MOSCOW, Jan. 23, 1924 (UP) - As a vivid world figure passes into history with the death of Nickolai Lenin, the all-Russian Soviet Congress prepares to carry on the work to which the leader gave his life.
Political observers here believe that Stalin, minister of nationalities, will succeed Lenin, although all admit that none can really fill the place of the governing mind of the revolution.
In the wide streets of Moscow and Petrograd, which, when Lenin died, were already draped in black bunting for the commemorative services for the 1915 massacres, the Russian people whisper of Lenin's death. It is as if the sun had fallen from the heavens, or the oceans swallowed up a continent.
"He is dead," they say, wonderingly - for so strongly did his flaming mind stamp Russian life that people had seen him as a national symbol, forgetting that he was but a man, and could die.
Meanwhile, however, the government functions quietly and normally. Leaders know that Lenin, absent from the Kremlin for two years, has long since ceased to be a vital factor in governmental affairs. Out of the group of men who have carried on in his absence will come Russia's new chief. Zinoviev, and Kamenev, are mentioned as successors. But general opinion inclines to the belief that Stalin will take Lenin's place.
Stalin, whose almost oriental features mark his Georgian birth, was formerly an aristocrat. His life has been among the people, however, and it is said that he once was employed as a clerk. In addition to being minister of nationalities, he is secretary of the Communist Party.
Vladimir Ilyitch Uulyanoff, known to the world as Nickolai Lenin, died at 6:50 p.m. Monday, at the village of Gorky, near Moscow. The man whose dynamic force shook nations and remodeled the life of a great people, died a broken cripple.
The full nature of Lenin's illness still remains a mystery. He has long suffered from partial paralysis, which some doctors have attributed to effects of a wound on his neck. Doctors who examined his brain yesterday reported evidence of a hemorrhage which they declared was probably the immediate cause of death.
His body will be brought to Moscow today by train. It will be taken to Union House, accompanied by a military escort. There the body will lie in state, as mourning crowds file by, until Saturday, when the funeral will be held. Lenin will be buried in the Kremlin wall.
