In the last two years of his life, he was under constant supervision by German doctors, and after his death, his brain was carefully studied by scientists for more than ten years, and their work was again led by the German professor Oscar Vogt.
The book of the German historian Jochen Richter “Race, Elite, Pathos (Chronicle of Lenin’s medical biography and the history of the study of the elite brain in documents)” is dedicated to these little-known circumstances of the life of the founder of the Soviet state, as well as his posthumous fate, some excerpts from which we offer you today.
Waiting in Gorki
Famous doctors, both Russian and those discharged from Germany, could not advise anything more. He hardly slept. There was a silent rumor in Moscow that at night Lenin “howled like a dog,” and random passers-by listened in horror from afar.
Mark Aldanov. Suicide
On January 27, 1922, by decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was appointed head of the Soviet delegation at the Genoa Conference, an international conference on economic and financial issues. On February 6, Lenin drew up a directive stating that the delegation would seek a revision of the Treaty of Versailles and the cancellation of all debts. The conference opened on April 10. However, at the end of March Lenin was forced to refuse personal participation in it. He was replaced as head by Georgy Chicherin. Lenin's health noticeably worsened.
In mid-April, a German therapist, Georg Klemperer, arrived for the first time to treat Lenin. In his opinion, the cause of the illness was that Lenin’s body was slowly being poisoned by lead, because after the assassination attempt by F. Kaplan, bullets remained in the leader’s body. Surgeon Vladimir Rozanov, who advised Lenin, later admitted that to him, as a doctor through whose hands thousands of wounded had passed, such an idea seemed rather absurd, which he told People’s Commissar Semashko. He agreed, but they still decided to remove the bullets.
When another German doctor who arrived in Moscow, Moritz Borchardt, learned about a similar diagnosis, he was amazed and said: “Unmoeglich!” (“Impossible!”), but then he seemed to come to his senses and, probably, so as not to diminish the authority of his colleague in the eyes of Russian doctors, he started talking “about the latest research in this area.” On April 23, 1922, surgeon Borchardt operated on Lenin and removed one of the bullets. Another bullet, lodged in connective tissue, remained in place. At first glance, the operation went smoothly, and four days later the patient participated in a Politburo meeting. However, in fact, the operation was of no benefit, since Klemperer was unable to determine the true cause of the disease.
On May 15, Lenin ordered the expansion of the death penalty - this was the last bill he saw before his illness. Ten days later he suffered his first stroke. In June he was examined again by Klemperer. This time the verdict was accurate, but disappointing: the patient had only a year and a half to live.
At the beginning of June, a neurologist from Wroclaw (Breslau) Otfried Förster arrived in Russia. From December 1922 to January 1924, he actually served as chief attending physician. It was he who insisted that in treating the patient, preference should be given not to medications, but to calming exercises, walks and trips to the forest. While awaiting recovery, Lenin settled in Gorki, an estate that belonged to the widow of Savva Morozov before the revolution.
In October, Lenin began working in the Kremlin again, although his working day was limited to five hours. However, in mid-December he suffered a second stroke and was now under the constant supervision of Förster.
A month after this, famous brain researchers, the spouses Cecile and Oscar Vogt, arrived in Moscow to participate in the first All-Russian Congress of Psychoneurology. Their report on “pathoarchitecture,” which crowned a quarter-century of experience in researching the cerebral cortex, made a very strong impression on those present.
Soon at a Politburo meeting they started talking about inviting Oskar Vogt to treat Lenin. Clara Zetkin insisted on his candidacy, declaring that Vogt was not only a world-famous specialist, but also “a communist by his convictions” (Zetkin clearly overestimated the left-wing convictions of the socialist Vogt). Only Zinoviev spoke out against this invitation, and Rykov abstained from voting. However, Vogt only advised Lenin’s attending physicians; He never saw the patient himself during his lifetime.
On March 9, 1923, after a third, very severe stroke, Lenin’s illness entered a critical stage. He lost his speech; the right side of his body was paralyzed. The Soviet government turned to four more famous German doctors for help: therapists and neurologists Max Nonna, Oskar Minkowski, Oswald Bumke and Adolf Strumpel. Together with their Swedish and Russian colleagues, they formed an international council that met under the leadership of Semashko from March to April 1923. Its participants discussed the diagnosis and methods of curing Lenin.
At that time, in all doubtful cases, doctors followed the rule “In dubio suspice luem” (“In doubtful cases, look for syphilis”). Thus, the assumption arose that the cause of Lenin’s illness was advanced syphilis. By the way, he himself also did not rule out this possibility and therefore took salvarsan, and in 1923 he also tried to be treated with drugs based on mercury and bismuth. It was no coincidence that the invitation of Max Nonne, the author of the classic reference book “Syphilis and the Nervous System” (1902) and one of the authoritative experts in this field, who knew how to diagnose late forms of syphilis like no one else.
However, the conjecture was refuted. “There was absolutely nothing indicating syphilis,” Nonna later wrote. However, the very presence of this doctor gave rise to rumors about Lenin having syphilis. Echoes of these rumors can still be found in biographies of Lenin.
Participants in the consultation “made every effort to save Lenin’s life, since ... after his death, the radical wing [of the party] was expected to come to power, the abolition of the New Economic Policy, the severance of any trade relations with foreign countries and the complete economic collapse of Russia,” recalled the confusion of minds during his illness Lenin's psychiatrist Oswald Bumke. He also gives the following expressive psychological sketch: “As a rule, every day in Lenin’s waiting room... eight doctors were on duty, six Russians and two Germans... Russian doctors were unusually well trained in medical terms, all of them were good diagnosticians and brilliant researchers, some were blessed with excellent scientific ideas. One thing they lacked was the ability to act. During many hours of discussions, it often seemed to me that I saw in front of me an exact copy of the Russian General Staff, which, in the most alarming moments of the World War, embarked on the same long debates in search of the best strategic idea... We often argued for hours about the measures that our assistant physician was taking or a nurse. When these negotiations, sometimes interrupted by discussions... about the Russian and German souls, about some scientific work or a question of worldview, brought at least some result, suddenly one of the Russian doctors started the same bagpipe again: “Don’t you think that Would it be better to do such and such?”
