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VI Lenin Exhibition at the State History Museum – Moscow

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To the Citizens of Russia

To the Citizens of Russia

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VI Lenin – Collected Works

VI Lenin Exhibition at the State History Museum, Moscow

At the moment there’s a special exhibition attached to State History Museum, one which documents some of the life and work of VI Lenin. Although there’s only a fraction on display here of what used to be on show in the now closed Central Lenin Museum (which used to be housed in what is now the War of 1812 Museum) this exhibition is still worth the visit. Unfortunately, you have to pay the high admission price to enter the State Historical Museum – which, after the pre-historic exhibits is basically a glorification of Tsarism – to get to this exhibition, which is located on the third floor.

To get a better idea of what the Russian State did hold about Comrade Lenin have a look at the book, The Central Lenin Museum, produced in 1986.

What to look out for – amongst other things:

  • a porthole and sailor’s tally from the Cruiser Aurora;
  • the cap that (the clean shaven) Lenin wore when he was on an island in Finland before his return to Petrograd to lead the October Revolution;
  • the original poster of ‘Comrade Lenin cleanses the world of evil spirits’;
  • Lenin’s Rolls Royce – on the ground floor right where tickets are checked and possible to miss;
  • the painting of the Central Committee meeting which made the decision to go for everything and to make a Proletarian Revolution and not just a bourgeois change of guard – with a disinterested Trotsky skulking on the extreme right hand side;
  • the painting of the assassination attempt on Lenin’s life on 30th August 1918;
  • the gun that was used in the assassination attempt;
  • the light bulb whose filament is a profile of Lenin’s head;
  • Lenin’s death mask;
  • early Lenin badges;
  • early Soviet coinage and bank notes;
  • the first symbol of the Soviet Union – a hammer and a plough – before the adoption of the Hammer and Sickle;
  • the felt hat used by the first Red Army soldiers.

Duration of the Exhibition;

The Exhibition will be in the Historical Museum until 18 August 2025. It is located on the 3rd Floor, separate from the general displays and entrance is by way of the same ticket that gets you into the general museum.

Location;

Revolution Square

GPS;

55.75546 N

37.61771 E

How to get there;

Right in the historic centre of Moscow, at the opposite end of Red Square to the St Basil’s Cathedral, right behind the equestrian statue of Marshal Zhukov.

Cost;

2000 roubles

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VI Lenin – Collected Works

Lenin and October Revolution Monument in the Kaluga Square – Moscow

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Lenin and October Revolution

Lenin and October Revolution

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Lenin and October Revolution Monument in the Kaluga Square – Moscow

The Monument to Lenin on Kaluga Square (Russian: Памятник Ленину на Калужской площади) was established in 1985 in Moscow in the centre of Kaluga Square (then October Square). The authors of the monument are the sculptors L. E. Kerbel, V. A. Fedorov and the architects G. V. Makarevich and B. A. Samsonov. It is the largest monument to Lenin in Moscow.

Lenin and October Revolution - 03

Lenin and October Revolution – 03

The bronze sculpture of V. I. Lenin was made at the Leningrad factory ‘Monument sculpture’. It is an original copy of the monument to Lenin in Birobidzhan, established in 1978. A stone monolithic pedestal column weighing 360 tons, after the initial treatment, was delivered in place by a trailer that had 128 wheels. The monument was inaugurated on 5 November 1985 by the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Mikhail Gorbachev.

The height of the monument is 22 m. At the top of the cylindrical column of red polished granite is a full length bronze statue of V. I. Lenin. He is facing forward, his gaze to the distance. Lenin’s overcoat is unbuttoned, one lower edge is thrown back by the wind, his right hand is in the jacket’s pocket.

Lenin and October Revolution - 02

Lenin and October Revolution – 02

At the base of the pedestal is a multi-figure composition, which includes revolutionary soldiers, workers and sailors of various nationalities. Above them is a woman on the background of a fluttering flag embodying the Revolution. Behind the pedestal is the figure of a woman with two children, personifying the rear of the revolution. The elder boy in his hand has revolutionary newspapers.

