Ernst Thälmann – German Communist leader – statue in Moscow

Posted on 06/07/2024 by Michael

Ernst Thälmann – German Communist leader

Ernst Thaelmann – German Communist leader – statue in Moscow

It’s difficult to work out the thinking in the early days after the collapse of the (then Revisionist) Soviet Union in 1991 when it comes to revolutionary monuments. They display an element of schizophrenia, not knowing how to deal with the Soviet, Socialist past. But if you take something away with what are you going to replace it? Prior to the October Revolution of 1917 Russia was a backward, undeveloped, country with a population in the countryside that had barely moved from serfdom. The working class was small – yet highly organised and with a political understanding far exceeding that of their companions in the countries of the ‘west’ – and militarily it was of no consequence.

It was the construction of Socialism from 1917 to 1953 that built the country that turned the Soviet Union from a backward, peasant dominated country to an industrialised country with a sophisticated infrastructure and, after the re-construction following the Great Patriotic War, one of the most powerful nations on earth. And, of course, it was the Soviet Union that played the pivotal role in the defeat of Nazism.

So going back to the ‘pre-revolutionary’ period for imagery and options wasn’t really an option so, at least initially. As time moved on the defeat of the Napoleonic imperialist invasion was promoted to greater importance and the iconography of the Orthodox Church appeared in more public spaces.

Statues and other representations of JV Stalin had been removed in the 1950s after Khrushchev’s denunciation at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This culminated in the removal of his body from the mausoleum he had shared with VI Lenin, for more than seven years, in October 1961. But even then this removal was carried out in the dead of night and at a time when the announcement could have been ‘buried’ by news of a successful nuclear test. However, such a radical move with the body of Lenin, the new capitalists feared, would almost certainly have been met with substantial public opposition.

Nonetheless, there are still images of, or references to, Stalin in public places in Moscow, such as; the roundel which depicts both VI Lenin and JV Stalin in the external decoration of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic pavilion at the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy (VDNKh); a young woman carries a copy of Stalin’s written works at the Kievskaya, Line 3, Metro station; and he also appears on a bas relief on the platform of Ploschad Vosstaniya Metro station in Leningrad.

There have been continued suggestions about the removal/destruction of the Lenin mausoleum (as was the fate of Georgi Dimitrov in Sofia, Bulgaria) but I would think that such discussions will get nowhere the longer the structure remains in its prominent location in Red Square.

In the early days of the collapse of the Soviet Union, when confusion reigned and any remaining Communist organisation was less than functional, a number of statues and monuments were either removed or destroyed with some of those that were taken down later re-appearing at the Muzeon Art Park.

At the same time there are still almost a hundred statues of VI Lenin in the Greater Moscow area, mostly in local communities but only a handful in the city centre (including the sculptural assembly in Oktyabrskaya Square); Karl Marx still gives a speech just across the road from the Bolshoi Theatre; Frederick Engels stands in a small square near the rebuilt Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, across the road from the ornate entrance to Kropotkinskaya metro station; and there’s a somewhat strange monument to Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Minh) close to the entrance to Akademicheskaya metro station south of the city centre.

And then there’s the statue to Ernst Thaelmann, the German Communist Party leader who was imprisoned by the Nazis and eventually murdered in their custody.

Ernst Thälmann – Moscow

Fifty years old by Wilhelm Pieck

Ernst Thaelmann will be fifty years old on the sixteen of April. There is hardly a corner of the world where the name of the imprisoned leader of the Communist Party of Germany is not uttered with warmth and emotion by all workers and friends of peace and liberty and where his release is not insistently demanded. Ernst Thaelmann, whom the bloodthirsty hangmen of the German proletariat have already kept in prison for three years, whom they are torturing and ill-treating, has become the symbol of the struggle against war and Fascism, the struggle for Socialism, all over the world.

It was a long journey, rich in sacrifice and struggle, that the Hamburg docker, Ernst Thaelmann, had to make before he grew to be the great leader of the producing masses of Germany and one of the most popular leaders of the Communist International.

As the son of a class-conscious worker organised in the Social-Democratic Party, Ernst Thaelmann came into the Socialist movement in his early youth. He was hardly sixteen years old when he joined the Social-Democratic Party. The indigent circumstances of a proletarian family drove him very early into the drudgery of capitalist exploitation. These circumstances prevented him from following the well-meant advice of his teachers that this talented working-class boy should continue his education.

