"Lenin lives" (was Mr. Mayakovsky too died in the gulag)

[Daniel Rancour-Laferriere]

Dear colleagues,
These are fascinating connections, and it is difficult to believe that  
they have not already been explored somewhere in the historical  
literature (maybe someone from the H-Russia list could enlighten us;  
didn't Nina Tumarkina write a book about this?).  I do know that some  
theologians (e.g., Hick) have made serious attempts to classify  
Leninism/Communism as a "religion."  Certainly religious utterances  
from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) could be hunted down and certain dots  
could be connected.  For those Orthodox Christians whom the new  
Bolshevik regime was trying to persuade there must also have been  
subtexts from the Christian Bible.  What comes to mind for me are the  
so-called "I am" ("egō eimi") sayings of Jesus.  For example: "Before  
Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58).  The grandiosity (sic) in the  
utterances of this peasant preacher from Galilee is breathtaking,  
virtually erasing time, or tense, if you like.  Jesus was, is, will  
be.  Or, more prosaically in Matthew: "I am with you always, to the  
end of the age" (28:20).  And imagine: Jesus does this with no  
embalmed body left behind, just an empty tomb, and texts which changed  
the world.

With regards to the list -

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere


On Mar 1, 2010, at 6:49 PM, ameliede at EARTHLINK.NET wrote:

At 11:35 AM 3/1/2010, you wrote:
> "Lenin lived! Lenin lives! Lenin will live!"
> I don't know if there is a relationship, but the last article of Rosa
> Luxemburg before being killed
> (http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1919/01/14.htm) ended  
> with the
> words "I was, I am, I shall be!" (Ich war, ich bin, ich werde sein).  
> I was
> told that it was a citation from the Bible, but I cannot find the  
> source.

Not the bible, but with the subject God, from the Hebrew daily  
prayerbook,
perhaps familiar to Rosa L. from childhood.
Jules Levin
Los Angeles



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