In the end, one of the German doctors took the liberty, wrote out a prescription and made sure that the paper with the prescription was not forgotten on the table, but given to the pharmacy.”
Meanwhile, Lenin's condition did not improve. Finally, in mid-May, it was decided to take him back to Gorki “in the hope of the healing effects of fresh air.” However, no miracle happened.
It couldn't have happened. In October 1923, at a meeting of six leaders of the Soviet state, options for the future burial of Lenin were discussed. As is clear from the surviving documents, back in March of the same year, the German Foreign Ministry began to draw up condolences addressed to the Soviet government “on the occasion of the death of the leader.” The world froze in anticipation of the changes that this death was supposed to bring.
Meanwhile, the all-powerful leader was turning from a subject of world history into an object of efforts by doctors acting on behalf of the Politburo. Stalin was especially skillful in manipulating their actions. It is not for nothing that Ernst Schenk’s book about the events in the USSR in 1922-1923, recently published in Germany, bears such an unusual title: “Medical Protocol for the Seizure of Power.” Of course, Lenin could not help but see that “it was no longer the doctors who gave instructions to the Central Committee, but the Central Committee gave instructions to the doctors” (translated from the words of Elizaveta Drabkina), but he could not do anything.
“Doctors were deadly weapons, easy to use,” wrote GDR dissident prose writer Stefan Heim, outlining the psychology of the struggle for power with the simplest medical means, which totalitarian states learned so cleverly to use. - How can you protect yourself from the verdict of the commission, the luminaries themselves, who decided that the highly respected patient should change his lifestyle, he needs to unload from business, choose a quiet life in a quiet corner; any protest is easily suppressed; the team, having secured the authority of the doctors, demands compliance with discipline - everything is in the interests of your health, comrade; and then, perhaps, they will press a photo into the newspaper, where a sympathetic group, with a feeling of deep sorrow, but no longer holding back smiles, surrounds the hero of the day, who was finally sent to a siding and now, in a dressing gown and felt shoes, remembering how everything once was these little people fawned over him.”
Is it any wonder that Lenin soon began to feel a deep disgust for the doctors around him, in whom he now saw only guards assigned to him - the long arm of the Politburo, strangling his every intention?
The new year 1924 has arrived. His third week was ending when the leader died. The time has come for mourning and praise. Perhaps most eloquently was the sentence passed on Lenin by the writer Mark Aldanov: “It is true that half of humanity “mourned” his death. We should have mourned the birth.”
Waiting on Yakimanka
On one of the first days of January 1925, Oskar Vogt, who was then in Berlin, received a letter from Moscow from the oldest Russian neurologist Lazar Minor. He reported that a special commission discussed the brain research plan for V.I. Lenin in accordance with the latest achievements of modern science. Lenin's genius had to be materially substantiated. All members of the commission “are inclined to invite you, Mr. Professor, for consultation on this issue and, possibly, for personal participation in the research” that will be carried out in Moscow.
...Research into the brains of outstanding people began long before the October Revolution. Back in 1798, the Austrian physician Franz Joseph Gall, the founder of a special science - phrenology, said that it would be extremely instructive to study the brain of a brilliant person. In his opinion, a person’s mental abilities are directly related to the size of his brain and even the structure of his skull. As Gall believed, cognitive abilities are concentrated in the front part of the brain, and instincts nest in the back part.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, phrenology became a weapon of anti-clerical and democratic opposition in France and Germany. Its supporters, the materialists, considered the brain an organ of the body; her opponents are the organ of the soul. Both, however, agreed on one thing: “Women are less intelligent than men, and black Africans are not capable of cultural development.”
In the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, a number of studies of elite brain samples were carried out, in particular, the brains of mathematicians Gauss and Kovalevskaya, chemist Mendeleev, and biologist Haeckel were studied.
One of these researchers was Oskar Vogt (1870 - 1959). Back in 1898, this young and already popular doctor, who was patronized by one of his patients - the steel magnate Friedrich Alfred Krupp - founded the Neurological Central Station in Berlin, where they studied the brain (later it was transformed into the Neurobiological Institute).
By 1925, Vogt brilliantly mastered the method of cytoarchitectonic research of the brain. Its essence is as follows. The thinnest sections of the cerebral cortex are made, and its “architectonics” is studied under a microscope - its vertical or horizontal changes: the size of brain cells has changed, their number or the density of their connections with other neurons has changed. A person’s intellectual abilities and spiritual qualities may depend on all this.
If previously psychology was based only on subjective assessments: “smart” - “stupid”, “talented” - “mediocre”, “moral” - “criminal”, now the architectonics of the brain seemed to provide a criterion that made it possible to judge what kind of person this person really was. man, how much intelligence, kindness, talent he had in comparison with the standard.
The Vogt Institute in Berlin has long tried to look for “standards” by examining brain samples of “exceptional individuals” - on the one hand, representatives of the elite, and on the other hand, marginalized people and murderers. The work was carried out in collaboration with geneticists. “Of course, we stand only at the origins of science,” Vogt never tired of repeating.
In Moscow, he faced a dual task. Firstly, it was necessary to prove that Lenin - no matter what the enemies slandered! - until his death he retained a “normal” mind, and, secondly, that Lenin was different from all normal people - he was a genius.
Vogt had doubts. The move to Moscow did not inspire him at all. “If you need my help, then, of course, you can count on support. I could petition Semashko, the Commissioner of Health, and Lenin’s sister, so that the brain would be sent to you in Berlin,” Otfried Förster, who also sent him a letter, reassured him.
He calmed him down - and Vogt gradually became captivated by the idea of the upcoming experience. He writes to Förster: “The most interesting question is undoubtedly this: what is the peculiarity of Lenin’s brain? Perhaps cytoarchitectonics will provide some answer to this.”