Ernst Thaelmann began his independent proletarian existence as a porter in the Hamburg docks. He made a trip to America as a coal trimmer, and worked as a daily labourer on American farms. Thus the international character of capitalist exploitation was hammered into him in early youth – but at the same time it taught him militant life of the international working class. Arriving back in Hamburg, he devoted his whole energy and all his spare time to work in party and trade union. After a heavy day’s work and an evening spent in the service of the organisation, he voraciously read and studied the Socialist literature. At first his activities were mainly in the trade union field. Very soon his work for the organisation, his personal courage, his self-sacrifice and the successful way in which he stood up for the workers’ demands, won him the confidence of the workers. They elected him to the local executive of their trade union, they sent him four times as delegate to the congress of the Transport Workers’ Union. And already in those days Ernst Thaelmann began his open and determined fight against opportunism.

In Hamburg, Germany’s largest city serving international trade, all the shady sides of the capitalist system were in evidence in their most blatant forms. Besides the strata of labor aristocrats corrupted by colonial surplus profits, it was the circumstance that Hamburg was the seat of a number of central trade union and co-operative institutions with their large bureaucratic apparatus which, more than anything, supplied a firm foundation for opportunism. Among other things it is also noteworthy that after the Revolution of 1918 these opportunist elements in Hamburg became the representatives of the most reactionary and right-wing opinions in Social Democracy. In order to indicate their attitude, it is enough to mention that it was one of the leaders of reactionary Hamburg Social-Democracy (Sarendorff) who replied to the united front proposals of the Communists before Hitler’s assumption to power with the provocative statement that he would ten times rather go with the bourgeoisie than once with the Communists.

In the struggle with these reactionary elements in the working-class movement Ernst Thaelmann became an uncompromising fighter for revolutionary Marxism.

When the slaughter of the nations began, and opportunism went over with banners flying to the camp of chauvinism and imperialism, the revolutionary worker, Ernst Thaelmann, did not waver one minute. From the very first days he fought resolutely against the war policy of Social-Democracy. In the first few weeks of the war he was ordered to the front. As an internationalist he set out to enlighten the troops, circulating illegal leaflets and newspapers and making a stand against the brutal treatment of the soldiers by Prussian militarism. For this he was deliberately victimised by the officers and given the most dangerous duties in the front line. Even from the trenches he kept in close touch with the illegally operating Hamburg opposition. Together with it he joined the Independent Social-Democratic Party. After the outbreak of the Revolution in November 1918, Ernst Thaelmann fought in the foremost ranks of the revolutionary workers against the counter-revolutionary troops which Ebert and Noske had sent to crush the workers of Hamburg and Bremen. The revolutionary workers of Hamburg, who recognised Thaelmann’s personal courage and daring, elected him to represent them in the City government of the port. It was due to him that out of the 42,000 members of the Independent Social-Democratic Party’s organisation in Hamburg, 40,000 declared their allegiance to the principles of the Communist International.

After the Party, following the defeat of the German proletariat in 1923, had devastatingly settled the opportunists, Ernst Thaelmann, as one of the most popular left-wing leaders, was summoned to the Central Committee of the Party, where he very soon rose to be leader of the Party. Under his leadership, the Party quickly and definitely rid itself of the ultra-left group of Ruth Fischer and Maslow, whose pseudo-radical, fatal policy had done immense harm to the mass-influence of the Party, threatening to isolate the Party from the masses.

With the help of the Communist International, he welded all the healthy and valuable forces of the Party in the leadership and in the organisation as a whole into an iron phalanx, which first flung the Trotskyist gang out of the ranks of the Party, only later to cleanse it with equal thoroughness of the Right opportunist and conciliators.

To all of us in the leadership, and to every single Party comrade, Thaelmann became a model revolutionary loyalty and devotion to the Communist International, the World Party of Lenin and Stalin. He taught us absolute devotion and passionate love for the Soviet Union and for our great leader Stalin. Thaelmann never wavered on this question. At the October Conference of the C.P.G. in 1932, he addressed the following words of warning to the Party:

‘There were sometimes in our own ranks comrades who thought themselves cleverer and more capable of judging various questions than was done in the definite decisions of our World Party. Here I stress with the greatest emphasis: our relations with the Comintern, this close, indestructible, firm confidence between the C.P.G. and the C.I. and its Executive – this is one of our Party, the inner-political struggles and disputes in the past and of the higher political maturity of our Party generally.’

The latest war-provocation by German Fascism recalls to our mind Thaelmann’s passionate struggle against war, against Fascism, for an international understanding among the nations, particularly between the working masses of Germany and France. Under Thaelmann’s leadership the Communist Party of Germany resolutely took over and resolutely continued the militant policy of the Spartakus-Bund against the Treaty of Versailles. In contrast to the criminal war-policy of the German-Fascists, however, the policy of the Communist Party is founded on international solidarity among the nations, on peaceful understanding between them, on the alliance of the working class of the whole world. This attitude was forcibly expressed by Thaelmann at that historic mass meeting of the French workers in Paris, at which he had to appear illegally because the French police tried to prevent him from attending. There Thaelmann said:

‘Even more boldly and more courageously we shall hold out our hands over frontier barriers to our militant comrades in France, joining with them in fraternal solidarity in a fighting alliance against the war-criminals and their accomplices. We shall not allow the German and French workers to be goaded again into mutual fratricide.’

