Lenin Peace Prize

The International Lenin Peace Prize (Russian: международная Ленинская премия мира) was the Soviet Union's equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize, named in honor of Vladimir Lenin. It was awarded by a panel appointed by the Soviet government, to notable individuals whom the panel indicated had "strengthened peace among comrades". It was founded as the International Stalin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples, but was renamed the International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples (Russian: Международная Ленинская премия «За укрепление мира между народами») as a result of destalinization. Unlike the Nobel Prize, the Lenin Peace Prize was usually awarded to several people a year rather than to just one individual. The prize was mainly awarded to prominent Communists and supporters of the Soviet Union who were not Soviet citizens. Notable recipients include: W. E. B. Du Bois, Fidel Castro, Salvador Allende, Sean MacBride, Angela Davis, Pablo Picasso, and Nelson Mandela.

History

The prize was created as the International Stalin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples on December 21, 1949 by executive order of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in honor of Joseph Stalin's seventieth birthday (although this was after his seventy-first).

Following Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin in 1956 during the Twentieth Party Congress, the prize was renamed on September 6 as the International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples. All previous recipients were asked to return their Stalin Prizes so they could be replaced by the renamed Lenin Prize. By a decision of Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of December 11, 1989, the prize was renamed the International Lenin Peace Prize. Two years later, after the USSR had collapsed, the Russian government, as the successor state to the defunct Soviet Union, ended the award program.

The International Lenin Prize should not be confused with the International Peace Prize, awarded by the World Peace Council. In 1941 the Soviet Union created the Stalin Prize (later renamed the USSR State Prize), which was awarded annually to accomplished Soviet writers, composers, artists and scientists.

Stalin Prize recipients

1950

Awarded April 6, 1951 - Seven winners

• Frédéric Joliot-Curie
• Soong Ching-ling (Madame Sun Yat-sen)
• Hewlett Johnson
• Eugénie Cotton
• Arthur Wheelock Moulton-Declined
• Pak Chong Ae
• Heriberto Jara Corona

1951

Awarded December 20, 1951 -Six winners

• Guo Moruo
• Monica Felton
• Oyama Ikuo
• Pietro Nenni
• Anna Seghers
• Jorge Amado

1952

Awarded December 20, 1952 - Seven winners

• Johannes Becher
• Eliza Branco
• Ilya Ehrenburg
• Rev. James Gareth Endicott
• Yves Farge
• Saifuddin Kitchlew
• Paul Robeson

1953

Awarded December 12, 1953 - Ten winners

• Andrea Andreen
• John Desmond Bernal
• Isabelle Blume
• Howard Fast
• Andrew Gaggiero
• Leon Kruczkowski
• Pablo Neruda
• Nina Vasilevna Popova
• Sir Sahib Singh Sokhey
• Pierre Cot

1954

Awarded December 18, 1954 - Nine winners

• Alain Le Léap
• Baldomero Sanín Cano
• Prijono
• Bertolt Brecht
• André Bonnard
• Thakin Kodaw Hmaing
• Felix Iversen
• Nicolás Guillén
• Denis Nowell Pritt

1955

Awarded December 9, 1955 - Six Winners

• Lázaro Cárdenas
• Mohammed Al-Ashmar
• Karl Joseph Wirth
• Tôn Đức Thắng
• Akiko Seki
• Ragnar Forbech

Lenin Prize recipients

1957

• Louis Aragon (1957)
• Emmanuel d'Astier (1957)
• Heinrich Brandweiner (b. 1910) (1957)
• Danilo Dolci (b. 1924) (1957)
• María Rosa Oliver (b. 1898) (1957)
• Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1957)
• Udakandawala Saranankara Thero (b. 1902) (1957)
• Nikolay Semenovich Tikhonov (1957)

1958

• Josef Lukl Hromádka (1958)
• Artur Lundkvist (1958)
• Louis Saillant (1958)
• Kaoru Yasui (1958)
• Arnold Zweig (1958)

1959

Awarded April 30, 1959

• Otto Buchwitz (1959)
• W. E. B. Du Bois (1959)
• Nikita Khrushchev (1959)
• Ivor Montagu (1959)
• Kostas Varnalis (1959)

1960

Awarded May 3, 1960

• Laurent Casanova (1960)
• Cyrus Eaton (1960)
• Sukarno (1960)
• Aziz Sharif (1960)
• Alexander Korneychuk (1960)

1961

Awarded April 30, 1961

• Fidel Castro (1961)
• Ostap DÅ‚uski (b. 1892 in Buczacz) (1961)
• William Morrow (b. 1888) (1961)
• Rameshwari Nehru (b. 1886) (1961)
• Mihail Sadoveanu (1961)
• Antoine Tabet (1961)
• Ahmed Sékou Touré (1961)

1962

Awarded April 30, 1962

• Konstantin Simun (1962)
• István Dobi (1962)
• Olga Poblete de Espinosa (1962)
• Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1962)
• Kwame Nkrumah (1962)
• Pablo Picasso (1962)