Of course, Vogt was not the only candidate. Other names were also mentioned - Russian and foreign. And yet the choice was made in favor of Vogt. This was greatly facilitated by the trusting relationships he had developed with both Soviet (Semashko, Litvinov, Gorbunov) and German politicians.
In February 1925, Vogt arrived in Moscow. At the very first meeting of the commission - it included Moscow neurologists L. Minor and V. Kramer, anthropologist V. Bunak, pathologist A. Abrikosov and others - Vogt and all those present confirmed that it was possible to “materially substantiate Lenin’s genius.” This is exactly what the Stalinist faction in the Politburo wanted.
Vogt outlined his plans. Already in the first stages of the study, it is possible to assess the structural features of Lenin’s brain. Numerous sections of his brain will be compared with sections of the brains of other people, and the data obtained will be correlated with his psychological portrait.
Of course, in Moscow there are neither experienced preparators capable of performing this work, nor suitable equipment, Vogt continued. Therefore, Lenin's brain must be sent abroad. However, the Politburo had the last word.
Cecil Vogt and the chief preparator of the institute, Margaret Wölke, were summoned to Moscow from Berlin. They brought one hundred kilograms of equipment. Over the next two years, the brain would be divided into tens of thousands of sections, each about five microns thick, and examined under a microscope. General management was entrusted to Vogt. “Professor Vogt,” the contract stated, “while remaining in Berlin, is informed about the progress of work, and also reports to the Moscow commission when his personal presence in Moscow is necessary.” The duration of the work was not specified. It was clear that many years of research lay ahead.
Vogt suggested starting them with the right hemisphere of the brain, since it is less destroyed by the disease. He requested Lenin's medical history and biography "for a full study of his personality." The protocol states that “the commission decided to hand over to Professor O. Vogt a short extract from V.I.’s medical history. Lenin and assist him in collecting facts about the biography of V.I. Lenin".
For the Soviet Union, the contract with Vogt meant reaching the most advanced level of brain research. On November 12, 1927, the Brain Institute, one of the leading scientific institutions of the USSR, opened in Zamoskvorechye, on Bolshaya Yakimanka. Vogt became its director.
The Brain Institute was modeled after the Vogt Institute in Berlin. It was decided to study brain samples of outstanding people, as well as compare the brain structure of people of different races. Only in this way, Vogt believed, can one explain whether the “cultural backwardness of some races” is caused by the social conditions in which they live, or by their anatomy.
According to Vogt’s wishes, both institutes were to form “a single team, ... dealing with the same problems, but distributing their work so as not to repeat it, but to provide mutual assistance to each other.” The Moscow Brain Institute still exists today, but the Berlin Institute did not survive the war.
There, at the opening of the institute, Vogt reported the first results of the work. Over two and a half years, over 30 thousand brain sections were made. “A sharp difference in the structure of Lenin’s brain from the brain of ordinary people emerged clearly. In Lenin, the pyramidal cells were much more developed; the associative fibers connecting them were much more numerous.” As Vogt concluded, the “material base” of Lenin’s brain turned out to be “considerably richer”; his associative ability is very highly developed.
Professor Vogt, the newspaper Pravda triumphed, explained the mystery of Lenin’s psyche, his genius, his ability to navigate difficult situations and act swiftly.
Of course, the conclusions were very hasty, because most of the samples of Lenin’s brain tissue had not yet been examined under a microscope. Vogt was forced to wishful thinking, since everyone expected such a statement from him. For the second year he was informed that Stalin and other leaders were waiting for the first results from him. He made them public, adding that an in-depth analysis of Lenin’s brain was ahead, but few people heard this reservation. Soviet and German newspapers enthusiastically reported on pyramidal cells.
“This expression - “pyramidal cells” - makes the deepest impression on me. It brings together the aesthetics of our modern times, strict triangles, and other geometric figures with the wisdom of Ancient Egypt,” says the euphoric character in the novel “Lenin’s Brain,” written by the German writer Tilman Spengler.
Vogt distinguished several layers of cells in the cerebral cortex. One of them contained particularly large cells, whose processes formed a dense network. These cells are called “pyramidal”. It was believed that they form the basis of higher nervous activity. The length of their processes sometimes reached ten centimeters, so they could contact distant cells.
Two years later, on November 10, 1929, Vogt made his first official report. By this time, the institute’s collection contained, in addition to Lenin’s brain, thirteen more elite brain specimens, including the brain of People’s Commissar A.D. Tsyurupa, member of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) Skvortsov-Stepanov, as well as 39 brain samples from people of different nationalities. Their study was intended to answer the question of whether a person's race affects the architecture of their brain. The answer turned out to be negative. “There were no differences in the structure of the cerebral cortex between persons of different nationalities,” Semyon Sarkisov, deputy director of the Brain Institute, later wrote.
However, as far as the study of Lenin's brain was concerned, the report contained little new. “In the third layer of the cortex... I discovered pyramidal cells of a size I had never seen before,” Vogt said. “Lenin’s brain is distinguished by the presence of very large and numerous pyramidal cells, just as an athlete’s body is distinguished by very highly developed muscles... The anatomy of Lenin’s brain is such that he can be called an “associative athlete.”
So, Vogt essentially repeated his previous conclusions, but now the voices of critics were becoming louder. Thus, his German colleague Walter Spielmeier recalled that pyramidal cells were also found in the brains of feeble-minded people. “What then does a deviation from the norm mean if in one case it is present in a brilliantly gifted person, and in another case in a mentally retarded person?”
The results achieved did not satisfy the Soviet leaders either. In addition, the political situation in the USSR had changed noticeably by 1930. The “Iron Curtain” was falling over the country. Supporters of contacts with the West - Semashko, Gorbunov, Lunacharsky, Oldenburg - lost their posts.
