Did Stalin poison Lenin?
Vladamir Lenin, the founder of Russian communism, may have died because of stress, family medical history or of poison given to him by his successor Joseph Stalin.. Dr. Harry Vinters, a neurologist at the University of California in Los Angeles and Lev Lurie, a Russian historian, re-examined Lenin’s personal and autopsy records and clinical history for an annual conference on famous people's deaths at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where the deaths of figures like King Tut, Christopher Columbus, Simon Bolivar and Abraham Lincoln were re-examined. Lenin had died on January 21, 1924 at the age of 53. The Soviet leader had suffered several mysterious strokes before he died.
Lurie, the historian, believes that while Lenin was already experiencing bad health after having suffered several strokes, Stalin may have poisoned him after a bitter argument. Lenin had initially supported Stalin’s rise to power, but he later began supporting Leon Trotsky. Lenin had criticized Stalin’s rude manners and ambitious nature, and he even suggested that the General Secretary of the Communist Party be taken from Stalin, according to notes Lenin had written shortly before his death. Lurie pointed out that poisoning would later become Stalin’s favored way of taking out his enemies. "The funny thing is that the brain of Lenin still is preserved in Moscow, so we can investigate," Lurie told AP. The widely accepted theory was that Lenin had died from the sexually-transmitted disease syphilis, and his preserved body is still on public display in a Red Square mausoleum, even almost two decades after the collapse of the communist state.
Dr. Vinters, the neurologist, proposed a separate theory, that stress or a family medical history could be responsible for Lenin’s death. Lenin’s health had been growing worse over time, he had suffered three strokes in the last years of his life, which left him partly paralyzed and rendered him mute and bed-ridden until he died. An autopsy found blood vessels in his brain were extremely hardened, which was strange because he was young and because he had none of the important risk factors, said Dr. Philip Mackowiak, who organizes the yearly event, according to AP.
Mackowiak said that Lenin didn’t smoke and he never even let smokers near him, the communist leader didn’t have diabetes and wasn’t overweight. His autopsy did not find evidence of high blood pressure wither. At the time, there was “considerable suspicion” among Russians that syphilis was the blame, according to Mackowiak. Lenin had been treated for syphilis using medications available at the time, and while the STD can cause strokes, Lenin’s autopsy did not find evidence for syphilis.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/news/20120504/9768/vladimir-lenin-soviet-russia-stalin-poison-std-syphilis.htm
See also: Lenin's "Last Testament" Letters to the Congress
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/index.htm
(Collected Works, Vol 36; p 593-611; December 1922-January 1923):
Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution. Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. on the question of the People's Commissariat of Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by outstanding ability. He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work...These two qualities of the two outstanding leaders of the present C.C. can inadvertently lead to a split, and if our Party does not take steps to avert this, the split may come unexpectedly...Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from the standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky it is not a [minor] detail, but it is a detail which can assume decisive importance..http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/congress.htm
Lurie, the historian, believes that while Lenin was already experiencing bad health after having suffered several strokes, Stalin may have poisoned him after a bitter argument. Lenin had initially supported Stalin’s rise to power, but he later began supporting Leon Trotsky. Lenin had criticized Stalin’s rude manners and ambitious nature, and he even suggested that the General Secretary of the Communist Party be taken from Stalin, according to notes Lenin had written shortly before his death. Lurie pointed out that poisoning would later become Stalin’s favored way of taking out his enemies. "The funny thing is that the brain of Lenin still is preserved in Moscow, so we can investigate," Lurie told AP. The widely accepted theory was that Lenin had died from the sexually-transmitted disease syphilis, and his preserved body is still on public display in a Red Square mausoleum, even almost two decades after the collapse of the communist state.
Dr. Vinters, the neurologist, proposed a separate theory, that stress or a family medical history could be responsible for Lenin’s death. Lenin’s health had been growing worse over time, he had suffered three strokes in the last years of his life, which left him partly paralyzed and rendered him mute and bed-ridden until he died. An autopsy found blood vessels in his brain were extremely hardened, which was strange because he was young and because he had none of the important risk factors, said Dr. Philip Mackowiak, who organizes the yearly event, according to AP.
Mackowiak said that Lenin didn’t smoke and he never even let smokers near him, the communist leader didn’t have diabetes and wasn’t overweight. His autopsy did not find evidence of high blood pressure wither. At the time, there was “considerable suspicion” among Russians that syphilis was the blame, according to Mackowiak. Lenin had been treated for syphilis using medications available at the time, and while the STD can cause strokes, Lenin’s autopsy did not find evidence for syphilis.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/news/20120504/9768/vladimir-lenin-soviet-russia-stalin-poison-std-syphilis.htm
See also: Lenin's "Last Testament" Letters to the Congress
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/index.htm
(Collected Works, Vol 36; p 593-611; December 1922-January 1923):
Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution. Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. on the question of the People's Commissariat of Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by outstanding ability. He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work...These two qualities of the two outstanding leaders of the present C.C. can inadvertently lead to a split, and if our Party does not take steps to avert this, the split may come unexpectedly...Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from the standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky it is not a [minor] detail, but it is a detail which can assume decisive importance..http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/congress.htm