The Bolshevist policy of the Communist Party under Thaelmann’s leadership led to a steady, constant increase in its mass-influence. At the elections to the German Reichstag in November 1932, six million working people voted for the Communist Party of Germany. The Party numbered more than 300,000 members, and it was fulfilling with ever-increasing success its great historic task of preparing the working masses of Germany for the struggle for and winning Socialism.

The development of the Party to a mass-party with a vigorous Bolshevist character was largely due to Ernst Thaelmann. He was more than usually sensitive to the temper of the masses, especially the Social-Democratic workers. For this reason he was accused by the group Nuemann of ‘running behind the S.P.G. Workers’. But Ernst Thaelmann’s work was anything but this. Quite the reverse: he tried to make the Social-Democratic workers realise the necessity of the united front in view of the rising wave of Fascism. He tried also, however, to create the conditions for this in the Party itself. At the meeting of the Central Committee on February 19, 1932, he said:

‘We say that the revolutionary united-front policy forms the main link in the proletarian policy in Germany. Comrades, a formulation like this is one of great moment; we have chosen it on mature reflection.’

And at the Berlin Anti-Fascist Unity Congress on July 10, 1932, Thaelmann said: ‘The question of the united front against Fascism … that is the question vital to the German proletariat.’ On the initiative of Ernst Thaelmann the ‘Anti-Fascist Action’ was inaugurated by the Communist Party in May, 1932, bringing the Communist and Social-Democratic workers closer together. And yet there were still present in the Party very powerful sectarian inhibitions among Communist workers against the united front with the Social-Democratic workers, chiefly caused by the struggle conducted against the Communist Party by the Social-Democratic leaders, especially the Social-Democratic Prussian Government, with the use of terrorist methods.

In these circumstances a number of grave errors were made by the Party, to correct which, on the strength of experience gained in the meantime, Ernst Thaelmann would naturally have acted with the utmost vigour if he had not been prevented from doing so by his arrest. The most serious error was that the Fascist menace was under-estimated and the main blow was not aimed at the Fascist menace as it became more and more clearly manifested.

On the bold initiative of Comrade Dimitrov, the Seventh World Congress decided to divert our tactics to the creation of the united front and the People’s Front, and set the Communist Party of Germany, in view of the altered situation in Germany, the special task of revising its relations with Social-Democracy, so that the rapid creation of the united front should become possible.

The working masses in town and country are beginning to revolt against their Fascist oppressors, although under the severe terror this result takes at first the simplest forms. The tasks facing the Communist Party of Germany in such a situation are great and fraught with responsibility. Now is the time, in spite of Fascist rule to terror and the suppression of all free expression of opinion in Germany, to counteract the mass chauvinist infection and to rally all available forces for the overthrow of this mad rule of the war-mongers, the oppressors and murderers of the working people of Germany. It is necessary to unite quickly and boldly all the opponents of the Fascists rule of terror against all reactionary attempts at sabotage and against all sectarian inhibitions; but above all to heal the split in the working class and to lead the Communist and Social-Democratic workers together into a united fighting front.

The C.P.G. lives on and is working despite the tremendous sacrifices it has to make under the Fascist terror. The heroic struggle, full of sacrifices, which tens of thousand of Communists and revolutionary workers are waging at the cost of the lives of thousands of their best, has shown that the Fascist terror and the reformist policy of capitulation were not able to demoralise the ranks of the proletariat. The fact that the Communist Party has been successful in this is due primarily to the heroic cadres raised by the Party under Thaelmann’s leadership.

For more than three years Thaelmann has been lying in a Fascist gaol. During all this time it has only been possible once – through the workers’ delegation from the Saar – for the proletariat to establish personal contact with Thaelmann. The Fascists allow the visit on that occasion in order to confuse the workers of the Saar, because they thought that the long period of terrorism in prison would have cowed Thaelmann and that he would not dare to speak openly to the workers. But Ernst Thaelmann bade farewell to the workers in these words: ‘I have been and I am being tortured! Greet the workers of the Saar from me as I would greet them!’ With that he showed that the brutalities of Fascist imprisonment could not break his revolutionary fortitude.