In 1930, the Brain Institute was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Communist Academy - the forge of the “red professors”. Vogt's opinion on these reforms was no longer interested. On the contrary, he was subjected to merciless criticism. So, in January 1932, a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) A. Stetsky wrote a denunciation letter to Stalin, saying that Professor Vogt, despite the contract concluded with him, does not visit Moscow and in fact has nothing to do with the Brain Institute. But in his lectures given in the West, he allows himself the unacceptable: he demonstrates transparencies of fragments of Lenin’s brain and compares them with a sample of the brain of a certain criminal. In conclusion, Stetsky proposed to transfer Lenin’s brain to the Mausoleum for storage and to stop any relations with the “bourgeois professor” Vogt
“The Moscow Institute for Brain Research, which I founded,” Vogt wrote in April of the same year, “is increasingly falling under communist influence, although I ... was promised that membership in the Communist Party would not have any meaning for my employees. However, behind my back, the Institute was absorbed by the Communist Academy... Now it is occupied mainly with anti-religious propaganda.”
And then events took an unexpected turn. By a decision of the Politburo on April 13, 1932, the Brain Institute was restored, and the position of its director was reserved for Vogt; Sarkisov was appointed his deputy. The recreated Brain Institute has expanded significantly. If in 1929 six people worked there, now there are twenty, including 6 scientists, 7 laboratory assistants and preparators, 2 photographers.
Something else has changed too. Since 1932, none of the institute templates has mentioned the study of Lenin's brain. The question of his genius could no longer be discussed publicly. Before our eyes, Lenin turned into a cult figure, “the embodiment of genius.” He has no qualities left except positive ones. How could his brain structures be accurately attributed? The founder of the country of atheists became faceless, like God - like the proletarian God the Father.
Vogt's simple geographical relocation from the Soviet Union to Nazi Germany or a bourgeois Western country could not help, because here Lenin was seen as the “incarnation of evil”, and therefore also had to have a strictly defined set of qualities.
Meanwhile, Lenin was a controversial figure. Here are just a few opinions about him. “He committed the most terrible atrocities and allowed the greatest delusions, following the best illusions” (A. Balabanova). “The leader of the Bolsheviks was the embodiment of historical irresponsibility” (D. Volkogonov). He was “not only intelligent, modest and intolerant of falsehood, as the authors of his embellished biographies assured, but also hot-tempered, intolerant, withdrawn, humorless and a typical philistine in private life” (Wolfgang Ruge, East Germany/Germany).
Waiting for a genius
On May 27, 1936, the head of the Soviet state, Mikhail Kalinin, reported at a Politburo meeting on the results of a study of V.I.’s brain. Lenin, which lasted almost twelve years. Attached to the report was a report prepared by Vogt's Soviet students and signed by Sarkisov. It was much more detailed than Vogt's last report, although it contained almost no new ideas.
Thus, it was noted that in the frontal lobe of Lenin’s brain (its development is associated with volitional inclinations) there were more convolutions than in Lunacharsky, Mayakovsky, I. Pavlov or Zetkin. His inferior parietal and temporal lobes - they control speech - were also replete with convolutions, which markedly differed from the average. The frontal region occupied 25.5 percent of the entire surface of the brain in Lenin, while in Mayakovsky it was 23.5 percent. The collected data made it possible to create an architectural map of Lenin's brain. The summary was this: Lenin’s brain has a particularly complex topography and a peculiar configuration of grooves and convolutions.
However, researchers avoided comparing Lenin’s brain with brain samples from “ordinary” people, and therefore it was not clear why Lenin was anatomically more complex than those revolutionary soldiers and sailors who buzzed at the rallies. Perhaps these numbers and percentages, which distinguished Ilyich’s “transparent brow” from the “bright heads” of his several associates, are completely typical for the masses of ordinary people? Unbiased critics could not help but ask such a question.
Finally, the work of scientists itself did not meet the principles of statistics. They did not calculate the degree of data dispersion, standard deviations, etc., but only compared Lenin’s brain with those brain samples that were inferior to him in some respects. They did not try to choose for science - not to measure! - numbers, but for party officials who were waiting for a known answer.
Meanwhile, Professor Vogt turned from the leader of the experiment into an indifferent fellow traveler. Since 1930, he had not been to the USSR and was absolutely not engaged in the task entrusted to him, Vladimir Milyutin, chairman of the Academic Council of the USSR Central Executive Committee, reported to Stalin in July 1935.
After Hitler seized power, Vogt's position became very complicated. His apartment was searched, suspecting him of having connections with Soviet communists. His telephone conversations were tapped. Finally, he was removed from his post as director of the Berlin Institute. Nevertheless, he remained the director of the Moscow Brain Institute, and his absence had little effect on the work of the institution. Only in 1937 Vogt was replaced in this post by S.A. Sarkisov and served as director until 1968.
In October 1941, former MVTU student and Reich Minister Alfred Rosenberg received a letter from neurologist Alois Kornmüller forwarded to him. “Due to the fact that the capture of Moscow currently seems to be a done deal, I take the liberty of recalling the following. The Moscow Brain Institute houses a complete set of Lenin's brain specimens. Don’t you think... it would be useful to arrange that in the event of the capture of Moscow this material would be immediately requisitioned?” However, even if the Wehrmacht had captured the Soviet capital, the Germans would not have gotten this trophy: Lenin’s brain was evacuated in a timely manner.
The unique scientific object remained in the USSR, but the results of its research were still a “secret with seven seals.” They were reported to the party leaders, some colleagues were informed about them, but otherwise the results of the experiment - unique in its thoroughness, breadth and duration - remained classified.
Back in 1936, Sarkisov was ready to begin publishing the report, but the party leadership forbade this. The leaders of the Brain Institute continued to receive refusals during the Brezhnev era, for example, in 1967 and 1969 in response to appeals to the CPSU Central Committee, and in 1980 in response to an appeal to the Presidium of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Thus, in 1967, the first generation of employees of the Brain Institute - Sarkisov, Filimonov, Popov and Chernyshev - together with young colleagues prepared for publication the monograph “The Brain of V.I. Lenin. - Cytoarchitectonic study." However, their work was not published even on the eve of Lenin's centenary. The materials of the monograph appeared in the form of two articles only in 1993 in the collection “Advances of Physiological Sciences”. Here, for the first time, the exact results of the work of Vogt, Sarkisov and a number of other scientists were made public.
