Did Lenin say: “There are decades when nothing has happened, and the weeks for which have been taking place for decades”?

On the Internet, a quote attributed to the leader of the world proletariat is popular that some periods of time are much more saturated with events than others. We decided to check if he said something like that.

This statement indicating the authorship of Vladimir Lenin has repeatedly cited Russian media ("Moscow Komsomolets","Evening Moscow" Lenta.ru, Eadaily etc.), while many quoted article Chinese journalist about the supposedly impending collapse of the dollar. However, unlike his colleagues from the Russian Federation, the journalist noted that the phrase belongs to Lenin only presumably. Quote is also often found in posts in social networks ("VKontakte" X, Facebook*, Telegram) and on the blog-platforms ("Zen","Habr" vc.ru).

All Lenin’s works were well studied by historians and digitized - the electronic version of the complete 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” is found in his works in various contexts dozens of times, the quotation checked in the writings of the Soviet leader could not. Such a phrase (or its individual parts) and in National Corps of the Russian Language, where more than 6 million Russian -language texts are collected.

Judging by the search for Google, until 2020, this quote was not found in the Russian -language segment of the Internet either indicating the authorship of Lenin, or without him. But in English, the phrase with the attribution was used by the revolutionary in the 2010s, and in a variety of sources-from posts in social networks to articles in scientific journals. In 2014 Lenin I quoted In his autobiography, musician Billy Idol, probably a lot of contributing to the popularization of this phrase.

The fact that the statement supposedly belonging to the leader of the world proletariat spread in the English -language segment of the Internet earlier than in the Russian -speaking, and even almost a century after the death of the alleged author, is doubtful of the correctness of its attribution. In the English -speaking "Wikipedia»This quote is called Lenin by mistake, noting that for the first time his authorship was indicated by the British politician George Galloway in his article 2001 in The Guardian. He claimed that Lenin expressed such an idea "in exile in Switzerland, shortly before the Russian revolution." However, confirmation of this, as already mentioned, could not be found. To the same conclusion The researchers of the project The Quote Investigator also came, specializing in checking the attribution of quote.

In the works of Lenin there are similar statements, for example: “We are experiencing Stormy times, when the history of Russia walks forward with seven -miMI steps, every year it means sometimes more than decades of peaceful periods ”or“ months revolutionary dictatorship The proletariat and peasantry will make more than decades of a peaceful, dull atmosphere of political stagnation. ” However, they are much less aphoristic than the dispersed phrase, and the semantic load in them is slightly different.

The fact of the Snopes project Found The statements closer in form and meaning even among the contemporaries of Lenin, in no way, however, not related to him. For example, an American writer from the Netherlands Adrian Shade Van Vestrum In your novel "Devil", Published in 1908, wrote:" There are years, centuries during which nothing happens, but there are days, like yesterday, in which a whole life is compressed. " There were similar quotes later in other literary works. Fantast writer David Eddings in his 1982 novel "Paw of Prophecies"He wrote:" For centuries, during which nothing happens, and then in several short years the events of such an importance occur that the world will never be the same. " In 1991, the Mexican poet Omero Aridhis published Collection their poems, in one of which there is a line: "There are centuries during which nothing happens, and the years during which centuries have passed." Perhaps Galloway, who published an article in The Guardian, was familiar with both Lenin’s works and one of these literary works and simply confused the wording.

Thus, there is no evidence that Lenin has any relation to the quote analyzed-at least in the wording in which she became widespread. In his collected works there are remotely similar statements, but it is extremely unlikely that one of them was transformed into a common phrase while preserving the attribution. Most likely, the quote was simply attributed to Lenin by mistake.

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

Photo on the cover: Vladimir Lenin, Public Domain, Via Wikimedia Commons

Incorrect attribution of quote

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

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