Text above from (a slightly edited page on) Wikipedia.

Lenin and October Revolution - 01

Lenin and October Revolution – 01

What to look for in the monument;

  • the three leading figures are, from left to right, a peasant soldier, an armed Petrograd worker, a sailor;
  • the peasant soldier wears a knotted red ribbon over his left chest – the red arm band was the normal sign of a Bolshevik but this is difficult to represent on a bronze statue. Whether the red ribbon was an alternative ‘badge’ I’m not sure;
  • the female representation of Revolution, that is located above the revolutionary workers and peasants and below Lenin. She has her right arm raised forward and upward – indicating the advance of the revolution – and her left arm stretched behind her I a pose that invites others to join the march to the future. Her flowing scarf is a representation of the Red Flag, the workers’ revolutionary standard;
  • the leading sailor (note the striped t-shirt under his jacket) also has his left arm stretched behind him, also encouraging those (unseen) behind to come and join the revolution, he’s also looking in their direction. He, and the female sailor on the other side of the group, were probably from the Cruiser Aurora;
  • the older workers/peasants indicating that the revolution is not just a matter for the young, their dress suggesting that they are possibly from other nations in the old Russian Empire and stressing the All-Russia aspect of the October Revolution;
  • the engraving at the back of the red marble plinth which notes the sculptors and architects as well as the date of the monuments unveiling;
  • the young mother, holding a very young child in crook of her right arm and her left hand on the shoulder of an older boy, representing for the new and youthful Socialist Republic that was being created following the attack on the Winter Palace;
  • the young boy newspaper seller next to the young woman. He has copies of the newspaper Izvestia (which had been founded in February 1917 and which, at the time, was the mouthpiece of the Petrograd Soviet) folded over his right forearm and more copies in a satchel hanging from his left shoulder. The headline also indicates information about one of the first decrees of the Soviet Government, possibly that on Peace and an end to the imperialist war;
  • another young boy who, from his looks and dress, comes from one of the many northern nationalities;
  • the male peasant (again from one of the nationalities – note his turban type headdress) holding a copy of the Decree on Land – which nationalised all the land in the country;
  • what looks like a female sailor (note the anchor on her belt buckle) who is armed with a pistol and wears a red neckerchief – but I have no information about women in the navy in pre-Revolutionary times;
  • and surmounting all a full length statue of VI Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Party (which became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union). He has an open overcoat over his suit, the right lower edge of which is being blown back by the wind. He is standing with his right hand in his suit jacket pocket and his cap is scrunched in his left hand. He’s looking ahead, in a contemplative pose, perhaps wondering what to do next and how to overcome the inevitable problems.

Not exactly sure what Lenin might have been looking at when the statue was installed in 1985 but now he looks down a long avenue towards the Moscva River – across which is the area know as ‘Moscow City’, an area of densely packed, ugly, modern high rise glass and steel buildings.

'Moscow City'

‘Moscow City’

However, if Vladimir Ilyich looked slightly to his left he would be looking at the main entrance to the Okysbrskaya Metro station.

Oktyabrskaya entrance

Oktyabrskaya entrance

Sculptors;

L. E. Kerbel and V. A. Fedorov

Architects;

G. V. Makarevich and B. A. Samsonov.

Location;

In Kaluga Square (formerly October Square), at the junction of Lenin Prospekt and Krymsky Val, opposite the main entrance to Oktyabrskaya Metro station

GPS;

55.729466°N

37.613176°E

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Celebrate the 104th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution

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Aurora

Aurora

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Celebrate the 104th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution

Today is the 104th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution that started in the early hours of 7th November (25th October – old style) 1917, when the battleship Aurora, anchored on the Neva River in Petrograd, fired its guns to signal the attack on the Winter Palace and to begin the destruction of the failed Tsarist State of Russia.