1963

Awarded May 1, 1963 - Four Awarded

• Modibo Keita (1963)
• Oscar Niemeyer (1963)
• Georgi Traikov (1962)
• Manolis Glezos (1962)

1964

Awarded May 1, 1964 - Three awarded

• Ben Bella
• Dolores Ibárruri (1964)
• Herluf Bidstrup
• Rafael Alberti (1964)
• Kaoru Ota (1964)

1965

• Mirjam Vire-Tuominen (1965)
• Peter Ayodele Curtis Joseph (1965)
• Jamsrangiin Sambuu (1965)

Presented August 14, 1965

• Aruna Asaf Ali (1964)

1966

• Miguel Ángel Asturias (1965)
• Giacomo Manzù (1965)

Awarded May 1, 1967 - Six awards

• Herbert Warnke (1966)
• Rockwell Kent (1966)
• Ivan Málek (1966)
• Martin Niemöller (1966)
• David Alfaro Siqueiros (1966)
• Bram Fischer (1966)

1967

• Joris Ivens (1967)
• Nguyá»…n Thị Định (1967)
• Jorge Zalamea (1967)
• Romesh Chandra (1967)
• Endre Sík (1967)
• Jean Effel (1967)

1968-1969

Awarded April 16, 1970 - Seven awards

• Akira Iwai (b. 1922) (1968â€"69)
• JarosÅ‚aw Iwaszkiewicz (1968â€"69)
• Khaled Mohieddin (1968â€"69)
• Linus Pauling (1968â€"69)
• Shafie Ahmed el Sheikh (b. 1924 â€" d. 1971) (1968â€"69)
• Bertil Svahnström (b. 1907 â€" d. 1972) (1968â€"69)
• Ludvík Svoboda (1968â€"69)

1970-1971

(No awards given in 1971 )

• Hikmat Abu Zayd (1970â€"71)
• Eric Henry Stoneley Burhop (1970â€"71)
• Ernst Busch (1970â€"71)
• Tsola Dragoycheva (1970â€"71)
• Renato Guttuso (1970â€"71)
• Kamal Jumblatt (1970â€"71)
• Alfredo Varela (1970â€"71)
• Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (1970â€"71)

1972

Awarded May 1, 1973 - Four awards

• James Aldridge (1972)
• Salvador Allende (1972)
• Leonid Brezhnev (1972)
• Enrique Pastorino (1972)

1973-1974

• Luis Corvalán (1973â€"74)
• Raymond Goor (1973â€"74)
• Jeanne-Martin Cissé (1973â€"74)
• Sam Nujoma

1975-1976

Awarded May 1977 - Seven Awards

• Hortensia Bussi de Allende (1975â€"76)
• János Kádár (1975â€"76)
• Seán MacBride (1975â€"76)
• Samora Machel (1975â€"76)
• Agostinho Neto (1975â€"76)
• Pierre Pouyade (1975â€"76)
• Yannis Ritsos (1975â€"76)

1977-1978

Awarded May 1, 1979 - Six Awards

• Kurt Bachmann (1977â€"78)
• Freda Yetta Brown (1977â€"78)
• Angela Davis (1977â€"78)
• Vilma Espín Guillois (1977â€"78)
• Kumara Padma Sivasankara Menon (1977â€"78)
• Halina Skibniewska (1977â€"78)

1979

Awarded April 30, 1980 - Five Awardees

• Hervé Bazin (1979)
• Lê Duẩn (1979)
• Urho Kekkonen (1979)
• Abd al-Rahman al-Sharqawi (1979)
• Miguel Otero Silva (1979)

1980-1982

Awarded May 1983 - 4 awards

• Mahmoud Darwish (1980â€"82)
• John Morgan (1980â€"82)
• Líber Seregni (1980â€"82)
• Mikis Theodorakis (1980â€"82)

1983-1984

Awarded May 1, 1985 - Six Awards

• Indira Gandhi (1983â€"84)
• Jean-Marie Legay (1983â€"84)
• Eva Palmer (1983â€"84)
• Nguyá»…n Hữu Thọ (1983â€"84)
• Luis Vidales (1983â€"84)
• Josef Weber (1983â€"84)
• Charilaos Florakis (1983â€"84)

1985-1986

• Miguel d'Escoto (1985â€"86)
• Dorothy Hodgkin (1985â€"86)
• Herbert Mies (1985â€"86)
• Julius Nyerere (1985â€"86)
• Petr Tanchev (1985â€"86)

1987

• Evan Litwack (1986â€"87)

1988

• Abdul Sattar Edhi (1988)

1989

• Álvaro Cunhal (1989)

1990

• Nelson Mandela¹ (1990)

1. Mandela was awarded the International Lenin Peace Prize in 1990 but, due to his trial and imprisonment in South Africa, was unable to accept the prize until 2002.

See also

• Atoms for Peace Award

References

External links

• Thoughts on winning the Stalin Peace Prize by Paul Robeson
• On Receiving the Stalin Peace Award by Howard Fast
• Soviet Prize Medals pictures of the medals and accompanying certificates
• (Russian) PDF-version of issue of Pravda with ukaz about creation of prize.