reshaping the world

Images: A staged photo (`1921) extolling the virtues of agricultural collectivism. In reality, most peasants vehemently opposed this system in which they were forced to give up their own private farms and move to cooperatively owned and run farms. A certain amount of each harvest was seized by the State. Several million peasants met death by an engineered famine and liquidation as a result of their opposition. It is said that Stalin did not want to improve the harvests or the peasants' lives, but saw collectivism as a means of consolidating his power, since a free peasant and master of the land was perceived as a threat to this power. (photo credit: Novosti Press Agency, London)

This impressive dam was completed under Stalin's Five Year Plan for modernizing Soviet industry, a project inextricably linked with agricultural collectivization. Other massive projects included the building of the Volga Canal and the industrial city of Magnitogorsk. Technology was feverishly undertaken for the Party in the name of Marx, Engles, Lenin, with Stalin at the controls. Although many projects were successfully completed and moved the Soviet empire into modern times, goals often exceeded the available resources and funds. Those who pointed this out were seen as treasonous "wreckers" and punished. By accusing such individuals of thwarting the plans of the State, Stalin was able to divert attention from the real reasons for the failure of his schemes. (credit: National Archives, USA)

Music: excerpt from the Internationale, hymn for all workers of the world. anthem of the communist parties of the world (credit: words by Eugene Pottier (Paris 1871), music by Pierre Degeyter, performance credit: unknown) --Load time: ~25 sec. s

"Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of can't.

Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race. etc."

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Image: When Lenin died, Stalin ordered the best doctors and scientists to come up with a scheme whereby they could mummify Lenin's body. This scheme was successful and Lenin's mummy was placed in a specially constructed crypt on Red Square. Here lines of people came to view the body. When Stalin died, his body was also mummified and he was placed in the crypt alongside Lenin. Later during a period of de-Stalinization undertaken by Krushchev, Stalin's body was removed under cover of night and placed in a modest tomb alongside the Kremlin wall. Krushchev ordered thick layers of concrete to be placed over the tomb so that Stalin could never rise again. (credit: Pictorial Parade)

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Image: Long lines of the faithful wait their turn outside the Lenin mausoleum in Red Square to file past Lenin's mummy. Stalin cleverly concluded it would be useful to his consolidation of power to have Lenin's physical body present to serve as a reminder to the people of the sanctity of the Party. The Lenin mausoleum is still open today but since the fall of communism there is much discussion about whether to dismantle it and bury Lenin's corpse in a less conspicuous tomb. (Credit: National Archives, USA)

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Image: As the Soviet Empire fractured, symbols of the Party were dismantled. Huge statues of Lenin and Stalin were toppled, alternately grieved or abused by onlookers, then trucked away to be abandoned in fields or other remote spots, where one could stroll among the enormous body parts of the former high priests of communism. Here a passerby takes an opportunity to gives Lenin a scolding while construction workers who helped dismantle the statue look on.

(used by arrangement with Karin Kramer Verlag, Berlin)

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Image: Boris Yelstin has been known to be quite the party-boy -- drinking vodka and getting up on stage and dancing with rock bands during campaign appearances. He has also suffered repeated ailments which confined him to the hospital. Although his resignation is called for each time, he has refused to capitulate, returning to work vowing he is alive and well, occasionally firing his entire cabinet in a blustery display of political power. In Yeltsin, like leaders before him, do we see vestiges of the old Soviet habit of preserving leaders? (credit: captured from Soviet State Television, 1998)

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