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Syphilis whispers have circulated for decades that Lenin, founder of the Bolshevik Party and the totalitarian Soviet state it ushered to power, was afflicted with syphilis throughout his career. Now a new study turns that speculation into a retrospective diagnosis.
In an article this month in The European Journal of Neurology, three Israeli physicians sift through historical references to build what they regard as a probable diagnosis that Lenin contracted the sexually transmitted disease in Europe years before he led the October Revolution in 1917. Not long after the socialists' victory, the authors write, the illness strengthened its grip, leading to an agonizing decline and, in 1924, his death. The idea is not entirely new. Despite the former Soviet Union's efforts to preserve a near theology around its central political figure, Lenin was long rumored to have suffered from the disease. The new thesis is not so much a breakthrough as a historical rumor revived and reframed. To do so, the authors quote the journals of doctors who treated Lenin in Europe and the Soviet Union and review materials related to his medical condition and autopsy, which they suggest was a propaganda job. They ask a question of enduring importance to civic life. Do modern societies know enough about the health of their political leaders? In Lenin's case, they strive to show, the answer is a resounding no. ''If you take Lenin's case and you cancel Lenin's name on the file and you give it to a neurologist who is an expert in infectious disease, the expert will say, 'Syphilis,''' said Dr. Vladimir Lerner, head of the psychiatry department at the Be'er Sheva Mental Health Center in Israel and an author of the study. Reviews have been mixed. Some scholars of the early Soviet period are skeptical, saying the talk of syphilis circulated for decades, to little effect. ''There has been a vague rumor of this,'' said Dr. Robert Conquest, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. ''But of course in Russia, as you know, you have rumors about most everything.'' Dr. Gregory L. Freeze, a professor of history at Brandeis, was direct. ''They don't have the smoking gun,'' he said. The study's authors concede this point but insist that they have a strong circumstantial case. They also propose a possible way to settle the question, further testing of Lenin's brain material, which is stored in Moscow. '''Skeptical' is a healthy position,'' said another author of the study, Dr. Eliezer Witztum, a professor of psychiatry at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. ''But the point is that there are a lot of medical questions that have to be answered.'' Lenin was 53 when he died, after battling an erratic but progressively debilitating illness. His death has been variously attributed to cerebral hemorrhage, stroke, syphilis, exhaustion or cerebral arteriosclerosis, which had killed his father. The difficulty with a diagnosis of syphilis is that the symptoms are common to other ailments, so much so that it is called ''the great imitator.'' The infection, caused by a bacterium called the Treponema spirochete, first appears as an ulcerous sore, from which it spreads throughout the body, including the brain. Fever, an extensive rash and malaise typically follow. After initial infection, a syphilitic can spend years alternating between bouts of illness and apparently fine health. When they occur, symptoms can be severe, including headaches, nervous disorders and gastrointestinal, muscle or joint pain. In late stages, often 20 or more years after infection, the victim can experience mood swings and bursts of creativity, as well as depression, lethargy and dementia. Cardiovascular damage can lead to paralysis, aneurysm or stroke. Until the advent of therapeutic penicillin in World War II, the disease was incurable. Lenin's illness at least mimicked the progression of syphilis, afflicting him for months with occasional seizures and excruciating headaches, as well as bouts of nausea, sleeplessness and partial paralysis. As Stalin plotted for control of the Communist Party, Lenin was alternately lucid and incapacitated. Sometimes, he was unable to walk without assistance or to speak. Article nytimes.com
| Published in : , Syphilis |
| Keywords : syphilis, whispers, circulated, decades, lenin, founder, blshevik, party, totalitarian, soviet, state, ushered, power, afflicted, retrospective, speculation, career |
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