Lenin, who was at Gorki, a village twenty miles from Moscow, had a sudden relapse yesterday, became unconscious, and died an hour later, just before seven in the evening.
When Congress met at eleven this morning, Kalinin, who was hardly able to speak, announced LeninŐs death in a few broken sentences. Almost everybody in the great theatre burst into tears, and from all parts came the hysterical wailing of women. Tears were running down the faces of the members of the Praesidium. The funeral march of the Revolutionaries was played by a weeping orchestra. Lashevitch announced that January 21 will be a day of mourning in the Russian calendar.
The elders of Congress will go to Gorki to-night and bring the body to Moscow to-morrow, where it will lie in state in the hall of the trade unions, which from six to-morrow will be open to the public. The funeral will probably be on Saturday. Congress, of course, adjourned.
LeninŐs death was entirely unexpected, as he had made steady progress for some time. At first he had only been allowed to hear the headings of the newspapers, but latterly he has taken an almost autocratic part in directing his own convalescence, and himself chose what portions were to be read to him. His paralysed right arm made writing impossible, but his attendants learnt from scraps of paper in his room that he was secretly teaching himself to write with his left hand. Since then improvements had been rapid, and before Christmas he was even able to go out shooting in the forest. Only the other day Kamenev announced to a meeting that Lenin was actually recovering and would return to his post.
His long drawn-out fight against his illness has saved the country from the shock that would have been dealt by his death had that occurred with his first stroke, but even so his death has come at a moment when, during the recent party discussion, his absence has been particularly felt, and at a moment when the part dispute is scarcely ended, and on the eve of the first Union Congress. His death is a blow not only to the Communist party, but to all Russia. Even the irreconcilable enemies of the Revolution are unable to disguise their respect for one of the greatest figures in Russian history.
It so happens that today is a holiday in memory of those who fell on Bloody Sunday in 1905, so that the town was hung with red flags with black streamers long before it knew it had to mourn a death more intimately felt by all. The flag on the British Mission is at half-mast.