The indictment against Thaelmann published the other day is no more than a miserable declaration of bankruptcy of the part of the Fascist prosecution. That explains why the Fascists for three whole years have been continually postponing the trial and now want to abandon it all together. The latest report concerning Thaelmann’s fate should arouse the international proletariat the utmost vigilance. Thaelmann has been transferred from the custody of the remand authorities to that of the terrorist Gestapo gangs. This increases the mortal danger in which he is. But, on the other hand, in view of the publication of the indictment against Thaelmaan, the present moment is also favourable for the struggle for his release. If we succeeded in raising a tremendous storm of protest throughout the world, it will be possible to break down the prison walls and as in the case of Dimitrov, deliver Thaelmann from the clutches of the Fascist hangmen. The fact that Ernst Thaelmann has got to spend his fiftieth birthday in the gaols of Hitler-Fascism is an urgent reminder to all the anti-Fascists of the whole world that they must intensify to the utmost their campaign for the release of Thaelmann and the many thousands of imprisoned victims of the White Terror.

We greet Ernst Thaelmann on his fiftieth birthday! Freedom for him and for all anti-Fascists! Long live international solidarity! Long live the joint struggle of the workers of the entire world under the leadership of our great Stalin for peace and liberty for World Communism!

Originally published in The Communist Review, Vol. 3 No. 7, July 1936, pp.12–17, of the Communist Party of Australia. Reproduced in the Marxist Internet Archive.

Ernst Thälmann

April 16, 1886 – August 18, 1944

The Hamburg harbour worker Ernst Thälmann was a Social Democrat and organized in the transport workers’ association from 1904. Drafted as a reservist in January 1915, he experienced the horrors of war on the Western Front. In the fall of 1918, he did not return to the troops from leave in Hamburg, remaining in the city until the revolution. He joined the USPD and was elected onto Hamburg’s city parliament in 1919. Along with the majority of the Hamburg USPD, he was in favour of joining the Communist International in 1920 and was a delegate at the party conference in Halle in October of that year. From 1921 he was chairman of the Hamburg KPD district and a member of the party committee for the Wasserkante region. A popular figure in Hamburg, Thälmann was employed as a party secretary there from 1921 and was an uninterrupted member of the city parliament until 1933. He was on the KPD’s central committee from 1921 on and was elected into the party’s leadership at the IXth party conference in Frankfurt in 1924, remaining a member from then on. Representing the party in the Reichstag from 1924 to 1933, he was the KPD’s candidate for the Reich presidential elections in 1925 and 1932. Arrested on March 3, 1933, he remained determined in prison. Thälmann spent twelve years in solitary confinement, first in Moabit, then in Hannover and Bautzen. After being transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp, Ernst Thälmann was murdered on August 18, 1944.

Reproduced from the German Resistance Memorial Centre website.

Related – other statues of revolutionaries in Moscow

Park of the Fallen/Muzeon Art Park

Ho Chi Minh monument

Karl Marx

Frederick Engels

VI Lenin

Location of statue;

At the entrance to the Aeroport Metro station on Line 2, (the dark green one), Khoroshyovsky District, Moscow.

GPS;

55.8003°N

37.5329°E

More on the USSR

Mamayev Kurgan – The Motherland Calls! – Stalingrad

Posted on 04/07/2024 by Michael

Mamayev Kurgan – 03

More on the USSR

Mamayev Kurgan – The Motherland Calls! – Stalingrad

Mamayev Kurgan is the hillside complex commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad in the Great Patriotic War where the huge statue The Motherland Calls! is located.

Mamayev Kurgan (Russian: Мама́ев курга́н) is a dominant height overlooking the city of Stalingrad (Volgograd) in Southern Russia. The name in Russian means ‘tumulus of Mamai’. The formation is dominated by a memorial complex commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 to February 1943). The battle, a hard-fought Soviet victory over Axis (Nazi) forces on the Eastern Front of the Great Patriotic War (World War II), turned into one of the bloodiest battles in human history. At the time of its installation in 1967 the statue, named The Motherland Calls, formed the largest free-standing sculpture in the world.

Mamayev Kurgan – 10

The Battle of Stalingrad

When forces of the German Sixth Army launched their attack against the city centre of Stalingrad on 13 September 1942, Mamayev Kurgan (appearing in military maps as ‘Height 102.0’) saw particularly fierce fighting between the German attackers and the defending soldiers of the Soviet 62nd Army. Control of the hill became vitally important, as it offered control over the city. To defend it, the Soviets had built strong defensive lines on the slopes of the hill, composed of trenches, barbed-wire and minefields. The Germans pushed forward against the hill, taking heavy casualties. When they finally captured the hill, they started firing on the city centre, as well as on the city’s main railway station under the hill. They captured the Volgograd railway station on 14 September 1942.

