Lenin's "hardships" in exile in Shushenskaya, or why during the years of persecution the leader gained a lot of weight

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The professional revolutionary Lenin was a hereditary nobleman, which was always reflected in his life. He preferred to provide himself with decent living conditions - a servant, health care, hearty food, intellectual communication. The years spent in political exile in Siberia were no exception. A ram's carcass for a weekly menu, hares and partridges, mineral water ordered from the capital, ice skating and hunting, a merry Maslenitsa, a wedding and a honeymoon - this is how Lenin's life in Shushenskoye passed in addition to creating ideological texts.

Siberian exile as a happy milestone in Lenin's life

The life of political exiles at the end of the 19th century was usually quite tolerable. The scenes of wild lynching of Siberian prisoners, described by Dostoevsky on the basis of the events he experienced in the 50s, have sunk into oblivion. The tyranny of the prison authorities now concerned only criminals who committed serious crimes. And the revolutionaries who attempted to encroach on the existing state

three, could well count on normal living conditions in distant links.

And with the availability of funds, they were arranged no worse than under normal circumstances. The exiled had the right to occupy a separate house, exchange correspondence indefinitely, travel to neighboring villages, and have fun as best he could. The only and main limitation was the ban on accommodation in large cities. So for the revolutionaries, such a punishment became only a temporary rest and an opportunity in peace and quiet to ponder and plan further programs of revolutionary attacks.

In Notes from the House of the Dead, Dostoevsky speaks with gratitude about the years of his life in prison. Subsequently, similar words about the Siberian exile will be uttered by Lenin. Staying as an exile in a distant taiga village, he never once experienced oppression and violence in three years. He was given complete freedom to choose his lifestyle, activities and leisure activities, thanks to which he considered this time a happy milestone.

Independent choice of the place of exile and joyful letters from the carriage

During his political career, Vladimir Ilyich was exiled twice. For the first time, a still underage fighter against the regime was taken out of sight in Kazan Kokushkino. In this place, the ancestral village of his grandfather, his whole family loved to visit in the warm season. There Volodya served a year of "punishment" in the circle of relatives for his favorite pastimes - walking, swimming in the river, picking berries and other amusements.

In February 1897, 26-year-old Lenin went to the distant Siberian Shushenskoye - this is how Soviet historians described the second exile in his biography. But it is worth noting that Shushenskoye was also considered the ancestral village of the Ulyanovs in fertile South Siberian places. The three years of the young Ilyich’s stay in this village is well known from the letters available today to Lenin’s Krupskaya’s sister, as well as from Vladimir Ilyich’s messages to his mother. Lenin not only did not experience any hardships during his stay in Shushenskoye, but also went there looking more like a satisfied traveler. And he was not traveling alone, but accompanied by his mother and sisters. He did not have an armed escort, but he carried many books, a large suitcase of clothes and a thousand rubles in cash. The railway journey to the east did not tire the revolutionary: during the day he enjoyed watching the pictures passing through the window, and at night he slept soundly. And in his letters home one could easily read the high spirits.

Servant House, Family Hunt & Evening Guitar

Almost immediately upon arriving at the place of destination, Krupskaya came to Ulyanov, who managed to "exchange" her place of exile for Shushenskoye. In the summer of 1898, the couple got married. The honeymoon passed happily - the newlyweds walked for a long time, met guests, went fishing and hunting, picked mushrooms and berries, swam, took boat trips, rode bicycles, and did physical exercise in the fresh air. On the state allowance of the exiles of 8 rubles each and a substantial pension for their mother-in-law, they had the opportunity to eat well and eat, to subscribe literature and even drinking mineral water from the capitals.

A 13-year-old local villager served the family of revolutionaries in a three-room house. The Ulyanovs could always count on the cleanliness of the rooms, tasty food, washing and mending clothes. In the Shushenskaya exile, Vladimir noticeably gained weight, which his wife repeatedly mentioned in letters home, calling him a real Siberian. From the same letters it is known that Lenin had a hunting weapon and a trained dog. The newlyweds spent a lot of time with guns in the woods and in the swamps. Vladimir Ulyanov paid serious attention to physical education and active recreation. In winter, he practiced ice skating on a skating rink specially flooded for him. Moreover, this entertainment was not available to everyone, but Lenin's financial situation allowed him such fun. Lenin played the guitar well, entertaining the company of his fellow villagers with cozy evenings.

Work and search for like-minded people

Of course, the opportunity not to think about his daily bread turned Lenin's three-year stay in exile, as his wife put it, into a dacha life full of pleasures. But Ilyich lived not only in entertainment. At the same time, he read voraciously, conducted extensive political correspondence, wrote books and articles for the revolutionary foreign press.

With the peasants who keep him company on hunting and fishing, he did not really get close. They were little interested in the idea of revolution and did not care at all about problems of a world scale. However, Lenin sympathized with the simple-minded peasant Sosipatych, who regularly presented gifts to the exiled. He sincerely tried to please his highly cultured acquaintance who arrived in a distant land from civilized Russia. In addition, Sosipatych was a storehouse of useful knowledge for Lenin when the conversation turned to the situation of the East Siberian peasants. So he, one of the local, managed to get closer during that period with the leader of the proletariat.

Lenin also met with several other exiles. However, it did not work out here either: although the revolutionary treated them kindly, he considered the difference in the intellectual level insurmountable. Ulyanov sought mutual understanding with a local school teacher, a priest, but to no avail. These people habitually spent their time with cards and drinks, and the presence of the red-bearded exile only embarrassed them.

And by the time of the October coup, Vladimir Lenin had managed to change very much outwardly.