The Centenary of the October Revolution of 1917

Lenin, Stalin and Dzerzhinsky at the Smolny

Lenin, Stalin and Dzerzhinsky at the Smolny

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The Centenary of the October Revolution of 1917

The centenary of the most important event in the history of the world occurs on the 7th November 2017. On that day a hundred years ago the working class and peasantry of Russia took power into their own hands and attempted to build a new world order.

I have already looked at that event in another, earlier post, but as we live in a world that is obsessed with anniversaries (and I’m falling into that trap, being in Leningrad at the time of the centenary) perhaps it’s time to re-address the issues that were brought up by that tremendous, earth shattering event.

We can gauge the magnitude of the events in that year by the way capitalism did it’s best to destroy the nascent Soviet state.

Lenin – the leader of the Bolsheviks – together with James Connolly of the Irish Republican Army, were the only socialist leaders to condemn the slaughter of the First World War as soon as it started. Social democratic apologists for capitalism (such as the British Labour Party) reneged on their declarations against war (made at Stuttgart and Basel in 1907 and 1912 respectively) as soon as they were put to the test. Only the true Communists had kept to their principles and the imperialist countries knew they were dealing with a dangerous proletarian force when Lenin was at the head of the revolutionary party.

The capitalist countries saw red and realised that the Bolshevik Revolution was like no other that had preceded it. What the Parisian workers had attempted to achieve, in the Paris Commune of 1871, had been suppressed with the wholesale slaughter of tens of thousands of men, women and children. Capitalism would go to the same extremes to achieve a similar result in Russia. As the tools for this they used their pathetic, confused and ignorant workers (who had spent more four years killing each other for the benefit of their own oppressors) who were told to attack the first workers’ state. Like the sheep they had become they fed the resulting ‘Civil War’ when more people were killed than in the imperialist war itself.

The Revolution was celebrated by revolutionary workers all over the world as the harbinger of a new society, free from exploitation and oppression. A revolution ‘is not a dinner party’, as Chairman Mao said, and the ignorant, pusillanimous and forelock tugging workers and their collaborationist ‘Labour/Socialist’ parties have attacked and condemned the October Revolution for the necessary measures taken to defend, promote and develop the workers state on the road to build Socialism – and eventually Communism.

The road followed by the Soviet Union, alone, until joined by the People’s Republic of Albania in 1944, the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and much later, after an heroic battle against American Imperialism, the People’s Republic of Vietnam in 1975, was tortuous, long and hard.

Massive achievements were made – as well as mistakes. If a revolution is predictable it’s not a revolution. But what was achieved by the Soviet people, in the field of industrial production, the collectivisation of agriculture and the fearless, heroic and self-sacrifice that led to the defeat of the Nazi beast, was of immeasurable benefit to the people’s of the world – and a lesson which those exploited and oppressed of the world need to understand and emulate.

But those that inherit a revolution are not those who made it. They benefit from the achievements but want more – those ‘benefits’ of capitalism with which no socialist state can compete. And that’s things. Things like consumer goods, the fickle trinkets of mass production, that entice stupid people away from what is truly meaningful for a full and fruitful life – those necessities, like health, education and the ability to contribute to society through productive activity.

The revolution in the Soviet Union was lost in 1956 at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) where Nikita Khrushchev denounced Comrade Joseph Stalin and all the achievements of the previous 29 years and the period of Socialist construction in a sixth of the world’s land mass ended.

For a further 24 years the ‘Revisionist’ version of Communism promoted by the CPSU spread like a virus throughout the world, creating confusion and division within the working class. This was the task that had been taken on board by Social Democracy, after it’s betrayal of the working class in 1914 (by calling upon the workers in their respective countries to kill each other for the benefit of capitalism) but the Soviet renegades sowed more confusion by continuing to call themselves Communists and claiming to follow the revolutionary ideology of Marxism-Leninism. Their pathetic demise in 1991 was too long in coming.

