100 years since death of Lenin marked by silence from China’s Communist Party. Why?

Sunday is the centenary of the death of Vladimir Lenin but China will not be holding any official commemorations, in contrast to memorials for Karl Marx

While some cite fall of Soviet Union and Lenin’s chequered legacy for low-key response, one analyst asserts that Leninism ‘is in the DNA’ of the party

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Commemorations of Vladimir Lenin appear to have fallen off the agenda for the Chinese Communist Party, unlike during the times of Mao Zedong. Photo: Reuters

Josephine Main Hong KongandVanessa Caiin Shanghai

Published: 3:16pm, 21 Jan 2024Updated: 6:24pm, 21 Jan 2024

For the centenary of the death of Karl Marx in 1983, China issued a special set of commemorative stamps.

In 2018, for the 200th anniversary of the birth of the German thinker and founder of communism, Chinese President Xi Jinping presided over a memorial meeting, one of a host of state-led events held to mark the occasion.

Sunday marks 100 years since the death of Vladimir Lenin. However, there will be no official commemoration for the man who founded the Soviet Union and put Marxism into practice before leaving a controversial legacy for the world.

Marxist-Leninism has been enshrined in the charter of the Chinese Communist Party as a guiding principle, along with the ideologies of successive communist leaders since the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949.

However, unlike during the times of founding leader Mao Zedong, commemorations of Lenin appear to have fallen off the agenda for Chinese propaganda officials.

Portraits of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin flank a giant statue of Mao Zedong at the entrance to a museum in Beijing. Photo: AFP

Yuan Yuhua, a self-taught leftist scholar and academic lecturer, said Lenin and the 1917 October Revolution – which inspired the founding of the Chinese Communist Party four years later – had been played down in recent years.