The actual revolution was relatively painless and easy – maintaining it in the early days and then the years from 1918 to 1922 when White reaction tried to turn back the tide of history was much more difficult. Even with the full and active support of the world’s imperialist and capitalist powers (who had spent the previous 4 years trying to physically destroy each other) they failed. The glorious Red Army of the workers and peasants, of what was to become the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (the Soviet Union), displayed their mettle, courage and determination against all comers in order to attempt – for the first time in the world – the momentous and glorious task of the construction of Socialism (leading to Communism) the only way for the oppressed and exploited of the world to finally liberate themselves from the shackles of thousands of years.

Through the trials and tribulations of the 1920s and 1930s the young Socialist state was able to achieve many successes and as well as making mistakes (although this doesn’t include the purging of the Party of opportunist elements) – both from which future generations will have to learn. Mistakes are to be expected. The first to make their way to their goal along an uncharted course will always face difficulties that for the weak are insurmountable. The Soviet people, under the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik) (CPSU(B)) of Comrades Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Joseph Stalin, showed themselves up for the task.

This was never more so than during some of the darkest days in Europe where it was the Red Army of the Socialist Republic which defeated the Nazi Beast and chased it down to its lair to make the victory final. The debt that the people of Europe, and the world, owe to those courageous Soviet men and women is incalculable.

But the road to a new future is tortuous and difficult. Traitors within ally with the forces of reaction without and undermine the achievements of the past with false promises of plenty in the world of capitalist dominance. In these times of the victory of reaction, ignorance and opportunism there are some (a very few) who benefit from the theft of the public wealth but for the majority of the population such changes are a disaster, in economic, political and cultural terms.

Capitalism never has, doesn’t now and never will offer any long term future for the benefit of the majority of the population of the world.

The victory of Revisionism (and ultimately capitalism) in the Soviet Union in the 1950s was later followed by the collapse of the Socialist systems in the other major revolutionary societies of the People’s Republic of China, the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Other societies in Eastern Europe which also attempted to build a new society were to later fall lacking the substance to remain independent (for reasons that are too complex to go into here).

This means that 104 years after the momentous events in what was to become (and still is) Leningrad the world is yet again totally dominated by the moribund system of capitalism and imperialism.

People continue to fight – they always will – but without the leadership, the strategy and the perspective that can lead them to a bright future. Issue politics dominate and even in those national liberation movements that are nascent in certain countries the movement is fractured, divided and weak.

Comrade Mao Tse-tung, said that ‘either revolution will prevent a world war or a world war will lead to revolution’. That insightful analysis is as pertinent now as it was many years ago – at a time when the tide of revolution was on the rise.

For the world is becoming a dangerous place once more – with various capitalist/imperialist states jockeying for position of dominance.

The leaders of the erstwhile Socialist states of China and Russia no longer have the social conscience of the revisionists of the past. Even the arch-renegade Khrushchev recognised that when faced with the belligerent and bellicose attitude of the warmonger Kennedy in 1961 in Cuba. The American imperialists were prepared to destroy the world in order to determine what should happen in ‘their back yard’ but it was Khrushchev who made the moral decision to withdraw and prevent a potential nuclear holocaust – even against the wishes of the Cuban people themselves.

Now the contending forces no longer have that social conscience ‘brake’ on their ambitions.

However, the future does not belong to the old order. It constantly demonstrates, even in its homelands, that the sufferings of working people are of no concern and that their lives are expendable if they produce no profit for their system.

Yes, the weapons at the disposal of these warmongers are vastly superior and more destructive than those available just a few decades ago. If the world falls into another international conflict (different from the surrogate wars that have dominated the last 70 or more years) then the destruction will be immense and there are doubts whether society would be able to recover from such devastation.

That makes learning the lessons of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the strategy and tactics, the importance of leadership, the embedding of the Party amongst the population even more of an urgent task.

The people will win, ultimately. What they have to do is to decide if they want to build a new society free from exploitation when conditions are more or less stable or whether they want to do so from the ashes and in a poisonous atmosphere of a world destroyed at the whim of capitalism, whether it be through the destruction of the ecosystem due to the constant thirst for profit or the result of a nuclear or biological holocaust.

Long live the Great October Socialist Revolution!

Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!

Forward to a future free of exploitation and oppression!

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