A hundred years after the magnificent event (the images of which are more influenced by those who have seen the film’ October’ by the revolutionary Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein than what actually happened) the situation is very different.

Capitalism has been re-introduce in tooth and claw. Instead of free health, education, secure employment, pensions and an infrastructure that benefits the majority everything has now been privatised. The collective wealth created by Socialist workers has been stolen by opportunist thieves. One of these scumbag ‘oligarchs’ has a boat sitting of the coast of Turkey which is bigger than the Cruiser ‘Aurora’ that signalled the start of the attack on the Winter Palace and the virtual beginning of the Socialist Revolution.

(Perhaps it’s a sign of our times that a grand, ancient name has been given to a bunch of opportunist thugs and common thieves.)

But that’s the problem for the people of Russia of today. They are not the brave and courageous innovators of the past. Revolution is not passed down through the genes. They are the submissive, afraid and confused that populate most countries, especially those in the ‘so-called’ civilized ‘west’, Europe, North America and certain parts of the South-eastern Asia.

Putin plays the nationalist card, courts the church – of whatever denomination – in an attempt to maintain his power. After Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Gobshite, and the Vodka Soaked Drunk Yeltsin, Putin is just a greedy opportunist who prays on civil society. After this bunch of cretins how can anyone, with a modicum of sense, criticise Uncle Joe’s policy of purging the Party of opportunist elements?

So no real celebration of the most important event in the history of the world in the place where it occurred.

That’s good.

Leningrad (it will always have that name to me), the cradle of the revolution, has been renamed St Petersburg (the Germanic name that was used before the First World War, and not even the Russified version of Petrograd) was where it all started 100 years ago. If there’s any ‘official’ attempt to recognise the event this is manifested in museum gallery exhibitions that seek to denigrate the success of the Bolsheviks rather than celebrate it.

Re-writing of history is the name of the game.

Denigration of the Socialist past is almost at a fascist level. Having had to suffer the ‘impartiality’ of the British media for so long, it’s quite refreshing to see a total ideological war against the past.

The Russian state has not decided to ignore the past – that would be impossible even in the present circumstances – rather they have chosen to re-interpret it.

Exhibitions in both Moscow and Leningrad at the end of 2017 that relate to the events of 1917 are a propaganda attempt to undermine the Revolution. In an effort to denigrate the importance of both Lenin and Stalin (as well as other truly revolutionary leaders) they promote Trotsky – if anyone was unsure of his counter-revolutionary nature the adoption of him as a ‘revolutionary icon’ by Putin’s state should clarify matters. (There was even an advert on Russian TV about a mini series around Trotsky’s life. He was considered a capitalist agent in the times of Socialism and he is becoming a ‘revolutionary’ icon by those who have been restoring total capitalist control of the country.)

For some reason, which I don’t really understand, Voroshilov has been added to the ‘devils’ of the past alongside JV Stalin. There’s obviously an agenda there but I’m not sure what. As with the so-called ‘rehabilitation’ of the traitors and foreign agents of the 1930s those who have been chosen by the present, capitalist regime are chosen for a reason – they are symbols of their aspirations.

This has been taken to bizarre extremes at times. At an exhibition in Leningrad, for example, in a section about propaganda (I don’t see this word as necessarily having a negative connotation) during the building of Socialism the information cards declare that the Soviet State only sought to eliminate illiteracy because this would make more people susceptible to brain washing Soviet propaganda.

The perfidious Communists were trying to out-do the obsfucators of the past, in Britain for example, who used Latin in the church and the courts so that the ordinary people wouldn’t be able to understand what was being said. By actually teaching them to read and write the Soviet ‘propaganda machine’ could be more easily absorbed by the basically ignorant workers and peasants. The double thinking here is remarkable.

Socialism goes contrary to all previous social systems based on class, exploitation and oppression. The most important aspect of the creation of a new kind of man and woman is the changing of the selfish mindset that is a close partner of class systems. This is the cultural revolution that all socialist societies have instituted in one form or another. Socialist values of collectivity and respect for all is an anathema to capitalism. Only an intellectually adept people are capable of building a society free from all the evils of the past.

