Lenin question . . .

[John Givens]

Dear Seelangs:

I am posting a query from a colleague in German regarding Lenin's famous
Beethoven quote. If anyone can help out, please respond on- or off-list and I
will forward your responses.

Bol'shoe spasibo!

John Givens
givn at mail.rochester.edu

____________________________

I am writing a paper on "The Lives of Others" and am trying to get the
specifics on a supposed quote from Lenin. In the film, the main
character says that, upon listening to Beethoven's Appassionata, Lenin
said,

"If I keep listening to it, I won’t finish the revolution."

I found several versions of this. One said something to the effect of "I
can't listen too often to this music because it makes me want to stroke
the heads of those, whose heads I must pummel/whose brains I must,
without pity, dash out!" [The German: Ich kann diese Musik nicht oft
hören, weil ich sonst Menschen die Köpfe streicheln will, denen ich sie
doch einschlagen muss, mitleidslos einschlagen.]

An article from Time quoting him in 1947, quotes him thus: ". . . but I
cannot listen to music too often. It affects my nerves and makes me want
to say sweet nothings and stroke the heads of men who live in a dirty
hell and can still create such beauty. But these days you can't go
around stroking people's heads lest your hand be bitten off. You have to
smash them over the head—smash them without mercy—even though in theory
we are against every form of oppression of mankind . . . ours is a
hellish task."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,794511,00.html

I also found it in Lukács' "Lenin - Theoretician of Practice": . . .
Gorky recorded Lenin’s very characteristic words spoken after he
listened to Beethoven’s Appassionata sonata: “I know the Appassionata
inside out and yet I am willing to listen to it every day. It is
wonderful, ethereal music. On hearing it I proudly, maybe somewhat
naively, think: See! people are able to produce such marvels!” He then
winked, laughed and added sadly: “I’m often unable to listen to music,
it gets on my nerves, I would like to stroke my fellow beings and
whisper sweet nothings in their ears for being able to produce such
beautiful things in spite of the abominable hell they are living in.
However, today one shouldn’t caress anybody - for people will only bite
off your hand; strike, without pity, although theoretically we are
against any kind of violence. Umph, it is, in fact, an infernally
difficult task!”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/xxxx/lenin.htm

Finally, Zizek suggests it is an anecdote that has been used
particularly among Lenin's detractors, as proof of his extreme self
control, but that this "extreme sensitivity" he showed to the music be
read in the context of his knowledge that it needed to be kept in check
for the sake of the political struggle.
http://www.lacan.com/zizek-seize.htm 

Can anyone tell me anything about this? Does anyone know what kind of role it
played in Soviet discourses on art (particularly bourgeois art)?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Jenny

John Givens
Associate Professor of Russian
Modern Languages & Cultures
Box 270082
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14627-0082
585-275-4272

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