Did Lenin say: “There are decades in which nothing happens, and weeks in which decades happen”?

There is a popular quote on the Internet attributed to the leader of the world proletariat that some periods of time are much more eventful than others. We decided to check if he said anything like that.

This statement, indicating the authorship of Vladimir Lenin, was repeatedly cited by Russian media (“Moskovsky Komsomolets", "Evening Moscow", Lenta.ru, EADaily etc.), with many citing article Chinese journalist about the supposed impending collapse of the dollar. However, unlike his colleagues from the Russian Federation, the journalist noted that the phrase belongs to Lenin only presumably. The quote is also often found in posts on social networks (“VKontakte", X, Facebook*, Telegram) and on blogging platforms (“Zen", "Habr", vc.ru).

All of Lenin’s works have been well studied by historians and digitized - an electronic version of the complete collected works of the revolutionary, which consists of 56 volumes, available on the website of the Russian National Library. Despite the fact that the word “decade” appears dozens of times in his works in various contexts, a verifiable quotation could not be found in the works of the Soviet leader. Such a phrase (or its individual parts) does not appear in National Corpus of the Russian Language, where more than 6 million Russian-language texts are collected.

Judging by Google search results, until 2020 this quote had not been found in the Russian-language segment of the Internet, either with or without an indication of Lenin’s authorship. But in English, the phrase attributing to the revolutionary was used in the 2010s, and in a variety of sources - from posts on social networks to articles in scientific journals. In 2014 Lenin quoted In his autobiography, musician Billy Idol probably contributed greatly to the popularization of this phrase.

The fact that a statement allegedly belonging to the leader of the world proletariat spread in the English-language segment of the Internet earlier than in the Russian-language segment, and even almost a century after the death of the alleged author, raises doubts about the correctness of its attribution. In English "Wikipedia"This quote is said to be attributed to Lenin by mistake, noting that its authorship was first pointed out by the British politician George Galloway in his article 2001 in The Guardian. He claimed that Lenin expressed this thought “in exile in Switzerland, shortly before the Russian Revolution.” However, as already mentioned, confirmation of this could not be found. To the same conclusion Researchers from The Quote Investigator project, which specializes in checking the attribution of quotes, also came.

In Lenin’s writings there are statements similar in meaning, for example: “We are experiencing turbulent times, when the history of Russia moves forward by leaps and bounds, every year sometimes means more than decades of peaceful periods" or "Months revolutionary dictatorship the proletariat and the peasantry will do more than decades of peaceful, stultifying atmosphere of political stagnation.” However, they are much less aphoristic than the popular phrase, and the semantic load in them is somewhat different.

Fact-checking project Snopes found statements that are much closer in form and meaning even among Lenin’s contemporaries, who, however, were in no way connected with him. For example, an American writer originally from the Netherlands Adrian Schade van Westrum in his novel "Devil”, published in 1908, wrote: “There are years, centuries, during which nothing happens, and there are days, like yesterday, in which a whole life is compressed.” Similar quotes were found later in other literary works. Science fiction writer David Eddings in his 1982 novelPawn of Prophecy" wrote: "Centuries pass during which nothing happens, and then in a few short years events occur of such importance that the world will never be the same again." In 1991, the Mexican poet Homero Aridhis published collection of his poems, one of which contains the line: “There are centuries during which nothing happens, and years during which centuries pass.” Perhaps Galloway, who published the article in The Guardian, was familiar with both Lenin's writings and one of these literary works and simply mixed up the wording.

Thus, there is no evidence that Lenin has anything to do with the quote under discussion - at least in the formulation in which it has become widespread. In his collected works there are vaguely similar statements, but it is extremely unlikely that one of them was transformed into a common phrase with preservation of attribution. Most likely, the quote was simply attributed to Lenin by mistake.

*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram and the WhatsApp messenger, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Cover photo: Vladimir Lenin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Incorrect quote attribution

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Snopes. Lenin Said, 'There Are Decades Where Nothing Happens' and 'Weeks Where Decades Happen'?
2. Quote Investigator. Quote Origin: Days Into Which 20 Years Are Compressed
3. Five quotes attributed to Lenin
4. Did Lenin write: “In spirit I am with you, in hard labor in Siberia, but in body, unfortunately, here in Zurich in a hotel”?
5. Did Lenin really call his opponents political prostitutes?