Meanwhile, the attitude towards cytoarchitectonics has changed markedly. It is now clear that a person’s genius cannot be reduced only to the characteristics of the cellular structure of his brain. You need to learn to distinguish between morphological and functional images of the brain. With the help of the latest technologies, primarily tomography, it is possible to see how irritation spreads inside the brain and clearly show how human thought develops. The process of a person’s thinking, his mental reaction to current events become visible. Such observations give completely different results than morphological analysis.
The anatomy of the brain is being rethought.
And Lenin's relative became president of Germany
Lenin's German and Swedish roots on his mother's side are carefully traced in the work of A. Brouwer, published in the Genealogical Yearbook for 1972. The parents of Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova (Blank) were Germans. Her father, Alexander Dmitrievich Blank, came from a family of Volyn Germans, and her mother, Anna Grosschopf, was the daughter of the St. Petersburg merchant Johann Gottlieb Grosschopf and a Swedish mother. In the 18th century, Grosschopf's ancestors were prominent Lübeck merchants, and, as a study conducted by one of the Swiss historians showed, the family of the recent German President Richard von Weizsäcker also traces its origins to the same merchant family from Lübeck.
Bison and Vogt
After concluding a contract with Vogt, the Soviet authorities sent several young scientists to Berlin. Among them were geneticist N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky and his wife. Soon “Zubr” headed a department at the Berlin Institute for Brain Research. Thanks to him, the institute became a mecca for geneticists around the world.
Six Levels of the Brain
In the twenties, the cerebral cortex had six main layers. The first, top layer was poor in nerve cells. The second contained small pyramidal cells. The third consisted exclusively of large pyramidal cells with a diameter of up to 540 microns. The fourth layer consisted of small cells. The fifth contained pyramidal cells, and the sixth contained cells of different shapes, so it was called the multiform layer.
There is a theory that the brain of a genius differs in its physical parameters from the brain of an ordinary person. And in the USSR Lenin was considered the most brilliant person in history. Although there is hardly the slightest possibility of finding the most brilliant person of all times.
It is not surprising that Soviet scientists began studying Lenin's brain. The idea of creating an ideal person was popular in the first half of the last century. And who was more suitable for the role of ideal in the Soviet Union than Lenin?
What did Lenin die from?
Lenin's brain was removed from his skull immediately after his death. As it turned out, most of it was affected. Later, a rumor appeared that an area no larger than a walnut remained intact, but any person versed in medicine will say that this is impossible. Nevertheless, the doctors were surprised how he could remain alive and look adequate in such a state. But he shouldn’t have even regained consciousness in this state.
According to Kremlin doctors, the cause of death was cerebral atherosclerosis, which subsequently led to a stroke. The condition of his carotid artery confirmed this version. It was so hard that you could tap it with a metal object.
But the destroyed brain indicated that Vladimir Ilyich suffered from a serious illness. Actually, it was no secret. By the end of 1922, he actually ceased to govern the state and was constantly at his dacha in Gorki under the supervision of doctors. Of course, the final point was a stroke, but it happened against the background of a long and serious illness.
The version, widespread in Soviet times, that the cause of Vladimir Ilyich’s death was a poisoned bullet fired at him by Fanny Kaplan simply does not stand up to criticism. Lenin was shot in February 1918, and he died in January 1924. The poison would either have killed him shortly after the assassination attempt or not, but it certainly would not have happened six years later.
Moreover, the symptoms of the disease began to appear in their most severe form in 1921. Then disturbances in speech, motor and mental activity began to arise. He also began to have nightmare visions at night.
There are many versions of the disease, but none of them have been proven. They talked about a hereditary disease, because his father died of a stroke at about the same age. Among the white emigration there was a version that Ilyich suffered from syphilis and died from complications. There was also speculation that he was deliberately and systematically poisoned with small doses of poison in order to take his place at the helm of the country.
But, as was said earlier, it is almost impossible to reliably determine the cause of Lenin’s death today.
Size matters?
Regarding the causes of death, it is clear that nothing is clear. But whether the researchers of his brain were able to find obvious reasons for his genius.
The more muscle mass a person has, the stronger he is. By analogy, we can assume that the larger the brain, the smarter its owner.
Vladimir Ilyich had a more than modest volume of the cranium, and the size of the brain was smaller than that of the average person. But this cannot at all indicate his low mental abilities.
There are many known cases where the brain size of outstanding people was less than normal, although there were also the opposite cases. For example, the brain of the famous French writer Anatole France weighed about one kilogram, much less than Lenin's, about the same as the average Pithecanthropus. But this did not stop him from creating his works and becoming world famous.
Searching for signs of Lenin's genius
Since the relationship between the size of a person’s brain and his genius has not been identified, we decided to look for its signs in the structure of the brain. For this purpose, they invited the world's leading expert in this field, German professor Oskar Vogt.
All conditions were created for the invited foreigner. The whole newly created Brain Institute began studying Lenin’s brain. Professor Vogt made more than 30 thousand sections from the leader’s brain in order to study it layer by layer and in great detail, comparing it with similar samples of ordinary people. The work lasted about three years, from 1925 to 1927. As a result of the research, it was possible to find differences from the structure of the brain of an ordinary person at the cellular level. Some layers turned out to be more developed, unlike other samples.
It was immediately announced to the whole world that evidence of Lenin’s super-genius had been found. The German specialist left for his homeland, where he began to enjoy even greater authority among his colleagues than before.
But then another authoritative German scientist, Professor Spielrein, having studied the work of his colleague, declared that the signs found were evidence not of genius, but of dementia. Actually, this was not surprising, because in the last years of his life Lenin was a deeply ill, partially paralyzed person, with difficulty moving and speaking.
Upon learning of this, the Soviet authorities banned Professor Vogt from entering the country and confiscated his equipment, which remained in Moscow. The research was continued on our own, without the help of foreign specialists. As a result, in 1936 the Politburo declared finally and categorically that Lenin’s genius had been proven. The report indicated that his mental power could be equated to the work of the 10 hemispheres of the brain of ordinary people.