On the same day, the Soviet 13th Guards Rifle Division commanded by Alexander Rodimtsev arrived in the city from the east side of the river Volga under heavy German artillery fire. The division’s 10,000 men immediately rushed into the battle. On 16 September they recaptured Mamayev Kurgan and kept fighting for the railway station, taking heavy losses. By the following day, almost all of them had died. The Soviets kept reinforcing their units in the city as fast as they could. The Germans assaulted up to twelve times a day, and the Soviets would respond with fierce counter-attacks.

The hill changed hands several times. By September 27, the Germans again captured half of Mamayev Kurgan. The Soviets held their own positions on the slopes of the hill, as the 284th Rifle Division defended the key stronghold. The defenders held out until January 26 1943, when the counterattacking Soviet forces relieved them. The battle of the city ended one week later with an utter German defeat.

When the battle ended, the soil on the hill had been so thoroughly churned by shellfire and mixed with metal fragments that it contained between 500 and 1,250 splinters of metal per square meter. The earth on the hill had remained black in the winter, as the snow kept melting in the many fires and explosions. In the following spring the hill would still remain black, as no grass grew on its scorched soil. The hill’s formerly steep slopes had become flattened in months of intense shelling and bombardment. Even today, it is possible to find fragments of bone and metal still buried deep throughout the hill.

Memorial Complex

After the war, the Soviet authorities commissioned the enormous Mamayev Kurgan memorial complex. Vasily Chuikov, who led Soviet forces at Stalingrad, lies buried at Mamayev Kurgan; this makes him the only Marshal of the Soviet Union to be buried outside Moscow. 34,505 soldiers who were defenders of Stalingrad are buried there; sniper Vasily Zaytsev was also reburied there, in 2006.

Avenue of Poplars; Stand To the Death!

Mamayev Kurgan – 11

Mamayev Kurgan is accessible by a flight of stairs leading to the Avenue of Poplars, flanked on either side by poplar trees. From there, a second flight of steps leads to the statue of a muscular and shirtless Russian soldier. This statue, named Stand To the Death!, is carved from rock and surrounded by a large pool of water; it bears the inscription …And not a step back!

Symbolic Ruined Walls; Square of Heroes

Mamayev Kurgan – 04

From Stand To the Death!, a third flight of stairs leads between the Symbolic Ruined Walls; these represent the ruins of Stalingrad, while immortalizing the Soviet heroes who defended the city. Carved into the walls are faces of numerous soldiers, their eyes closed to indicate death in battle. Also inscribed on the walls are numerous quotes from actual defenders of Stalingrad; these words were originally carved, by the soldiers themselves, upon the sides of various ruined buildings throughout the city.

Atop the steps, past the walls, is the Square of Heroes; this is dominated by another large pool of water. On one side of the pool is a wall bearing this inscription: ‘With an iron wind blowing straight into their faces, they were still marching forward; and fear seized the enemy. Were these people who were attacking? Were they even mortal at all?’ On the other side of the pool are six sculptures, the first of which bears the inscription: ‘We’ve stood out and defeated death’. The second and third sculptures commemorate military nurses and, respectively, marines. The fourth sculpture is dedicated to the officers who led the battle to protect Stalingrad. The fifth sculpture tells the story of ‘Saving the Banner’. The sixth sculpture commemorates the eventual triumph of the Russian army over the Germans.

Hall of Military Glory

Mamayev Kurgan – 08

Past the Square of Heroes is the Hall of Military Glory, whose outer façade is decorated with Russian artwork of Soviet soldiers celebrating the war’s end…and with the inscription ‘Our people will keep alive their memory of the greatest battle in the history of warfare, within the walls of Stalingrad’.

An indoor flight of stairs leads to the Hall’s circular main chamber; at the chamber’s centre is the Eternal Flame, a large sculpture of a hand holding a torch. The Eternal Flame is constantly under armed guard, which is changed every hour. The main chamber is considered sacred ground, with mournful music being played on a loop; out of respect, visitors are strongly discouraged from speaking aloud. The chamber’s walls are covered in glass-foil mosaics; these bear the names of 7,200 Russian soldiers who died in the battle for Stalingrad. Around the ceiling of the chamber is the following inscription: ‘…Yes, we were mere mortals, and few of us survived (the German siege). But we all fulfilled our patriotic duty to our sacred Motherland’.

Mother’s Sorrow

Mamayev Kurgan – 07

The hall’s upper exit leads to the base of a pathway, which in turn zigzags uphill to the Motherland is Calling! statue itself. Also at the hill’s base is a third shallow pool, this one surrounding a stone monument named Mother’s Sorrow.

