity of passions in certain circles can be judged by the statement of the chairman of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov at a press conference in Moscow:

“In my opinion, this is an open cynical provocation. Only people with a sick mentality can make some kind of museum out of the necropolis... Again, all this disgusting public who crawls drunk with a dirty face with their hands to dig our sanctuary... You are just stunned by your irresponsibility!.. We will not let anyone dig into Red Square , 91 years will not happen again".

Why did the creative project have such a resonance? After all, if you think about the future, sooner or later this problem will have to be solved. The task is to preserve the current historical and architectural appearance of Red Square. And the transformation of the Mausoleum into a museum of the history of the creation of the Mausoleum is perhaps the best, perhaps the most logical option.

However, the reaction was clearly inadequate. Because the architects are to blame for something. They are justified by the fact that they are not politicians. They did not think that the announcement of such a competition requires a political preamble. About that very future tense, when, perhaps or probably... and so on. It was necessary to say that, given some extremist statements about the explosion of the building, it is necessary to preserve it as a monument of history and architecture... and so on.

But the architects did not write an explanatory preamble, they immediately started talking about the essence. And according to the text of the announcement of the competition, many concluded that the issue with the removal of Lenin's body had already been resolved: since it is not said about it, then it goes without saying. And - they were indignant. Not a project to create a museum, but the removal of Lenin's body...

As for the intensity of passions, we can explain it by a special, exceptional, one might say - a unique atmosphere in which we have been living for three decades.

“Religion is one of the types of spiritual oppression ... Religion is the opium of the people. Religion is a kind of spiritual fuzz, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image..." (Lenin V.I. PSS, vol. 12, pp. 142-143).

"Every god is a corpse... Every religious idea, every idea of every god, every coquetry with a god is the most inexpressible abomination... the most dangerous abomination, the most heinous "infection"". (Lenin V.I. PSS, vol. 48, p. 226-228.)

“Penza Governmental Executive Committee Conduct a merciless mass terror against the kulaks, priests and White Guards; dubious locked up in a concentration camp outside the city. (Lenin V.I. PSS, vol. 50, p. 143-144.)

"From the number of books put on free sale in Moscow, remove pornography and books of spiritual content, giving them to Glavbum on paper." (Lenin V.I. PSS, vol. 44, p. 119.)

Soon 100 years have passed since Lenin is dead. 30 years since the communist anti-religious state he created collapsed. Today we have churches on every corner, the word "God" sounds in the hymn, introduced into the Constitution: "The Russian Federation, united by a thousand-year history, preserving the memory of our ancestors who passed on to us ideals and faith in God..."

And at the same time, on the main historical square of Russia, the mummy of Lenin, the main theomachist, the leader of the God-fighting Bolsheviks, is carefully preserved . Following their godless ideas, carrying out their instructions, some ordinary communist activists did not just shoot the clergy, but shot in the mouth - a monstrous parody of Holy Communion.

Now, former and current members of the Communist Party are standing with candles in temples. Figuratively speaking, in one hand - a party card with a profile of Lenin, in the other - the Gospel.

If now we trace our ancestry back to the Russian Empire, if we have an official symbol - the white-blue-red flag of the Russian Empire, then why is the Mausoleum of the destroyer of the empire rising on the historical main square of the country?

How does all this get along in the minds of the current leaders of the Russian Federation, in the minds of ordinary communists, in the minds of the majority of Russian citizens?

The fact of the matter is that - gets along.

The consciousness of modern Russians is characterized by a term from psychology - cognitive dissonance. That is, "a negative incentive state that arises in a situation where a person has two opposite ideas, judgments, intentions, etc., relating to the same object".

And both "opposite views, referring to the same object" somehow coexist in his mind. But cognitive dissonance is fraught with explosion. With or without a reason, often - on an invented pretext, "took off", "I thought that ..."

This is the reality.

And it cannot be ignored. Yes, for at least a quarter of a century there has been talk that Lenin's mummy should be taken out of the Mausoleum, reburied. However, the authorities never dare to take a decisive step. Perhaps from hidden and often undisguised motives: after all, the entire top state-political nomenclature is former members of the CPSU. And perhaps not only the reaction of a part of the older generation of Russians, for whom the entire communist past is sacred, is taken into account, but also this most general cognitive-dissonant reality in which the majority of the population lives.

One way or another, by some tacit social agreement, the fate of the Mausoleum and the reburial of Lenin's body are left to the discretion of future generations.

And the idea of the Union of Architects, we repeat, about transforming the Mausoleum into a museum of the history of the creation of the Mausoleum is perhaps the best, perhaps the most logical option. For the future.