That's what they decided on.
It is difficult to say whether Lenin was a genius, but one thing is certain. He was undoubtedly an extraordinary person who left a deep mark on history.
Lenin's brain
I read the most cruel thing about Lenin’s brain in Bunin’s “Cursed Days.” Lenin died. People's Commissar Semashko Stalin was given the order to confirm Lenin's genius in some visual way. For this purpose they created an entire institute, which was originally called— Lenin Brain Institute. The first case of the employees of this institute turned out to be very responsible— it was necessary to open the leader's skull. Not without excitement, professors and academicians, including foreign ones, began this task.
It was then that Bunin, with violent hatred and cruel triumph, wrote in his diary: “... when they opened Lenin’s skull, green slurry poured out. Semashko had the stupidity to shout about it to the whole world. And they are still arguing— whether Lenin is a benefactor of humanity or not..."
Bunin, in his hatred, exaggerated, of course, the picture revealed to the doctors.
What Semashko allegedly shouted about is quite easy to find. And it sounds a little different, but no less creepy:
“...The main artery, which feeds approximately 3/4 of the entire brain, the “internal carotid artery” (art. carotis interna) at the very entrance to the skull turned out to be so hardened that its walls did not collapse during a transverse section and significantly closed the lumen, and in some places they were so saturated with lime that they were struck with tweezers as if they were bones.
If the main artery, at its very entrance to the skull, has changed so much, then it becomes clear what the condition of the other cerebral arteries and its branches was: they were also affected, some more, others less. For example, individual branches of the arteries that supply especially important centers of movement and speech in the left hemisphere turned out to be so changed that they were not tubes, but laces: the walls became so thick that they completely closed the lumen. They looked through every artery that the clinicians assumed was altered, and found it either not allowing blood to pass through at all, or barely passing through.
There were cysts, that is, softened areas of the brain, all over the left hemisphere of the brain; the clogged vessels did not deliver blood to these areas, their nutrition was disrupted, softening and disintegration of the brain tissue occurred.”
This is the so-called clinical picture, as it was revealed to doctors who are able to see the disease as if from the inside.
A person far from medicine could be amazed by Lenin’s brain purely by his appearance.
In the two-volume memoirs of Yuri Annenkov, who for some time served as a court artist for the Bolsheviks, published in Paris, there are also lines about Lenin’s brain. He is one of the few who have seen a glass jar with the party’s eerie contents, preserved in alcohol with the “gray matter” of the brilliant leader:
“...one hemisphere was healthy and full-bodied; another, as if suspended from the first on a ribbon,— wrinkled, crumpled, crumpled and no larger than a walnut. A few days later, this terrible jar disappeared from the Institute, meaning another Institute of Lenin, created specifically for embalming his body.— E. G.) and, presumably, forever. I was told in the Kremlin that the bank was seized at Krupskaya’s request, which is more than understandable. However, I heard several years later that Lenin’s brain was transported for medical research somewhere in Berlin...”
By chance, I happened to be present in the once glorious scientific town of Obninsk at the opening of a memorial plaque to geneticist V. Timofeev-Resovsky, odiously famous for the release of D. Granin’s novel “Bison.” Then I learned that his path to this board and this glory begins with this story.
The famous expert on architectonics and brain structure, Oscar Vogt, was invited from Germany to delve into the contents of Lenin’s skull. He finally got to the bottom of the reasons for genius— in some “third row of the subcortical layer” of this brain he found “pyramidal cells of extraordinary size.” All this was, of course, a bluff, completely refuted later. Other scientists in the West treated this discovery with great irony. And with the same irrefutability they began to assert exactly the opposite.— such an obvious abnormality in the pyramidal cells may well indicate dementia and complete idiocy. And they showed similar cells in the brains of completely crazy people. But be that as it may, Vogt made considerable capital from this discovery, which allowed him to build himself a villa on the seashore and expand the scope of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, which he led. Of course, they didn’t give him the whole jar with Lenin’s brain. But he managed to remove numerous (several thousand) microscopic sections from this brain. And so some Russian scientists began to be sent to Vogt’s institute, precisely in connection with the study of this object, precious to the Bolsheviks. The first to be invited there was young V. Timofeev-Resovsky. Yes, it remained there... An interesting detail... For some reason it was not mentioned in Daniil Granin’s narrative.
Vogt, however, believed in the idea of Lenin's genius. Lenin's brain cells are said to have been needed by him for a very specific purpose.— The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute under Hitler began for the first time and timidly to approach what is now quite definitely called cloning. Vogt set himself a personal task— create the perfect Aryan unrivaled brain. The brain of a superman. The brain of a citizen of the Third Reich. For this purpose, he created a collection of genetic material, which included brain cells of many outstanding people, mainly of the Nordic race. When Hitler found out why Vogt needed Lenin’s brains, he was furious that the experiment Germany needed could suddenly lose its purity.
— What peculiarities could there be in Lenin’s brainless head... There’s only cotton wool there! Cotton wool!— he yelled at the mistaken creator of the superbrain.
However, as they say, the very idea of a programmed formation of people fascinated him. But first of all, he needed the ideal brain not of politicians, but of people of exact science who could, for example, work on creating unsurpassed weapons. Vogt and the aforementioned Resovsky continued their research at the Nazi Institute in Berlin-Buch. And it is assumed that they have succeeded in this to some extent. In any case, V. Timofeev-Resovsky, who returned to Russia after the war, was not only not destroyed in the dungeons of the NKVD as a traitor and collaborator of the Nazis, but was carefully protected by these bodies. Stalin personally decided his fate, giving him the opportunity to fruitfully engage in selected areas of genetic science. Whether Stalin believed that it was possible to recreate and revive Lenin’s brain and whether he needed it is now impossible to say for sure, but he kept Resovsky just in case. And Lenin’s brain still remained specially preserved in the armored safe of the Brain Institute.