The hill itself is an unmarked grave for over 34,500 Russian troops killed at Stalingrad; even this is a tiny percentage of the overall Soviet casualties from the battle. The grass on the hill is considered sacred, and visitors are forbidden to step on it. The top of the hill gives a panoramic view of the city of Stalingrad (Volgograd).

Mamayev Kurgan is open to the public 24 hours a day, and there is no charge for admission.

Background

The monumental memorial was constructed between 1959 and 1967, and is crowned by a huge allegorical statue of the Motherland on the top of the hill. The monument, designed by Yevgeny Vuchetich, has the full name The Motherland Calls! (Russian: Родина-мать зовёт! Rodina Mat Zovyot!). It consists of a concrete sculpture, 52 meters tall, and 85 meters from the feet to the tip of the 27-meters sword, dominating the skyline of the city of Stalingrad (later renamed Volgograd).

The construction uses concrete, except for the stainless-steel blade of the sword, and is held on its plinth solely by its own weight. The statue is evocative of classical Greek representations of Nike, in particular the flowing drapery, similar to that of the Nike of Samothrace.

The above text from Wikipedia.

‘The Motherland Calls’, Volgograd

Mamayev Kurgan – 01

Mamayev Kurgan is not the site of a single monument, but of a complex of monuments, each more gigantic than the last. … At the foot of the hill stands a huge sculpture of a bare-chested man clutching a machine gun in one hand and a grenade in the other. He seems to rise out of the very rock, torso rippling, as tall as a three-storey building. Beyond him, on either side of the steps that lead to the summit, are relief sculptures of giant soldiers springing out of the ruined walls as if in the midst of battle. Farther up the hill is the gigantic figure of a grieving mother, more than twice the size of my house. She is hunched over the body of her dead son, sobbing into a large pool of water, called the ‘Lake of Tears:

The dozens of statues arranged in this park are all giants: not one of them is under six metres (20 feet) tall, and some of them depict heroes three or four times that size. And yet they are dwarfed by the single statue that rises above them all, on the summit of the hill. Here, overlooking the Volga, stands a colossal representation of Mother Russia beckoning to her children to come and fight for her. Her mouth is open in battle cry, her hair and dress fluttering in the wind; and in her right hand she holds a vast sword pointing up into the sky. From her feet to the tip of her sword she stands 85 metres (280 feet) high. She is nearly twice as tall, and forty times as heavy, as the Statue of Liberty in New York City. When she was first unveiled in 1967, she was the largest statue in the world.

This memorial, entitled ‘The Motherland Calls!; is one of Russia’s most iconic statues. It was the creation of Soviet sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich, who spent years designing and building it. It contains around 2,500 metric tonnes of metal and 5,500 tonnes of concrete. The sword alone weighs 14 tonnes. So huge was the statue that Vuchetich was obliged to collaborate with a structural engineer, Nikolai Nikitin, to ensure that it did not collapse under its own weight. Holes had to be drilled into the sword to reduce the threat of the wind catching it and causing the whole structure to sway.

Mamayev Kurgan – 09

Were this monument in Italy or France it would appear absurdly grandiose, but here on the banks of the Volga, in the city that was once called Stalingrad, it feels quietly appropriate. The battle that took place here in 1942 dwarfs anything that happened in the West. It began with the greatest German bombardment of the war, and progressed with attacks and counterattacks by more than a dozen entire armies. Within the city itself, soldiers fought from street to street, and even from room to room, in a landscape of shattered houses. Over the course of five months around two million men lost their lives, their health or their liberty. The combined casualties of this one battle were greater than the casualties that Britain and America together suffered during the whole of the war.

As one stands on the summit of Mamayev Kurgan in the shadow of the gigantic statue of the Motherland, one can feel the weight of all this history. … for many Russians this place is sacred. The word ‘Kurgan’ in Russian means a tumulus or burial mound. The hill is an ancient site dedicated to a fourteenth-century warlord, but in the wake of the greatest battle of the greatest war in history, it carries a new symbolism. This place was one of the major battlegrounds of 1942, and an unknown number of soldiers and civilians are buried here. Even today, when walking on the hill, it is possible to find fragments of metal and bone buried in the soil. The Motherland statue stands, both figuratively and literally, upon a mountain of corpses.

