January 21, 1924: Vladimir Lenin Dies

Lenin's mummy

January 21, 1924: Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, dictator of the Soviet Union ever since, and the leader of the worldwide Communist movement, dies of a stroke at his home in Gorki, about 6 miles south of central Moscow. He was 53 years old, and had been dealing with ill health the entire time he was in power.

His body was embalmed to preserve it for long-term public display in a mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square. It's still there, as shown in this photograph.

His death led to a power struggle within the Politburo. Ultimately, it was Joseph Stalin who won out, forcing out Leon Trotsky and other Lenin loyalists. Stalin also inherited Lenin's cult of personality, and took it to new levels.

Lenin had governed a nation wracked with civil war, great poverty, and extensive hunger. And while he made inspirational speeches and wrote stirring papers, he was guilty of atrocities, just as Stalin turned out to be -- although Stalin went on to perform them on a scale not previously imagined.

Charles Kuralt and retired U.S. Army General Norman Schwarzkopf co-hosted a 1994 CBS Reports broadcast: Hitler & Stalin: Legacy of Hate. After the opening segment, about Hitler's rise, they went to commercial, and, upon coming back, Schwarzkopf said, "The world didn't know it at the time, Charles, but 1924 was a very bad year. That was the year that Adolf Hitler formed the Nazis into a national party, and Joseph Stalin became the Premier of Russia." Before addressing Stalin's rise, Kuralt added, "Both their mothers wanted them to be priests."

After Stalin died in 1953, there was another power struggle, won by Nikita Khrushchev. In a 1956 speech, Khrushchev revealed some of Stalin's atrocities, denouncing him, and recommitting the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the ideals of its founder, Lenin -- an official hero there, but not to the free world.

Following viewer demands for a battle with a Russian as a character, a 2013 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, featured a five-man "battle royale": "Nice" Peter Shukoff, himself of Russian descent, played Rasputin, Vladimir Lenin and Vladimir Putin; while "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist played Joseph Stalin and Mikhail Gorbachev.

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January 21, 1924 was a Monday. English comedian Benny Hill was born on this day.

Baseball and football were in their off-seasons. There was, as yet, no major professional basketball league. And there was only 1 game played in the National Hockey League that day. The Ottawa Senators beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2.

The Senators had won the Stanley Cup in 1920, 1921 and 1923, so they were the defending Champions at this time. They were led by Hall-of-Famers Frank Nighbor, Jack Darragh, Harry "Punch" Broadbent, Cy Denneny, Eddie Gerard, Frank "King" Clancy, and goaltender Clint Benedict.

In spite of this game, the Canadiens would go on to dethrone the Senators as Cup winners, led by Hall-of-Famers Howie Morenz, Aurel Joliat, and the man for whom the trophy for best goaltender would be named, Georges Vezina.