Lenin -- The Arehit By Bill Bennett AcMOST to the day of the nineteenth anniversary of Lenin’s death the siege of the city ~ that se proudly bears his name has been lifted. After eighteen months of almost total olation from the outside world, the workers of Leningrad and their Red Army are driving wie hordes of German fascism’ onto the ice and frozen marshlands of Lake Ilmen to destroy rem utterly, as their forefathers, 600 years ago under Alexander Nevsky, defeated and scat- red like chaff before the wind the forerunners of Hitler’s barbarian hordes, the Teutonic nights, to stop for all that period of time the onward march of German rule over northern urope. That victory at Lake Iimen was flicted on the German invaders sfore Tsarism had deprived the uussian people of their freedom ad made them into serfs and aves. Not again was it possible or the Russian workers to ach- ve such a victory over an in- fradinge army until they had re- fained their freedom, not even in the defeat of Napoleon before Moscow. It was not possible until the workers of Leningrad, men, wom- m and children, without the help xf the Red Army (it had not yet heen organized), with every kind 5f weapon and with no weapon a the will to victory, routed ind destroyed the well-equipped irmy of Finnish and Esthonian white guards under Yudenich in {919 when the world was acclaim- ing the downfall of the city and the white guard staff officers could see the people walking on the Nevsky Prospeckt through their binoculars. These victories at Leningrad in 1919 and 1943 do not surprise those of us who know Leningrad as Red Leningrad, the birthplace of the revolution. We could not imagine defeat for a people with such a revolutionary tradition. But these victories were made possible only by two things: the revolutionary spirit of the Lenin- grad people and the fact that the Russian revolutionary movement had produced a great leader, one who was not only a leader but @ creater. The people who had come through the cruible of the revolu- tion had been purified of the dross and slag by the genius of the greatest social artificer of the twentieth century—Vladimir Tiych Lenin, the disciple of that other revolutionary, Marx, whom history will one day recognize as the greatest figure of the nine- teenth centnry. e@ Lo applying Marx’s theor- ies to the conditions of twen- tieth century imperialism found the key that opens the door to human freedom, to the abolition of class rule and class distinction and to the misery, suffering that accompanies them. We should go further and say that Lenin not only found the key—he made the key. For Lenin was a real creator. Like a blacksmith with a job to do that is out of the usual routine, he first made the tools that would be needed to do the job. He made the Communist Party and everything that has been done by that party is the work of Lenin and with him and after him, Stalin. The Red Army, the industrialization of that vast agrarian country and the electri- fication of its power resources, the collectivization of the peasant farms, the elimination of the 96 percent illiteracy prevalent under Tsarism, the elevation of science to its rightful place in social life and the new dignity that at- taches to labor. These new factors in the life of the Soviet people are the cre- ation of Lenin carried through by the party he-made and under his guidance. These are peacetime victories, equal in magnitude to the epic victorious battles of the Red Army on the battlefield which is western Russia today, littered with ruins and corpses. e@ F any man ever lived whose purpose in life could be called “single-minded” it was Lenin. In exile in Paris, in Berne, in Ge- neva, in Cracow, in Zurich, his thoughts, like his work, were al- ways of the revolution, of the freeing of the working class, not of Russia alone but of the whole world. To this purpose he brought an understanding that placed him in a class by himself, an under- standing that justified Stalin’s remark about him: ‘‘When I com- pare the other leaders with Len- 4 yl eh Vere in, they always seem to be a head shorter.” But these successes of the So- viet people were sure to inspire hatred in the breast of reaction. Today the Soviet people are com- pelled, despite their consistent ef- forts to maintain peaceful rela- tions with their neighbor peoples, to protect their peacetime gains with the Red Army, which they were wise enough to build while advocating collective security. They sought no quarrel, but they knew they would be involved in one. I learned this from them and saw some of the prepara- tions when I was in Moscow in 1932. The people who defeated the White Guard reactionaries, ser- vile tools of foreign imperialism, who chased Kolchak half-way ee across Siberia, who destroyed the forces of Deniken at Perekop, who drove Wrangel’s armies into Rumania and who exacted retri- bution on the anarchists who Seized the Kronstadt fortress were.not to be found asleep by the Nazis in their plans to ex- terminate the whole Slav peo- ple. ) pee glorious achievements of the Red Army cannot be told to the full today, nor the less pub- licized but -no less valuable con- tributions of the guerrillas. The war may be long over and Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito and their fol- lowers and dupes have met their well-deserved doom before we learn a tenth part of the story of the Red Army in this war. But enough is known of the bravery, the heroism, the initia- tive and resourcefulness of the Red Army soldiers and their guerrilla brothers and sisters in arms, to make many people wonder, “Why?” It is simple. They are fighting for what they won by following the advice of Lenin. Their generals and leaders also, are different because they have freed themselves of the mummy- cloths of th mind. They approach every question with a freedom from the restrictions and taboos which make the average military mind appear to be made of con- erete. This, too, is a gift from Lenin—and Lenin's party. @ T ENINGRAD! Stalingrad! These are not only turning points in the war against fascism, they are milestones in the march of human progress. Stalingrad, 1942! will become a fixed point in the histories of the future just as William the Conqueror, 1066! is to the average Englishman of today. There has been much talk about who are the great generals the war has produced. Several have been mentioned, but the greatest general of all has still to be ac- credited—Stalin. The leadership of Joseph Stal- in is as potent a factor in the Red Army victories as the cour- age and initiative of the Red Army soldiers. Outside of the So- viet Union, few people knew that Stalin was the leading milit- ary genius of the “civil” war. He was responsible for the defeats of Kolehak, Deniken and Wrangel. He has a genius for organization possessed by no other individual of this generation. He defended Tsaritzin in 1919, the city that later was to bear his name, Stalingrad, and to be- come a symbol for courage and will to victory. His first move was to clean out the “fifth col- umnists” of that day, -white ele- ments who did the bidding of Tzarists, and foreign imperial- ist masters. His program for these people was expressed in a telegram he sent to Lenin: “With enemies we will behave as ene mies.” These hammer blows of the Red Army are but the beginning. The whole HBastern front is moving. The fascist armies on that front are crumbling. If the United Na- tions move rapidly into their place the whole fascist structure will be brought to the ground So much the sooner. Our task is to see that it is, for the creation of Lenin’s genius is not only sav- ing the Russian people, it is saving us too.