Mamayev Kurgan – 05

The scale of the war in Russia is one reason why the monuments on Mamayev Kurgan are so huge, but it is not the only reason – in fact, it is not even the main reason. The statues of muscular heroes and weeping mothers might be huge, but it is the giantess on the summit of the hill that dominates them all. It is important to remember that this is a representation not of the war, but of the Motherland. Its message is simple: no matter how great the battle, and no matter how great the enemy, the Motherland is greater still. Her colossal size is supposed to be a comfort to the struggling soldiers and weeping mothers, a reminder that for all their sacrifice, they are at least a part of something powerful and magnificent. This is the true meaning of Mamayev Kurgan.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the people of the Soviet Union had little to console them. Not only were they traumatised by loss, but they also faced an uncertain future. Russians did not benefit economically from the war as the Americans did: the violence had left their economy in ruins. …

Mamayev Kurgan – 12

The only consolation offered to Russian and other Soviet people was that their country had proven itself at last to be a truly great nation. In 1945, the USSR possessed the largest army the world has ever seen. It dominated not only the vast Eurasian land mass, but also the Baltic and the Black Sea. The Second World War had not only restored the country’s borders, but extended them, both to the west and to the east, and Soviet influence now stretched deep into the heart of Europe. Before the war, the Soviet Union had been a second rate power, weakened by internal upheaval. After the war, it was a superpower.

The Motherland statue on Mamayev Kurgan was designed to be proof of all this. It was built in the 1960s, when the USSR was at the height of its strength. It stood as a warning to anyone who dared attack the Soviet Union, but also as a symbol of reassurance to the Soviet people. The giant, it declared, would always protect them.

Mamayev Kurgan – 06

For the Russian citizens who first stood on the summit of this hill with the Motherland statue at their backs, the vistas looked endless. Everything to the west of them for a thousand miles was Soviet territory. To the east they could travel through nine time zones without once leaving their country. Even the heavens seemed to belong to them: the first man in space was a Russian, and the first woman too. It is impossible to look up at the Motherland statue without also gazing beyond, to the endless skies above her.

From; Prisoners of history – what monuments to the Second World War tell us about our history and ourselves, Keith Lowe, William Collins, London, 2020, pp6-9.

Memory of Generations

Mamayev Kurgan – 02

Located in the entrance square, to the right of the steps which lead up to the monument, is another large sculpture called ‘Memory of Generations’. This depicts Stalingraders arriving to visit the monument, carrying flowers and a large wreath, and the images represent both pride and sorrow at the sacrifice of the defenders of the city.

Marshal Zhukov’s memoirs of The Battle of Stalingrad.

Related;

Stalingrad (Volgograd) Railway Station

Designed by;

Yevgeny Vuchetich, Yakov Belopolsky and Nikolai Nikitin.

Unveiled;

15 October 1967

Location;

Just over 3 kilometres north-west of the city centre, opposite the Volgograd Arena.

GPS;

48°44′33″N

44°32′13″E

How to get there;

Buses heading north-west along VI Lenin Avenue pass by the base of the steps to the monument. Also the Metro has a stop at Mamayev Kurgan.

Opening times;

It is never closed.

More on the USSR

Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy (VDNKh) – Moscow

Posted on 27/06/2024 by Michael

VDNKh – 10

More on the USSR

Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy (VDNKh)

Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy (VDNKh) is located in Ostankinsky District of Moscow, less than a kilometer from Ostankino Tower. It is served by VDNKh subway station, as well as by Moscow Monorail. Cosmonauts Alley and the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman statue are situated just outside the main entrance to VDNKh. It also borders Moscow Botanical Garden and a smaller Ostankino Park, and in recent years the three parks served as a united park complex.

VDNKh – 07

The exhibition was established February 17, 1935 as the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (VSKhV) (Russian: Всесоюзная сельско-хозяйственная выставка; Vsesoyuznaya selsko-khozyaystvennaya vystavka). An existing site (then known as Ostankino Park, a country territory recently incorporated into the city limits), was approved in August 1935. The master plan by Vyacheslav Oltarzhevsky was approved in April 1936, and the first show season was announced to begin in July 1937 and was designed as a ‘City of Exhibitions’ with streets and public spaces, which was very common in the 1930s. However, plans did not materialise and three weeks before the deadline Joseph Stalin personally postponed the exhibition by one year (to August 1938). It seemed that this time everything would be ready on time, but again the builders failed to complete their work, and regional authorities failed to select and deliver proper exhibits. Some pavilions and the 1937 entrance gates by Oltarzhevsky were torn down to be replaced with more appropriate structures (most pavilions were criticised for having no windows). According to Oltarzhevsky’s original plan, all of the pavilions were to be constructed from wood. In 1938, a government commission examined the construction and decided that it did not suit the ideological direction of the moment. The exhibition was considered too modest and too temporary. Oltarzhevsky was arrested, together with the Commissar for Agriculture and his staff, and eventually released in 1943. Later, he worked on the 1947-1953 Moscow skyscraper project [The ‘Seven Sisters’ on the USSR page.].

