Tag Archives: propaganda

The Wall: the Unaccounted Tragedies.

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As pre­vi­ously stated by George Orwell, war is peace. So when Wal­ter Ulbricht, the Leader of the Ger­man Social­ist Unity Party, on June 15, 1961 said: “No one has the inten­tion of build­ing the wall!”, it took only about two months for the con­struc­tion to begin. The run­down state of the East­ern part was forc­ing peo­ple to flee in the search of bet­ter lives in the West of Ger­many: in the first six months of the year 1961, about 150 000 peo­ple left their houses. How­ever, more stayed — and so the Wall did not only sep­a­rate the city — it cut fam­i­lies in halves.

1 500x333 The Wall: the Unaccounted Tragedies.

On the morn­ing of August 13, 1961 the Berlini­ans woke up to the first layer of bricks being erected.

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The Victory Aftermath. Russia in Second World War.

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den pobedy 500x385 The Victory Aftermath. Russia in Second World War.

The V-Day. Copy­right unknown

On May, 25th 1945 Joseph Stalin made a cel­e­bra­tory speech devoted to the end of the Russ­ian Great Patri­otic War. The Sec­ond World War was com­ing to an end, but the Soviet Union was done fight­ing. The Russ­ian troops had exited Ger­many and ahead lied a long road of rebuild­ing and reha­bil­i­ta­tion. So in Krem­lin, at the V-day Meet­ing, Stalin had said the following:

Do not expect me to say any­thing extra­or­di­nary today. I have a very sim­ple, very ordi­nary toast to make. I would like to raise a glass to health of those peo­ple who are low in rank and invis­i­ble in the hier­ar­chy. Of those who we con­sider to be the “small screws” of our huge state mech­a­nism — they might be small but with­out them us gen­er­als, mar­shals and other top army lead­ers wouldn’t have made it. They are plen­ti­ful, they are a legion, it is tens of mil­lions of peo­ple who have not been heard of — yet they hold us together, as the base holds the top. To their health!

Today we have brought to your atten­tion a frag­ment of the inter­view with Yelena Bon­ner, a human rights activist, a dis­si­dent, a writer, and a widow of the late Andrei Sakharov — dur­ing the war she was a teen and now, cour­tesy to the Internet-magazine Snob.ru, she tells us about her expe­ri­ence dur­ing the war.

So — We did not fight for Stalin or the Soviet Union. We fought because we had no other choice.

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May, 1st: Soviet Labour Day.

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1984 marochkin May, 1st: Soviet Labour Day.

Parade of 1984, city of Ufa. Photo by N. Marochkin.

Day of Inter­na­tional Sol­i­dar­ity of the Work­ing Class, or Labour Day — was cel­e­brated in Rus­sia on May, 1st  from 1919 to 1990. A pub­lic hol­i­day for each every city, every town­ship or vil­lage had a parade organ­ised: flags were car­ried, posters and ban­ners were up, kids had red bal­lons and por­traits of the gov­ern­ing men were on dis­play. The atten­dance usu­ally was com­pul­sory, but judg­ing by the pho­tographs now, I don’t think any­body minded: it looks like peo­ple had fum there. By May the weather was usu­ally sunny and crisp, and this hol­i­day was a lit­tle more that a pro­pa­gan­dist activ­ity: it was a uni­fy­ing event. Please read on to see some faces behind the crowd.

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Best of Winter 2009 – 2010

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Mil­i­tary Dis­charge Hand­made Scrap Book and Comics Album

11 365x500 Best of Winter 2009 2010

You’re in the army now

The com­pul­sory two years of mil­i­tary ser­vice was a rite of pas­sage for every Soviet guy. When one turned eigh­teen — unless for sick­ness or injury — it was time to be called in for the mil­i­tary life — two years in the bar­racks. The guys usu­ally bonded well and dur­ing their spare time cre­ated so called “Dis­charge Albums” — like scrap­books, they were full of pho­tos, songs lyrics, quick notes from the bud­dies etc.

Slava Kurilov: Alone at Sea. An Unbe­liev­able Way to Escape the Iron Curtain

kurilov2 Best of Winter 2009 2010

The only per­son to escape the Iron Cur­tain by swimming.

By job he was an oceanog­ra­pher, by heart he was a dreamer, by nation­al­ity he was a cit­i­zen of the planet Earth — in short, he was an extra­or­di­nary guy. Yet his per­sonal file in the USSR was stamped as “not wor­thy of an exit visa” so he was not allowed to leave the coun­try, even if it was for a hol­i­day. So in Decem­ber, 1974 he jumped a cruise boat “The Soviet Union” off the coast of the Philip­pines islands — and he swam to freedom.With no food or drink, no swim­ming equip­ment apart from flips and gog­gles, he swam to the shores about a hun­dred kilo­me­ters for three days — com­pletely alone at sea.

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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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Military Discharge Handmade Scrap Book and Comics Album

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11 365x500 Military Discharge Handmade Scrap Book and Comics Album

You’re in the army now

The com­pul­sory two years of mil­i­tary ser­vice was a rite of pas­sage for every Soviet guy. When one turned eigh­teen — unless for sick­ness or injury — it was time to be called in for the mil­i­tary life — two years in the bar­racks. Usu­ally away from home, this period of time was meant to train and edu­cate the men should there be a war. It included phys­i­cal train­ing, polit­i­cal ori­en­ta­tion, cur­rent affairs, weaponry and so on — a good many posts can be writ­ten on life in the army! Today, how­ever, we want to take a dif­fer­ent look on this sub­ject. The guys usu­ally bonded well and dur­ing their spare time cre­ated so called “Dis­charge Albums” — like scrap­books, they were full of pho­tos, songs lyrics, quick notes from the bud­dies etc. This par­tic­u­lar one has a very neat selec­tion of wee hand drawn episodes of the army realities.

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