Is it a coincidence that the statue is nearly at the front door of a Masonic Lodge?
Any Mason FReepers care to comment? I know little about the Masons except that a number of our founding fathers were members.
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Lenin as Freemason
The FM will be delighted to have the Communist leader listed among their ranks:
* Several sources reveal that Lenin became a freemason whilst abroad in 1908. One of these sources is a thorough investigation: Nikolai Svitkov’s “About Freemasonry in Russian Exile”, published in Paris in 1932.
According to the Austrian political scientist Karl Steinhauser’s “EG - die Super-UdSSR von morgen” / “The European Union - the Super Soviet Union (USSR) of Tomorrow” (Vienna, 1992, p. 192), Lenin belonged to the Masonic lodge Art et Travail (Art and Labour).
The famous British politician Winston Churchill also confirmed that Lenin and Trotsky belonged to the circle of the Masonic and Illuminist conspirators. (Illustrated Sunday Herald, 8 February 1920.)
Lenin, Zinoviev, Radek and Sverdlov also belonged to B’nai B’rith. Researchers who are specialised in the activities of B’nai B’rith, including Schwartz-Bostunich, confirmed this information. (Viktor Ostretsov, “Freemasonry, Culture and Russian History”, Moscow, 1999, pp. 582-583.)
Lenin was a freemason of the 31st degree (Grand Inspecteur Inquisiteur Commandeur) and a member of the lodge Art et Travail in Switzerland and France. (Oleg Platonov, “Russia’s Crown of Thorns: The Secret History of Freemasonry”, Moscow, 2000, part II, p. 417.)
When Lenin visited the headquarters of Grand Orient on rue Cadet in Paris, he signed the visitors’ book. (Viktor Kuznetsov, “The Secret of the October Coup”, St. Petersburg, 2001, p. 42.)
Together with Trotsky, Lenin took part in the International Masonic Conference in Copenhagen in 1910. (Franz Weissin, “Der Weg zum Sozialismus” / “The Road to Socialism”, Munich, 1930, p. 9.) The socialisation of Europe was on the agenda.
Alexander Galpern, then secretary of the Masonic Supreme Council, confirmed in 1916 that there were Bolsheviks among the freemasons. I can further mention Nikolai Sukhanov (Himmer) and N. Sokolov. According to Galpern’s testimony, the freemasons also gave Lenin financial aid to his revolutionary activity. This was certified by a known freemason, Grigori Aronson, in his article “Freemasons in Russian Politics”, published in the Novoye Russkoye Slovo (New York, 8-12 October 1959). The historian Boris Nikolayevsky also mentioned this in his book “The Russian Freemasons and the Revolution” (Moscow, 1990).
207.119.116.76 (talk) 01:58, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
I have trouble believing that Lenin was a freemason and the evidence above looks particularly partial or circumstantial, e.g. signing a visitor’s book of Grand Orient. The evidence presented from a book about how the EU is the next USSR - a particular favourite of far-right conspiracy theories - seems hardly credible. There’s nothing here from peer-reviewed journals; it’s all random people publishing books and one press cutting which does not itself qualify as a reputable source.
On the other hand, the idea that Lenin - a vehement atheist - was accepted by an order that requires belief in a deity, seems a bit unlikely. It seems a bit more likely that anti-Freemason and anti-Bolshevik prejudice might just be mixing here. EuroSoviets (talk) 15:41, 17 January 2012 (UTC)EuroSovietsEuroSoviets (talk) 15:41, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Vladimir_Lenin/Archive_7#Lenin_as_Freemason