VDNKh – 06

As a result, in August 1938 Nikita Khrushchev, addressing the assembled Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, declared that the site was not ready, and the opening was postponed until August 1939. It finally opened on 1 August 1939, and was open to the public until 25 October. The 1940 and 1941 seasons followed but following German invasion in 1941 the exhibition was closed until the end of World War II.

VDNKh – 13

In October 1948 the State ordered the renewal of the Exhibition, starting with the 1950 season. Again, the opening was postponed more than once; the first post-war season opened in 1954 (still as Agricultural exhibition). In the 1956 season the planners set aside an Industrial area within the main territory; more restructuring and rebuilding followed. In 1959 the park was renamed Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy (Russian: Выставка достижений народного хозяйства, Vystavka dostizheniy narodnovo khozyaystva) or ВДНХ/VDNKh.

VDNKh – 03

By 1989 the exhibition had 82 pavilions with an exhibition area of 700,000 square metres. Each pavilion (including the 1939 regions) had been dedicated to a particular industry or field: the Engineering Pavilion (1954), the Space Pavilion (1966), the Central Industrial Zones Pavilion (1955), the Atomic Energy Pavilion (1954), the People’s Education Pavilion (1954), the Radio-electronics Pavilion (1958), the Soviet Culture Pavilion (1964).

VDNKh – 11

During Soviet times, each year VDNKh hosted more than 300 national and international exhibitions and many conferences, seminars and meetings of scientists and industry professionals. The most memorable feature of the exhibition site was the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman (Rabochiy i kolkhoznitsa) statue, featuring the gigantic figures of a man and woman holding together the ‘hammer and sickle’. The sculpture, which reaches 25 meters toward the sky, was designed by Vera Mukhina and originally crowned the 35-meter-tall Soviet pavilion at the Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937).

VDNKh – 08

In 1992, VDNKh was renamed, receiving the new acronym VVC, which remained in use until 2014. It occupies 2,375,000 square metres of which 266,000 square metres are used for indoor exhibits. The territory of VDNKh is greater than that of the Principality of Monaco and has approximately 400 buildings.

On 14 May 2014 the previous name VDNKh was restored, following an interactive poll. In addition, the mayor of Moscow announced that the Russian space shuttle, the structural test article – TVA, which was an attraction and restaurant at Gorky Park in Moscow was to be moved to the VNDKh, to be displayed near the Vostok rocket in front of the Cosmos hall. It was moved 5–6 July 2014 and re-assembled by 21 July.

The above text from Wikipedia.

VDNKh – 09

This park is vast and it’s impossible to see all there is on a single visit – even a handful of visits would probably mean missing out on something. There’s so much to take in that it exhausts you with information, image, and impression overload.

The slide show below, which I have to admit is huge (perhaps too big?) can only give an impression of what exists in the park – and I didn’t have time to enter any of the pavilions, just satisfying myself with taking in the architecture from the outside.

VDNKh – 05

For anyone interested in Soviet era architecture it allows you to see, and appreciate, the marriage between Socialist Realism and the cultural influences of the various Republics of the Soviet Union.

Originally the various pavilions would have contained exhibitions related to the Republic under whose name it was built but more recently many of the pavilions have been taken over by commercial companies to promote themselves and their own capitalist values.

VDNKh – 04

This commercial ‘development’ has also meant the construction of more contemporary buildings and/or temporary modifications of existing buildings. This has drastically changed the environment of the park, more specifically that part of the park closest to the entrance. Commercial companies know that if they built their edifices down by the Cosmos Pavilion and the Transport Museum no one would see them let alone enter.

VDNKh – 02

There’s a fine statue of VI Lenin just in front of the Russian Republic pavilion.

The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman is outside the main park space, to the right as you look at the main site entrance arch, about 10 minutes away. That has been the subject of a separate post so images of that magnificent sculpture, truly accepted to be an iconic representation of the Soviet Union, can be seen by following the link above. It’s very much worth a short diversion to appreciate the sheer scale and beauty of the, now, renovated and restored masterpiece.

VDNKh – 01

As (in June 2024) the conflict in the Ukraine is still ongoing it might be worthwhile to make a reference to the pavilion that was dedicated to the Republic of Ukraine. Although many of the pavilions are impressive that of the Ukraine is even more so.

The Ukrainian Republic pavilion is probably bigger, more ornate, more complex in its imagery, having had more attention paid to it, having had more money given to it and stands out amongst many impressive buildings. And this is the case with many other references to the Ukraine in Moscow. Both the two stations on the metro system (Line 3 and Line 5) are amongst the most ornate amongst a collection of very ornate structures. As is the internal decoration of the Kievskaya mainline railway station.