Lenin and the Jews

I said: Some people say that Lenin was part Jewish. What was his attitude toward the Jews? Cameron Sawyer explains: Lenin, like many Russians, was of mixed ethnic background.  His paternal grandfather was a Russian [I'm using the word in the ethnic sense here], and a Christian, Ulianov.  His maternal granmother was a full-blooded Kalmyk (a Buddhist, Mongoloid people), who gave Lenin his decidedly Mongolian face.  Lenin's mother Maria Blank was a Lutheran.  Her father was apparently a converted Jew; her mother was a Volga German.  That would make Lenin one-quarter Russian, one-quarter Kalmyk, one-quarter German, and one-quarter Jewish -- quite a mix, but not atypical -- my own wife's bloodlines are quite similar (half Russian, quarter Tatar, quarter Jewish).
Lenin is known to have said that "every Russian who is not a fool has at least a drop of Jewish blood".  But Lenin was savagely intolerant of religion and of any religious clannishness.  He was often accused of being an anti-Semite because of his intolerance for any manifestation of Jewish identity.

Ronald Hilton 2005


last updated: June 10, 2005