Lenin's Last Journey: the philosophical and visionary novel by Francesco Pala

Autumn 1942, Siberia. Red Army Sergeant Dorotov planned the trip in every detail. It will start from Tyumen and cross a series of urban centers to escape the dangers of the countryside that could hide agents of the counter-revolution. There was only one aim: to remove Lenin's embalmed body from the control of the Soviet authorities, which was hastily moved from Moscow threatened by the Nazi invasion.

Together with Sergeant Dorotov there are the private Antonov, fresh from a lobotomy after having noticed a certain mobility in the venerable corpse, and Olga, a woman with green and stubborn eyes that seem to suggest to those around her the urgency of a marriage to extinguish that impudence in his gaze. Hot on the heels of the three was the impetuous advance of General Hoth's fourth German armored army.

Thus begins for Dorotov and his companions a physical and mental pilgrimage across Great Russia, an adventure of thought in search of uncorrupted morality, total ideological integrity, the absence of the faults that ruined socialism. In other words, of a utopian and perfect world. One where not even death exists anymore: the People's Republic of Leninesia.

Exactly one hundred years after Lenin's death on 21 January 1924, Francesco Pala takes inspiration from the father of the Russian Revolution to give life to a powerful, visionary, philosophical and very entertaining novel, winner of the sixth edition of the Neri Pozza Prize. "Lenin's Last Journey" (Neri Pozza, 2024, Euro 18, pp. 288. Also Ebook), in fact, is a picaresque, cultured and ironic adventure that tells us about a desire that unites us all: to live forever.

We asked Francesco Pala, originally from Nuoro, first of all how the story narrated in the novel came about: «It was born from the need to talk about a world completely different from ours. A universe immersed in overwhelming and all-encompassing passions. I asked myself: what can a human being become when hit by the disruptive force of an ideal overturn? What hidden powers can joining a company that asks you to conquer the impossible be unleashed? How much pain, love, courage, suffering can a person in love with a dream endure?".

Who is Sergeant Dorotov?

«In everyone's eyes he is just a Red Army soldier involved in the Second World War. Few people know that Dorotov, in a decisive moment of his existence, allowed himself to be seduced by a secret project involving a complex organization of men, united by their adherence to an esoteric doctrine contained in a book printed in only two copies: the Itinerarium mentis in Lenin. The organization has an ambitious and complex goal: to take possession of Vladimir Lenin's body. Dorotov has a fundamental operational role that was assigned to him due to the almost maniacal rigor with which he intends to complete his task. He is ascetic, monastic, inflexible, a man completely dominated by the cause for which he renounced everything."

What does Lenin represent for Dorotov?

«Lenin immobile, suspended in a timeless dimension, represents for Dorotov the link between two worlds. The miracle which, through embalming, stopped the deterioration of the revolutionary leader's body is the promise of a new frontier: the scientific defeat of death and, even, the rebirth of the deceased. Bringing Lenin back to life would mean reversing the course of human destiny and appropriating the mystery of the end, to achieve an authentic communism, no longer subject to the limits of human transience."

And what does the father of the Russian Revolution represent for you?

«I believe that the decision to immortalize Lenin's body hid a profound uncertainty about the fate of Soviet communism on the part of those who hoped to take the reins of command after his death. An unconscious awareness of the limits of a palingenetic project that promised, or threatened, depending on your point of view, to re-establish human nature. At the same time, the sleeping body of the revolutionary leader embodied the presumed intangibility of Communism, a safe conduct against the disintegrative forces of history."

What does the People's Republic of Leninesia represent?

«The summit of utopia, the magnetism of dreams, the obsession with perfection and the absolute: the Communism of eternity».

Above all: can Leninesia exist or is it just a utopia?

«I can't say whether there will ever be the possibility of pushing beyond the boundaries of human mortality. Certainly, by describing the story of the Leninians I wanted to stage the vertigo of utopia, its always being in the balance between redemption and nightmare. There is nothing more dangerous than dreams that never come true."