There is another fascinating detail in the history of Lenin’s “gray matter”. Hitler was a mystic and what an ordinary person perceives as supernatural always constituted complete reality for him. In 1941, when his troops stood at the walls of Moscow and a report of its fall was expected any day now, he issued a special order to first remove Lenin’s brain. This was not just an ideological trophy for him— it would have been a much grander act. Red Russia was about to be destroyed, but he dreamed of the idea and vibes of Bolshevism hidden in the cells of this mysterious and formidable brain. The brain had to be destroyed by thoroughly breaking it down into atoms. So that there is no spirit left. Russia will remain safe for the rest of the world if it does not again become infected with the virus of those ideas that are mysteriously hidden in the depths of these very pyramidal cells of Lenin’s brain.
It would seem a strange hunt for completely dead and useless museum trash. But, delving into the history of this terrible exhibit, you succumb to the involuntary feeling that this matter could not have been done without mysticism.
I'll just make a few extracts. Please note that I will be quoting people who are completely sober and consistent in the spirit of strict materialism, who could not succumb to the provocation of idealism and mysticism.
Here is People's Commissar Semashko: “You cannot live with such vessels (of the brain) ...” This is from his work “What the autopsy of Vladimir Ilyich’s body showed” (1924). He further continues: “Other patients,- the doctors said, - with such brain damage they are completely incapable of any mental work.”
Here is Nikolai Melnikov-Razvedenkov, the author of the article “On the mechanism of origin of anatomical changes in the brain of V.I. Lenin” (1924), a pathologist, who was then the rector of the Kuban Medical Institute: “The destruction in the brain is so extensive that it is incomprehensible to the mind how one could live with them "
The famous psychiatrist V.P. Osipov, who later replaced Bekhterev as director of the State Brain Institute in Leningrad, writes in his memoirs: “And in general, with the degree of damage that was, one must be surprised how his brain worked in this state, and one must assume that another patient in his place would have long been different from what Vladimir Ilyich was during his serious illness.”
Therapist L. Levin in his memoirs (1925) noted with great enthusiasm: “It was predominantly the vessels of the brain, the organ in which, as if in focus, all life, all the work of this titan of thought, this stormy source of unyielding will, elemental energy.”
And after this, the following nightmare phrase from the medical report seems not at all surprising: “Lenin died much later than his brain.”
Perhaps this is a metaphor for a professional, captivated by the idea of impressing the reader with the inhuman efforts that the beloved leader of the world proletariat had to overcome in order to carry him along. But the word “non-human” also has a double and, in this case, disconcerting meaning.
It is assumed that the leader needed these superhuman efforts already in 1914, when irreversible changes occurred in his brain. And by 1917, these brains had already completely acquired the form described by clinicians.
So what was Hitler afraid of?
If Lenin's brain died much earlier than the body that nourished him, who and how controlled this body and its actions?
And if, according to People's Commissar Semashko himself, people with such brains do not live, was Lenin a man in the ordinary sense?
I came across the most mysterious notes six years ago in a purely special magazine for believers. They were written by the famous Orthodox preacher Archimandrite Paisiy (Krasnov).
There is a message in these notes that really struck me. Paisiy talks, as if in passing, about one meeting he remembers: “The memory remains: about twenty years ago, an eighty-year-old Rosicrucian of German origin, an emigrant to Russia, showed a yellowed document almost a hundred years old, where the name of Maria Ulyanova appeared in German. The old man was known, as it later turned out, to be one of the initiated grandmasters of the order. He explained to me that this signature meant for Lenin’s future mother initiation of the seventh degree in the satanic hierarchy... When I asked what the initiation consisted of, he, languidly moving his lips, lisped: “Seventh degree of devotion to Baphamet— a contract signed three times in blood: dedicating children, family, neighbors to him, giving heart, blood and all of oneself..."
This extraordinary message from Father Paisiy Krasnov prompted some investigations. First of all, I didn’t even know who Baphamet was. This turned out to be the easiest thing to find out.— in occult beliefs it is one of the names of Satan.
It was more difficult to find indications that Maria Ulyanova’s belonging to Satanism is not an idle fiction.
It turned out that in fact she was already interested in Theosophy in her early youth. I met a certain Grigory Ottovich Meisel, (here it is worth remembering that this was the name of one of the otherworldly heroes of “The Master and Margarita”), who gave lectures on occultism and cabalism to St. Petersburg high school students and high-society hysterics. But this then fashionable “theosophical” and “Shamballa” orientation of studies turned out to be only a cover for more formidable and not so harmless matters. In the end, this Grigory Ottovich was expelled from Russia as the organizer of our first Satanist sect... There is no smoke without fire.
How much this smoke obscured Volodya Ulyanov’s vision is also indicated by an amazing fact— Already at the age of four, he threw his pectoral cross into the trash can. This fact is shocking not because the person has matured to the point of abandoning Christianity. This happens. It's amazing how early he matured. Maybe even then this flawed brain was controlled by a mysterious evil force? Did Satan's will work?
Was this evil hidden in the depths of the extraordinary pyramidal cells of the cruel brain that so worried Hitler? Is this why he wanted to trample this brain into nuclear dust?
Now Lenin’s brain is stored in room No. 19 in the former Brain Institute in an iron cabinet. The key to it is now entrusted to the most ordinary employee and somehow I really want him to hold this key more firmly in his hands... Or hide it away...
culture art society history Lenin, miniature, historical miniature, biographical notes, biographies
In 1924, the Soviet Union saw off the leader of the revolution, Vladimir Lenin, on his final journey. However, his body was missing the most important element - one German professor dismembered Lenin's brain into more than 30 thousand parts.
The Soviet Union held its breath. At that moment, in the vast expanses of the vast country, trains stopped and ships dropped anchor. In the factories, on the contrary, sirens wailed. And the Red Army soldiers saluted from their guns with deafening noise. On January 27, 1924, thousands of people from all over the country flocked to Moscow, where Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known under the pseudonym Lenin, was buried.