Those in power in Russia today are quite happy to feed their population with the garbage that capitalism has to offer, from the likes of McDonald’s, KFC and Coca-Cola to the cheap, nasty and moronic TV shows copied from western Europe, the only difference being the language. Shit in,shit out.

If you placed these cretinous curators of exhibitions in a novel nobody would believe them credible.

But that’s not really an issue. The country has betrayed its revolutionary past. It has no right to claim the Revolution as its property as it’s people have rejected that revolution for a capitalist lifestyle – together with all the consequences of a capitalist society. If they complain about their present reality then they only have themselves to blame.

The present ‘Communist Party of the Russian Federation’ is more akin to the revisionist party that betrayed the Revolution than the Bolshevik Party of Lenin and Stalin. I wouldn’t trust them to change a light bulb let alone a country. They make token gestures to the event of a hundred years ago but chose to hold a meeting in Moscow at the exact time of the centenary. If nothing else they display no concept of history – something important for a revolutionary. If you don’t know, care or understand where you come from how can you know where to go in the future?

The people of St Petersburg walk the same streets as the revolutionaries but they don’t walk in their footsteps. The chances of them reversing the changes of the last 60 years are nil – unless the country has to confront another major crisis such as WWI. (But then they are no different from the workers of any other country where revolutions are only made when people are weak and in crisis rather than from positions of strength and stability.) If the lesson of the October Revolution is anything else it’s that we haven’t learnt the lessons of the October Revolution.

If the workers, peasants and poor of the world made a revolution when they wanted rather than waiting until it was a necessity then their future would be easier. They wait until the last moment and build the new from the literal ruins of the old rather than using the old as a foundation for the new.

Whether the centenary of the October Revolution will prompt the exploited and oppressed to look at their own situation anew is doubtful. But one thing is certain, for those who want to exert their own dignity the Great October Proletarian Revolution will remain a beacon which lights the future.

Long Live the Revolution of the 7th November 1917!

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Moscow Metro – Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Line 3

Ploshchad Revolutsii

Ploshchad Revolutsii

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Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery

Moscow Metro – Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Line 3

Ploshchad Revolyutsii - Line 3 - 05

Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Line 3 – 05

Ploshchad Revolyutsii (Пло́щадь Револю́ции) is a station on the Moscow Metro, in the Tverskoy District of central Moscow. The station is named after Revolution Square (Resurrection Square until 1918), under which it is located. It is on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line.

Ploshchad Revolyutsii - Line 3 - 01

Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Line 3 – 01

When the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line was first built, the tracks from Ploshchad Revolyutsii extended westward to Aleksandrovsky Sad rather than Arbatskaya. When the westward extension of the line was completed in 1953, trains were rerouted through the new segment.

Ploshchad Revolyutsii - Line 3 - 04

Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Line 3 – 04

The station opened in 1938, its architect was Alexey Dushkin. The station features red and yellow marble arches resting on low pylons faced with black Armenian marble. The spaces between the arches are partially filled by decorative ventilation grilles and ceiling tracery.

Ploshchad Revolyutsii - Line 3 - 02

Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Line 3 – 02

The station contains 76 statues in the socialist realism style. Originally, 80 sculptures were created for the space—10 pairs, each replicated 4 times throughout the station. Today, nine pairs are in the archways, and a copy of the final pair (‘The Pioneers’) appears on each of the two platforms, bringing the total number of statues to 76. Each arch is flanked by a pair of bronze sculptures by Matvey Manizer depicting the people of the Soviet Union, including soldiers, farmers, athletes, writers, aviators, industrial workers, and schoolchildren. The series is meant to be considered in order, symbolizing Russia’s transformation from the pre-revolutionary past, through the revolution, into the (then) contemporary era. The order of sculpture pairs are:

