Palace of Soviets

At my job I often have to learn about cultures of countries at it pertains to how they store data.  Sounds boring?  Yes, yes it is most of the time.  But every now and then I run across something cool.

In this case I wouldn't call it "cool" but fascinating.

After the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, Vladimir Lenin supplanted the rightful Imperial Russian crown and brought to power his communist government.  I won't go into the role that the notorious character named Rasputin had in this post.  Little his followers must have known of his anti-Christian sentiments.

But we will move to Lenin's successor Joseph Stalin.

In 1924, Lenin's death and the construction of the temporary Lenin's Mausoleum initiated a national campaign to build Lenin memorials across the country. Victor Balikhin, a graduate student at VKhUTEMAS, proposed to install Lenin's memorial on top of a Comintern building, on the site of Christ the Savior Cathedral. "Arc lamps will flood the villages, towns, parks and squares, calling everyone to honor Lenin even at night..." 

Note the Christ the Savior Cathedral was the largest Orthodox church in existence and largest ever built.  It was not just a religious symbol but of the Russian culture which was also under attack. 

Six years later, in February 1931, the State declared the first contest for the Palace of the Soviets, distributing preliminary proposals to 15 architectural workshops (avant-garde and traditional architects). This contest ended in May, 1931, with no winners.
On June 2, 1931, a conference of Party elders identified the site of the future Palace and condemned the Cathedral. This was formally endorsed on July 16 by the VTsIK commission. July 18, state commissioners started an inventory count of Cathedral properties.

On 5 December 1931, by order of Stalin's minister Kaganovich, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was dynamited and reduced to rubble. It took more than a year to clear the debris from the site. For a long time, they were the only reminder of the largest Orthodox church ever built.  A small fraction of the priceless artwork was removed and stored at state expense and the expense of Donskoy Monastery; the rest perished. Demolition began on August 18; on December 5, 1931 the structure was finally destroyed in two rounds of explosions. Hauling out the rubble took more than a year.

This should be taught in every high school in America...

In August 1932, as is clear from Stalin's memo Stalin personally intervened to correct the omission of a statue on top of the design of the Palace of Soviets. A taller tower and Lenin's statue appeared after the fourth draft, in response to Stalin's public speech: "The Palace of the Soviets is a monument to Lenin. Don't be scared of height; go for it." In the process, the total height increased from 260 to 415 meters. The Main Hall with a capacity of 21,000 seats was 100 meters high and 160 meters in diameter (the Little Hall in the Eastern Wing was 6,000 seats). This project was released to the public in March 1934. The statue structure was designed later; a 100-meter 1936 version weighed in excess of 6,000 tons. In 1937, Frank Lloyd Wright, addressing the Congress of Soviet Architects, remarked "This structure — only proposed I hope — is good if we take it for a modern version of Saint George destroying the dragon."


How telling that last sentance was.  Communism or Marxism being St. George and the Dragon being Freedom or Christianity. 

The foundation was completed in 1939. The builders drove a perimeter of 20-meter steel piles, excavated the pit, demolished and hauled out the old cathedral foundations. The new foundation was a slightly concave concrete slab with concentric vertical rings, intended to carry the main hall columns. By June 1941, the steel frame for the lower levels was erected. Then the war interfered: the steel frame was cut in 1941 and 1942 and used for Moscow's defense fortifications and railroad bridges. The empty foundation stood unused, filled with seepage water, but well guarded, until 1958.

Can anyone say Tower of Babel?  


Like the French Revolution the Red Revolution had as much to do with politics as it did religion.  As we find so often in politics in this country today, people who do not have the True Religion must make their politics their religion.  Every man must worship something, whether a golden calf, or a concrete Vladimir Lenin, or abortion rights, or social health-care.  How far we can be carried away and how quickly we can become murderous pagans when we do not put Jesus Christ at the center of our daily worship.