When representatives of the Soviet leadership, in particular Joseph Stalin, carried the body of the leader of the revolution from the House of Unions to Red Square, the grieving crowd sang “The Internationale”. At about 16.00, Lenin’s body was finally taken to his final resting place: the first temporary mausoleum was built at the Kremlin wall for the founder of the first socialist state in the world.
"Lenin is finished"
However, Lenin did not have to find peace in the frozen ground. By treating him with formaldehyde, inserting artificial eyes and stitching his mouth, doctors prepared his body, which had already begun to decompose, for eternal storage. The future ruler of the Soviet state, Joseph Stalin, had special plans for the remains of the leader of the revolution. The embalmed Lenin, placed in a mausoleum near the Kremlin wall, was supposed to become a monument to unity. In relation to the deceased, the General Secretary of the Communist Party felt nothing but contempt. “Lenin’s finished,” he maligned after the leader’s first stroke, which turned him into a hopeless bedridden patient in dire need of outside care.
The new communist rulers paid special attention to Lenin’s brain, which doctors removed from his head after his death on January 21, 1924. In the spirit of the cult of personality of Lenin that now reigned, the party declared the leader of the revolution a genius. Scientists were instructed to retroactively provide a “material basis” for his immortal genius.
"No more than a walnut"
However, the search for evidence of Lenin’s extraordinary fortitude was extremely difficult, especially since his brain was in very poor condition. The artist Yuri Annenkov, who saw his brain in a glass vessel, said that one half of it was preserved impeccably. The other half was “wrinkled, crushed and no larger than a walnut.” Soon, Soviet doctors needed help from foreign colleagues. “One commission asked me (...) if I could come to Moscow and give advice on the processing of Lenin’s brain,” neuroscientist Oskar Vogt wrote to a colleague in January 1925.
It was not without reason that the Soviet Union turned to the Germans for help. Vogt founded the “Central Neurological Station” in 1898, which was later transformed into the Emperor Wilhelm Institute for Neurobiology. In mid-February, a scientist with a well-groomed goatee and an elegant bow tie arrived in Moscow.
Came to cut
Following Vogt, his wife Cecile and assistant Margarethe Woelcke arrived in the Soviet capital. They brought with them a couple of hundredweight of equipment: between 1925 and 1927, Wölke, with the help of Soviet assistants, cut Lenin’s brain into pieces day after day. Previously, his thinking organ was placed in paraffin. According to the final report, the German woman divided Lenin's brain into 30,953 parts, each of which was 20 micrometers (0.02 millimeters) thick, with absolute precision.
Cutting off each new piece of brain, the German woman attached it to a separate holder and signed it. In addition, every tenth fragment was tinted. As a result of this entire complex procedure, Oskar Vogt was supposed to reveal the secret of Lenin’s genius.
"Association Athlete"
The Soviet Union spared no money or other expenses on the study of Lenin’s gray matter. The German scientist Vogt received his own research center in 1927: the Institute for Brain Research, located in one of the Moscow palaces near Red Square. Almost all of Vogt's wishes - whether regarding interior decoration or regarding personnel - were satisfied. Expectations from the results of his work were, accordingly, very high, and the German should not have disappointed the Soviets. In 1929 he declared that "great differences are evident between the structure of Lenin's brain and the ordinary structure of the brain."
According to Vogt, the secret of the brilliant mind of the revolutionary leader lay in the third layer of his brain cortex: “In Lenin, the pyramidal cells were much more developed, and the connecting associative fibers between them were much more numerous; the cells were also significantly larger and more visible.” In conclusion, Vogt, to the delight of the communist leaders, stated: “For the above reasons, we can call Lenin a real athlete of associations.” It was now considered scientifically proven that Lenin was a genius. The newspaper Pravda, impressed by the results of Vogt’s research, wrote that they were “an important contribution to the materialistic explanation of everything physical.”
"Pantheon of Brains"
However, the brain research institute founded by Vogt was not only focused on Lenin’s brain. Soon his collection included a total of 13 “elite” brains of various scientists and artists, which were put on public display in the institute’s “Pantheon of Brains.” “Thirteen brains stand in thirteen glass vessels along the wall in a huge hall,” wrote a correspondent for the German newspaper Düsseldorfer Nachrichten. “On each vessel is written the name of the person to whom the brain belonged, as well as some information about his life. In some cases there are also photographs of this person.” Real brains were subjected to laboratory tests and compared with Lenin's thinking apparatus.
However, closer to 1930, Stalin, who by that time already had unlimited power, lost interest in studying the brains of the elite. The Vogt Institute lost its independence, and he himself was attacked in the media. As a result, the German returned to Berlin and continued to study the brain at the Emperor Wilhelm Institute for Neurobiology, now named after Max Planck. Employees of the Moscow Institute, however, continued to examine Lenin's brain. In 1936, they published a report that once again confirmed that Lenin was an extraordinary person. “In the anterior part of V.I. Lenin’s brain, especially in areas 10 and 46, in the lower parietal part, in the upper temporal part, in the occipital part to the border with area 19, as well as in the postcentral part (primarily in areas 70 and 71) particularly large cells were found, mainly in the third layer of the cerebral cortex,” the report said.
Unfortunately for Soviet researchers, they did not receive permission from the censors to publish the results of their work. From a scientific point of view, the search for Lenin's special intelligence based on studies of his brain cells was useless. Modern science claims that the structure of the brain does not contain evidence of certain human inclinations. Nevertheless, Lenin's brain is of some interest to researchers: given the extreme calcification of the vessels of his brain, scientists came to the conclusion that Lenin had a rare genetic disease, which ultimately cost the leader of the revolution his life.
United after death
Soon after his death in 1953, Stalin "kept company" with his predecessor at the pinnacle of power. Until 1961, the dictator's embalmed body was on display to the public in Lenin's mausoleum. His brain, in turn, ended up in the Moscow Institute for Brain Research, that is, in the same place where Lenin’s brain is kept - behind heavy and durable doors, divided into hemispheres, stored separately from each other. It will never be possible to find out which of the two “Red Tsars” was more brilliant. However, Lenin had no doubts about Stalin: “He is absolutely not smart!”
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