  1. Male worker-partisan and male enlisted soldier
  2. Male agricultural labourer and male sailor with pistol
  3. Male sailor and female aviator
  4. Male soldier with dog and female sharpshooter
  5. Male miner and male engineer
  6. Male and female agricultural labourers
  7. Female and male students
  8. Male football player and female athlete
  9. Mother and father in swim clothing
  10. Male and female students in Young Pioneers uniforms

Several of the sculptures are widely believed to bring good luck to those who rub them. The practice is targeted at specific areas on individual sculptures, including the soldier’s pistol, the patrolman’s dog, the roosters, and the female student’s shoe. An observer in the station will see numerous passengers touching or rubbing the statues as they pass, and the bronze of these details is highly polished as a result.

Ploshchad Revolyutsii - Line 3 - 03

Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Line 3 – 03

From this station, passengers can transfer to Teatralnaya on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line and Okhotny Ryad on the Sokolnicheskaya Line, but the latter can be reached only through Teatralnaya as there is no direct transfer.

Text above from Wikipedia.

Ploshchad Revolyutsii

Date of opening;

13th March 1938

Construction of the station;

deep, pier, three-span

Architect of the underground part;

A. Dushkin

Sculptor; M. Manizer

Transition to stations Okhotny Ryad and Teatralnaya

Ploshchad Revolyutsii is one of the most known and popular stations of the Moscow Metro. The idea of its architectural decoration is absolutely clear, while the form of realisation, which has been used by sculptor M. Manizer, is intelligible and understandable for everyone. He stationed a gallery of figures [personages of the revolution, civil war, and peaceful development) under ground, which illustrated the stages of the creation of the Soviet country. The statues are established on pedestals nestled into niches between the station’s pylons. Each pylon has four bronze figures, which look through famous stages of the revolution – from the civil war to the peak of the Stalin era.

Now there are 76 (initially 80) bronze figures. The Manizer’s gallery begins from the western end of the central hall. At the time of opening, it was the only exit while the opposite blind end was decorated with a pair bas relief of Lenin and Stalin, which crowned ‘the triumphal step of the Soviet people’. The bas-relief was dismantled in 1947 after the opening of the eastern overland vestibule. There are 20 unique figures in total. The gallery begins with a revolutionary worker (bow on the bosom) with a grenade and a trench soldier. In the next niche – a peasant and revolutionary sailor with a famous revolver, which is regularly stolen. Then, parachutist girl and signal sailor from Marat cruiser. In the fourth arch – a Voroshilov rifle girl with pneumatic rifle and a frontier guard with a lucky dog. If one wants to catch luck, it is needed to rub the dog’s nose. In the fifth arch – Stakhanovite (rewarded Soviet worker) with air hammer and an engineer who examines a gear wheel and records something in a book. His pencil is also regularly stolen. In the sixth arch – a poultry-woman with chicken and grain-grower machine-operator sitting on a Fordson’s wheel. Then, a dreaming student boy and reading student girl. In the eighth arch – discus thrower girl and football player. In the ninth arch – a father with a child and mother with a child. In the tenth arch on the side of the platforms – a model aircraft constructor pioneer boys and geographer pioneer girls. All figures sit, or are on their knees, or bended for work. It was even a joke – ‘Here all the Soviet people sits (in Russian means be imprisoned as well) or is on its knees’.

The other decoration of the station serves to emphasize the figures but do not withdraw attention from them – narrow edgings of red marble along the arches of the inter-pylon passageways, black marble covered the low pedestals of the statues, grey-blue on the walls. The ceiling is a chessboard of granite plates of subdued grey and pink colours. There are very uncomfortable oak benches along the platform walls opposite the stops of first and last carriages. They are separated from each other by stone pedestals covered with black marble. There is a bronze arrow with inscription ‘Exit to the City’ above the benches. It is one of the first direction signs in the Moscow metro.

