Tag Archives: lenin

Moscow Underground Without Stalin — See the Gaps

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The Moscow under­ground metro sys­tem, opened in 1935, is well known for its ornate dec­o­ra­tions, out­stand­ing archi­tec­ture and art­work. Most of that art is in the social­ist real­ism style, which has its pur­pose of rein­forc­ing the goals of social­ism and com­mu­nism. In 1932 Joseph Stalin intro­duced the decree “On the Recon­struc­tion of Lit­er­ary and Art Orga­ni­za­tions”, thus mak­ing social­ist real­ism state pol­icy. Under­stand­ably, Stalin became the face of this move­ment — due to strict cen­sor­ship rules,  artists had to obey in order to avoid the pun­ish­ment. So the majes­tic Moscow met­ro­pol­i­tan sys­tem had bear­ings of many stat­ues, por­traits, mosaics of the man himself.

How­ever, after his death, the Thaw and alto­gether the dis­in­te­gra­tion of the cult of his per­sona, images of Stalin were removed — no longer he was the face behind the social­ism goals. Please read on to see the scars on the body of the finest exam­ple of the Soviet archi­tec­ture — the Moscow Under­ground System.

Kurskaja kolcevaja 1944 369x500 Moscow Underground Without Stalin See the Gaps

Kurskaya Cir­cle Sta­tion, 1944. Stalin by Tom­skiy. After the statue was moved, the place was taken by a kiosk.

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21+ Depressing Photos of Post-Revolutionary Russia by Arkady Shaikhet

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When the new Soviet coun­try was born, the peo­ple were promised a won­der­ful future under the social­ism — just a few more years, the bill­boards boasted — and we’ll live in a glo­ri­ous state. How­ever the early days were more than gloomy: the  run­down econ­omy, dis­ori­ented soci­ety, the reek of fear and uncer­tainty — and that clearly can be seen through the pho­tos of a promi­nent Soviet pho­tog­ra­pher Arkady Shaikhet.

This col­lec­tion of pho­tos starts off with nice, clearcut images of what the coun­try was por­trayed as by the media and pro­pa­ganda — and pro­gresses to a unsweet­ened world of the sim­ple folk, vagrants, and peas­ants. Please let us know if there is a photo below that has touched your heart — we always value your feedback.

photoshare 003 500x373 21+ Depressing Photos of Post Revolutionary Russia by Arkady Shaikhet

Gym­nasts. Red Square. 1924

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The Fearsome Threesome – Lenin and His Lovebirds

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437px Lenin in Paris Poster Lenin v Parizhe Youtkhevitch Yutkevich Claude Jade 364x500 The Fearsome Threesome – Lenin and His Lovebirds

Paris, city of love, brought them all together. A Russ­ian movie of 1981.

The offi­cial his­tory often misses a very impor­tant and inter­est­ing point in the course of the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion – not every­body knows that Vladimir Lenin, a for­mi­da­ble mind behind the Great Octo­ber Patri­otic Rev­o­lu­tion and the leader of all com­mu­nists, had less than straight­for­ward love life – apart from a wife, he had a mis­tress – and not only that, these two women knew each other and got on very well!

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The Patriotic Education in USSR. Part 2 — Pioneers, Soviet Boy Scouts

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pioner1 The Patriotic Education in USSR. Part 2 Pioneers, Soviet Boy Scouts

We are the pio­neers, sons of work­ing class (a pop­u­lar song)

As you remem­ber from the pre­vi­ous post, at the age of 9 the Soviet Kids grew out of their Octo­ber Kids affil­i­a­tion. The next ide­o­log­i­cal rite of pas­sage was pio­neer­ing which the Soviet coun­try placed a huge impor­tance on. Loosely based on the Amer­i­can Boy Scout’s move­ment, pio­neer­ing cov­ered all kids till the age of four­teen and worked in close rela­tion with schools. Just like any­thing else Soviet style, it had its idiosyncrasies.

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Happy Birthday Dear USSR! The Great October Socialist Revolution. November 7th 1917.

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serov1918 provozlashenie sov vlasti 376x500 Happy Birthday Dear USSR! The Great October Socialist Revolution. November 7th 1917.

The Announce­ment of the Soviet Gov­ern­ment. By Vladimir Serov, 1918.

The Soviet Union was offi­cially cre­ated in 1922, how­ever, if there was a date which could be con­sid­ered as a birth­day of the USSR, that would have had to be Novem­ber 7th of 1917  — this was the day when in St Peters­burg the Bol­she­viks — the organ­ised mil­i­tary rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies, who later became the Com­mu­nist Party of the USSR — came to power. The Russ­ian Pro­vi­sional Gov­ern­ment which were the head of the coun­try after the Tsar Nicholas II had resigned, was over­thrown and the Sovi­ets, tak­ing the gov­ern­ment build­ings one by one, had finally cap­tured the town.

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The Patriotic Education in the USSR. Part One: the October Kids.

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0 de34 9660ec72 XL 500x361 The Patriotic Education in the USSR. Part One: the October Kids.

Only those who like to work get suc­cess­ful in this world.

The young Soviet coun­try could not grow and flour­ish with­out the sup­port and patri­o­tism of its peo­ple. From the early days of the Soviet Union, the ide­ol­ogy organ­i­sa­tions aimed to tar­get cit­i­zens of all ages, oblig­ing them to belong in order to do well in life. So the pes­ter­ing had to start early: when kids start school (the school age 7 years old in the USSR), the school ide­ol­ogy organ­i­sa­tion would take them under the wing, with the prospect of nur­tur­ing the future mem­bers of the Com­mu­nist Party.

The very first move­ment every child would belong to was called the Octo­ber kids, after the Great Octo­ber Rev­o­lu­tion of 1917, after which the new gov­ern­ment came into power.

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