Western ground pavilion

The hall looks rather strange. Two buildings, from which one is oval while the other is square, are connected by a passageway. The deconstructivist aesthetics of the hall has been formed occasionally. Dushkin initially projected that the oval escalator hall would be one of the internal rooms of the Academic movie theatre. According to the project, spectators appeared immediately from the metro to the movie theatre foyer by escalator. However the largest movie theatre in the USSR has not been built. Hence a square hall whose portal was decorated with columns was attached to the oval hall.

Eastern ground pavilion

The portal of the hall was built into the line of existing buildings. It consists of two (entrance and exit) low arches. Going through them, one appears in a huge two coloured semi-circular hall faced with greyish-white marble. A striking mosaic, which consists of red flags, the coat of arms of the USSR, and years of 1917-1947, is located on the eastern wall, opposite the arch of the escalator tunnel. Words of one of the first versions of the USSR hymn are carved with gold on the right and left of the mosaic. There are oak desks under the mosaic and benches along the wall. Sitting on them, it is comfortable to observe the giant 24-branch chandelier suspended over the escalator arch and unique column-shaped torchieres of two human heights on marble pedestals on the right and left of the escalators. The hall staggers with its barbarian pomp and overwhelms by its gigantism so much that passengers often do not notice small but very good looking details of the decoration, e.g., an oak carved flower on the door of the office of senior cashier or intricate bronze tracery on the torchieres.

Text from Moscow Metro 1935-2005, p36-39

Location:

GPS:

55.7566°N

37.6216°E

Depth:

33.6 metres (110 ft)

Opened:

13 March 1938

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Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery

Moscow Metro – Partizanskaya – Line 3

Partizanskaya - by A Savin

Partizanskaya – by A Savin

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Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery

Moscow Metro – Partizanskaya – Line 3

Partizanskaya (Партизанская), known until 2005 as Izmailovsky Park (Измайловский парк), is a station on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line of the Moscow Metro. It was built during World War II, opened in 1944 and is dedicated to the Soviet partisans who resisted the Nazis. The name was changed on the 60th anniversary of the Soviet victory to reflect the theme of the station better. The station’s design was the work of the architect Vilenskiy.

Partizanskaya - Line 3 - 01

Partizanskaya – Line 3 – 01

Partizanskaya is an unusual three-track layout, with two island platforms. The rarely-used centre track was built to handle crowds from a nearby stadium that was planned but never built because of the war. There is one row of pillars per platform. Both the walls and pillars of the station are faced with white marble and decorated with bas-reliefs honouring the partisans. The two pillars closest to the exit stairs are adorned with statues: Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya on the left and Matvey Kuzmin on the right.

Partizanskaya - Line 3 - 03

Partizanskaya – Line 3 – 03

The circular ceiling niche at the foot of the stairs originally contained a fresco by A.D. Goncharov, but it has since been painted over. At the top of the stairs is a sculptural group by Matvey Manizer entitled ‘Partisans’ and bearing the inscription ‘To partisans and partisan glory!’.

Partizanskaya - Line 3 - 02

Partizanskaya – Line 3 – 02

The station’s original name was ‘Izmailovsky park kul’tury i otdyha imeni Stalina’ (English: Stalin Ismailovsky Park of Culture and Leisure). It was changed to ‘Izmailovskaya’ in 1948. In 1961, new station, named ‘Izmailovsky Park’ at the time of its opening, was introduced. And in 1963, names of stations ‘Izmailovskaya’ and ‘Izmailovsky Park’ were switched, the reason being which station was closer to the actual park’s main entrance.

Partizanskaya - Line 3 - 04

Partizanskaya – Line 3 – 04

The 2005’s rename to ‘Partizanskaya’ has been mentioned in the open letter of a resigning Moscow’s toponymy commission member, as one of a number of then-recent renames with political causes rather than the historical toponymy upholding ones.

Text from Wikipedia.

Location:

GPS:

55.7886°N

37.7506°E

Depth:

9 metres (30 ft)

Opened:

18 January 1944

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Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery