The Prague coup d’état of February 1948 was an important political event with consequences not only in Czechoslovakia but also internationally. The appointment of Communist police commissioners in Prague led to clashes with Democratic ministers. Democrat ministers eventually resigned, while the Communists fanned the flames of protest. Under pressure from the Czechoslovak Communist Party, the President agreed to form a new government.
But the elections were undemocratic and the Communists seized power. Thus, an authoritarian regime took over and the Third Republic gave way to a Communist regime.
Czechoslovakia gained its independence from communist rule during the Velvet Revolution of 1989. This peaceful revolution led to the end of the communist regime and the division of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.
Causes of the Prague Coup
After World War II, Czechoslovakia was one of the few countries under Soviet occupation with a genuine tradition of democracy. But a coup ended the Third Republic and replaced it with a Communist regime. The Prague coup saw the Czechoslovak Communist Party take control of the country’s institutions. The Democrats resigned, showing their powerlessness in the face of adversity.
The causes of the Prague coup were manifold. The Soviet Union wanted to strengthen its influence in Central Europe without any interference from the Red Army. The main reason put forward by the Czechoslovak Communist Party was the rejection of the Marshall Plan. After World War II, Czechoslovakia accepted American aid under the Marshall Plan. However, Josef Stalin inflexibly vetoed this decision. This led to a conflict between Czechoslovakia’s democrats and communists. In the end, the government unanimously opposed the Marshall Plan and stopped the country’s opening to the West. The Soviet Union strengthened its control over Czechoslovakia, while America canceled all aid options and made dialogue with the country impossible.
Events flared up when the Czechoslovak Minister of the Interior promoted eight new police commissioners, all Communists. This appointment led to a wave of resignations among the democratic ministers of the government. But the political crisis would turn in favor of the Communists and the head of state would succumb to their lust for power.
When Did the Prague Coup Take Place?
The Prague coup was triggered on February 17, 1948, when the Minister of the Interior appointed police commissioners. Democrat ministers expressed their disagreement by not attending government meetings on February 18 and 19. Demonstrations and Communist pressure on the Democrats to back down followed. The non-Communist ministers resigned on February 21, 1948. The Prague coup crisis took place between February 17 and 25, 1948.
Who Was Behind the Prague Coup?
Edvard Beneš with his wife Hana in 1934.
The Czechoslovak Communist Party, backed by the Soviet Union, orchestrated the Prague coup. The conflict started when the Minister of the Interior appointed Communist police commissioners. Edvard Beneš, president of Czechoslovakia, saw the unhappiness of the democratic ministers firsthand. Klement Gottwald, the government’s leader, reportedly warned Bene about the possibility of the ministers’ resignations. A political crisis and an actual Communist coup d’état ensued.
The president found himself confronted with the influence of the Communist Gottwald, who called on citizens to demonstrate en masse and support the Communists in government. Gottwald was helped by Rudolf Slánský, who mobilized the country’s labor militia. The two politicians put strong pressure on the President, who eventually announced that he would resign.
The coup then took on an almost legal form. Gottwald and Slansky were elected to govern the country in a single-list election. One of those responsible for the crisis was President Beneš, a friend of Stalin. Beneš had misjudged the situation, thinking that early elections would help democracy out of the crisis and the Communists would retreat. But the elections and the Communist takeover proved Beneš wrong.
How Did the Prague Coup Unfold?
Communist Party leader Klement Gottwald, who overthrew Beneš for the second time. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R90009 / CC-BY-SA 3.0.
On February 17, 1948, the Minister of the Interior appointed Communist police commissioners, setting off the crisis. Ministers who did not support the Communist Party voted against this and demanded that the order be overturned. The Czechoslovak Communist Party mobilized its supporters on February 19 in protest. On February 20 and 21, democratic ministers resigned in protest against Communist coercion. A weakened President Beneš was resting outside the city during these events. Pro-democracy activists were arrested on February 22 after the Minister of the Interior sent police to Prague to restore order.
On February 25th, after much prodding from Gottwald, Beneš decided to establish a new government, ending the situation. The Communists, who had Soviet support, ultimately won the crisis that the Democratic ministers’ defection caused. President Beneš was helpless in the face of the crisis. He capitulated before the Communists. On May 30, 1948, elections were conducted, and Gottwald was chosen as president. On September 5, 1948, President Beneš passed away. Despite his lifelong commitment to defending Czechoslovakia’s sovereignty, he was ultimately unsuccessful in doing so.
Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk was discovered dead in his window shortly after the Prague coup. Masaryk was an outspoken opponent of the Communist takeover and a staunch defender of Czechoslovakia’s sovereignty. Without a strong democratic foundation, Czechoslovakia fell under Soviet control. A breaking point was reached in relations with Western nations. For fear of a third global war, the West kept a careful eye on the problem. With the Soviet Union on edge after the Prague coup, the Cold War officially began.
Why the Prague Coup Was the Beginning of the Cold War
One of the few democratic and Western-oriented nations in Central Europe after World War II was Czechoslovakia, according to Western nations. The Prague coup worried all sides, who feared the outbreak of a third world war. They were worried about the division of Europe into Western and Russian-influenced countries.
The Americans perceived Czechoslovakia’s rejection of the Marshall Plan as a real threat. At the same time, the Soviet Union was taking an aggressive stance in Germany, trying to enter West Berlin and establish a land blockade. Eventually, relations between the Soviet Union and Western countries became strained and turned into the Cold War. The nuclear threat was at the center of the Cold War, which lasted until the late 1980s. With the events in Prague in February 1948, the division of Europe became a reality.
Results of the Prague Coup
Prague Spring: Czechoslovaks pass their national flag in front of a burning Soviet tank in Prague.
After the Central Committee and the Politburo withdrew after the Prague coup, Czechoslovakia’s institutions were rebuilt. The departure of the Democrats from government allowed the Communists to seize control, cornering President Benes. A communist government took power after the collapse of the Third Republic. People’s Republic was the name officially given by the communist administration. Opponents of the new dictatorial rule were arrested and thrown in jail. After the brief period of democracy during the Prague Spring in the 1960s, socialism ruled the nation for the next four decades.
Confusion and panic spread across Western nations after the Prague coup and the rejection of the Marshall Plan by Czechoslovakia. The rise of Russian strength and influence alarmed Western nations. To confront the Soviet Union’s danger, a global military alliance was established. As a result, the Western allies united under NATO. On April 4, 1949, the treaty that established NATO was signed.
After the Prague coup, the Cold War began and dominated international political relations. The world entered an unsettling period of division in Europe and conflict between the Americans and the Russians. The Prague coup had a major impact on Czechoslovakia, which was to experience a long period of uncertainty. The effects of this crisis were also felt internationally, with the formation of new alliances and political enemies.
The colossal sculpture “Worker and Kolkhoz Woman” is a benchmark of communist realism and an emblem of the Soviet period. The 197-foot (60 m) tall sculpture depicts a male and female figure holding a sickle and a hammer above their heads as they face forward. Boris Iofan, the architect, came up with the overall plan and arrangement of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman monument, while Vera Mukhina crafted the actual statue in a plastic version.
The monument was built in Moscow for the USSR exhibit at the 1937 International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life in Paris, disassembled into 65 pieces for transit, and then rebuilt in France. Because of the stainless chrome-nickel steel used in the statue and the 0.5-millimeter-thick slabs used to cover the interior frame, the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman memorial weighed in at over 63 tons.
The Eiffel Tower and the Soviet Pavilion, 1937. Image: Wikimedia.
After the exhibition ended, the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman (Rabóchiy i Kolkhóznitsa) was shipped to Moscow, where it stood on a 33 feet (10 m) pavilion at the exhibition’s northern entryway. Ironically enough, the sculpture stood on a 111 feet (34 m) tall pavilion when it was housed in Paris.
The frame and covering had to be substantially modified from the initial project as a result of negligent disassembly and transit. The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman sculpture suffered substantial corrosion and environmental damage from 1938 until 2003, during which time it was barely repaired.
Iofan’s initial pedestal design for the Paris exhibition was replicated, and the sculpture was repaired and mounted on it between 2003 and 2009. At the socle or base of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman is where you’ll also find the Vera Mukhina Museum.
After the restoration was done, the statue alone stood at 80 ft (24.5 m), the pavilion at 113 ft (34.5 m), and the overall weight of the monument was 185 tons. This was a more than twofold increase over the initial weight.
The Development of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman Project
The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman was meant to be part of the décor for the Soviet Pavilion at the 1937 World Expo in Paris. Following an all-union building challenge, the finalist plans for the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman were created by six separate teams, and among them was Boris Iofan’s team which included M. V. Adrianov, A. I. Baranovsky, S. A. Gelfeld, Y. P. Zinkevich, Dmitri Iofan, Y. F. Popov and V. B. Polyatsky.
The committee found that the pavilions in the designs by Shchusev and Alabyan-Chechulin (other finalists) were not detailed enough, while the pavilions in the designs by Ginzburg and Melnikov (another finalist) were too novel. Shchuko-Gelfreich (one of the finalist groups) and Boris Iofan’s proposals were the most workable and philosophically sound.
In the end, the judges favored Iofan’s project because it was the most sparsely decorated and had “a touch of advertising” (something that often sets apart Western country pavilions).
The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman above the Vera Mukhina Museum in Moscow today. (Image: AlexanderKonov, CC BY-SA 3.0)
…Very soon an image was born … of a young man and a girl, embodying the masters of the Soviet land—the working class and the collective farm peasantry. They are raising high the emblem of the Soviet country, the hammer, and sickle”.
Boris Iofan
Together with the new pavilion (113 ft; 34.5 m), the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman statue (80 ft; 24.5 m) was to reach a total height of 197 ft or 60 m.
The Inspirations Behind the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman Statue
The Roman copy of “Harmodius and Aristogeiton”. (Image: Miguel)
An ancient monument of Harmodius and Aristogeiton from 477/476 BC served as the inspiration for Worker and Kolkhoz Woman. This is according to the recollections of Boris Iofan’s assistant, who worked with the architect for forty years.
Kritios and Nesiotes, two ancient Greek artists, created statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton standing shoulder to shoulder, blades aloft. Iofan stated that the 1917 October Revolution triumph was the result of a coordinated effort by farmers and factory employees. As a result, he envisioned a two-figure composition for the monument.
The second statue from which Boris Iofan took inspiration for the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman was the Winged Victory of Samothrace, a Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic era, dating to the early 2nd century BC. The architect explained this inspiration as the embodiment of the winged victory of 1917.
The “Winged Victory of Samothrace” sculpture in the Louvre. The sculpture was an inspiration for the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman.
In a second competition, five artists, including Vyacheslav Andreev, Boris Korolev, Matvey Manizer, Vera Mukhina, and Ivan Shadr, competed to make the final versions of Worker and Kolkhoz Woman. The committee, led by Vyacheslav Molotov (former Premier of the Soviet Union), spent a lot of time studying Mukhina’s design, the future sculptor of the statue.
The People’s Commissariat said that the communal farmer had unsightly “bags” under her eyes and ordered that they be taken away. He also requested that the hammer held by the worker in his left hand be emphasized more prominently.
The man and woman depicted in the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman were initially depicted without clothing to reflect the old Greek style, but the commission requested that this be changed. An ornamental cloth stretched over their bodies and served as the composition’s unifying element, linking the sculpture to the pavilion.
One of the designers of the Soviet pavilion at the Paris show, Konstantin Rozhdestvensky, later recalled a conversation between the Commissariat and Vera Mukhina:
Why the scarf? This is not a dancer, not a skater! …Mukhina calmly replied:
It is necessary for balance. She meant, of course, plastic, figurative balance, and the horizontals she so badly needed. But the chairman, not very sophisticated in art, understood her “balance” in a purely physical sense and said:
Well, if it is technically necessary, then another matter…
“Worker And Collective Farmer” by N.V. Voronov, 1990. page 156.
On November 11, 1936, Vera Mukhina’s new plan was given the go-ahead to be put into action.
Meaning and Artistic Value of the Monument
Along with “The Motherland Calls” and the “Soviet War Memorial,” the memorial to the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman is often cited as one of the most important Soviet colossuses that best captured the movement of the 20th century.
Mukhina referred to her Worker and Kolkhoz Woman as “an unstoppable impulse,” and she frequently stressed the contrast between her vision of the sculpture and Boris Iofan’s:
When I received the design for the pavilion, I felt at once that the group must express, above all, not the solemn nature of the figures but the dynamics of our era, the creative impulse that I see everywhere in our country and that is so dear to me. … we must transmit the ideals of our worldview, the image of a man of free thought and free labor; we must convey all the romanticism and creative fervor of our days.
By Vera Mukhina, in the 1938 issue of The Architects’ Journal.
According to the art historians of the Kommersant newspaper of 1989:
“The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman” is a continuation of the pictorial tradition associated with the cult of democratic statehood, which emerged in the forms of neoclassicism in France after the revolution (in “Oath of the Horatii,” Jacques Louis David repeats the poses of the same “tyrant-fighters”). Perhaps the most striking expression of this cult is the Statue of Liberty on the ocean gate [New York Harbor] in the United States, made again by the Frenchman Auguste Bartholdi. Vera Mukhina, for her part, studied under the Frenchman Antoine Bourdelle, Rodin’s assistant and author of numerous allegorical monuments to the glory of the Republic.
Like the Bronze Horseman statue of Peter the Great and the Monument to Minin and Pozharsky, where a symbolic gesture also referred to the destiny of Russia, the open broad palm of the male worker’s hand in the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman statue represented the power of the working people over the state.
The collective farmer (Kolkhoz) woman in the statue is the embodiment of the 1930s female stereotype: short hair, a muscular build, and no scarf over her head. She is not dressed in working clothes; rather, she wears urban sundresses like the sculpture Mukhina did at the time.
The statue reflects the sexism of collectivization-era visual propaganda, in which a communal farmer’s wife was meant to symbolize the period’s powerful and fruitful inception.
Who Are the Persons in the Sculpture?
18-year-old Anna Ivanovna Bogoyavlenskaya, whom sculptors Nikolai Andreev and Vera Mukhina encountered by chance while strolling through a park, served as the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman’s female model. The girl, who at the time was a telephonist for the NKVD, was the reflection of a model sportswoman, a Komsomol girl, and attractiveness.
The models used for the male figure of the sculpture included former ballet dancer Igor Basenko for the body and metro builder Sergey Kasner for the visage, both of whom Mukhina scouted at the Athletes Parade, a health and fitness exhibition.
One unorthodox approach the artist took was to leave the figures’ lips slightly open, giving the impression that they were chanting or screaming. The scarf, the hands, and the creases in the clothing all added horizontality, which helped to temper the verticality of the pavilion’s design.
The technical and economic achievements of the early twentieth century were reflected in the sculpture as well. In 1937, the hammer and sickle held by the sculpture’s protagonists were mainly understood to be symbols of free and tranquil work.
Mukhina stressed that the purpose of the plastic used in the monument was to convey the concept and atmosphere of the arrangement, rather than the things the figurines were holding.
Production and Setting Up of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman
The monument’s primary frame was fabricated at the Stalmost factory in Moscow, while the exterior casing was finished at a prototype plant of a research institute on machines and metalworking led by Professor Pyotr Nikolayevich Lvov. He proposed using stainless chrome-nickel steel for the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman, despite early misgivings from Mukhina and the rest of the crew.
Since the memorial needed to be brighter than the eagle on the German pavilion and the Eiffel Tower on the French pavilion, the fact that steel reflects light better than metal and copper was the deciding factor. Contact spot welding, developed by Lvov in the 1930s, has been widely adopted for aircraft coatings ever since.
In order to successfully put together the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman, this technology was chosen over the more commonplace technique of connecting bolts at the time.
Four gypsum models, the largest of which measured 95 cm, were available to the crew before they began their work. There were a total of 160 people employed during construction.
The process took place in the plant’s atrium over the course of three shifts and required the use of a crane measuring 115 ft (35 m) in height and equipped with a 49 ft (15 m) pole.
The craftsmen used 5.9 inches (15 cm) of thick planks and wooden molds to create the cladding’s intricate features. The plastic components of the memorial were chiseled out from within. Project members reflected on:
It was especially difficult to work in February, when in the freezing cold one could only escape the wind inside the frame, under Kolkhoznitsa’s [the female figure’s] skirt. We warmed ourselves in the tent with a fire built in a cauldron that had been dug into the ground. The sheets of the shell were welded by hand…
The sculpture’s hands and skulls needed a different approach than the rest of the piece; they could not be hammered out using wooden molds. So, they came up with a different plan: They filled broken hardwood head blanks with clay, then removed the clay’s top layer and immersed the resulting “blanks” in steel.
The creation of the scarf was fraught with challenges, as the 98-foot (30 m) long “cloth” required being carried horizontally without any external support and weighed around five tons.
In the midst of Mukhina’s creation of this work, the factory’s head publicly criticized her, saying that her invention of a scarf could potentially damage the sculpture in high winds and that she was constantly delaying deadlines because of these changes.
In fact, the factory head claimed that, from certain perspectives, the “enemy of the people,” Leon Trotsky, could be seen in the statue.
Engineers ignored the criticism and created a framework for the scarf so that it could drift easily behind the backs of the worker and the collective farmer.
A 63-ton frame was built to hold up the sculpture of the time. Due to the use of 0.5-millimeter-thick steel slabs, the exterior casings only weighed 12 tons. The fabrication of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman took approximately 3.5 months.
After the construction was complete, a government committee led by the People’s Commissar (Minister) for Defense, Kliment Voroshilov, toured the factory, and that same day, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin inspected the completed memorial. After that, disassembly started in earnest so that the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman could be shipped to Paris.
The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman in the 1937 Paris International Exposition
The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman at the 1937 International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life in Paris, along with the German pavilion with an eagle at the left.
The memorial was disassembled into 65 parts and put into boxes wrapped with felt before being transported. The number of materials necessitated the use of 28 train wagons to carry them. The train went all over Europe, and the chief engineer had to use a thermal lance to chop off pieces of the tracks so the cars could get through a passage in Poland.
Boris Iofan encountered the train carrying the sculpture’s components in Paris. When the 541-foot (165 m) long pavilion of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman was constructed in 11 days instead of the estimated 24 days, the installation work was finished in record time.
Because of its low cost and lack of cold and weather resistance, Gazgan marble was selected as the exterior material of the pavilion. Iofan intended for the pavilion’s exterior to be colorful with a gradual transition from dark brown to gray, and the final material was to be hardy granite. The upper sculpture was installed without considering atmospheric forces:
Pyotr Nikolayevich Lvov … was a genius designer, but he was an aviation designer… And he made it in the image and likeness of aircraft construction. Here, the man’s arm was frameless. … Like an airplane fuselage. And it was stapled like… …a flange attached to the man’s torso and a flange attached to the arm. And this was all attached to the stainless shell.
Vadim Tserkovnikov, the project leader from 2003–2009 for restoring the “Worker and Kolkhoz Woman”.
For the assembly, specialists brought a unique tower crane from Moscow, with its primary shaft supported by steel wire cables. Workers found that one of the cables had been sanded down and threatened to collapse on the statue and irreparably damage it just days before the Paris show began. They were able to quickly repair the wire and perform assembly, and additional security officers were now stationed nearby overnight for peace of mind.
On May 25, 1937, the show opened to the public. The French press called the “Worker and Kolkhoz Woman” the greatest piece of the 20th century and the epitome of the concept of “liberated labor,” and the Soviet Union exhibit was praised for its success.
French poet Louis Aragon, dramatist Romain Rolland, artists Frans Masereel and Pablo Picasso, and many others praised Mukhina’s work, calling it a “striking, modern creation, a dynamic embodiment of the future.”
Various countries released sets of collectible stamps, medals, postcards, and banners featuring the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman. Despite Mukhina’s repeated claims that the extremely short timeline prevented her from being fully pleased with the work, reviewers unanimously praised the sculpture for its emotion.
After being charged as enemies of the Soviet system, Exhibition Commissariat Ivan Mezhlauk and nearly all of the members of the working group responsible for the construction of the pavilion and the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman sculpture were executed.
The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman’s Return to Moscow
The Soviet government got an offer to sell the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman to France after the Paris exposition ended, and a fund was established to help pay for its purchase. But ultimately, it was agreed to send it back to the Soviet Union.
Due to Mukhina’s refusal to reside with a government team in Paris, she was barred from carrying out the disassembly and instead forced to stay at the home of “non-returnee” (a socialist term for emigrants) Aleksandra Ekster.
Those who were tasked with removing the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman were not engaged in its assemblage or creation, so they were unaware of the frame’s intricacies.
The experts call the procedure “barbaric” because the memorial had to be sliced into 44 pieces using a thermal lance and put onto open platforms; as a result, all but the male figure’s head and one arm were damaged during transport to Moscow.
The sculpture was dismantled and reassembled in Moscow between January and August of 1939. The exterior of the statue was now made sturdier with 2 millimeters (0.08 inches) of steel slabs. There were significant changes made from the initial version. In the end, there was a need to alter the statue’s framework by more than 50 percent.
Mukhina proposed Leninskiye Gory (the Sparrow Hills today) or Krymsky Val Street as the best possible location for the reinstallation, which sparked heated debate. She tried writing the government several times with a reasonable request, but her messages had no effect.
The statue was originally planned to be placed on the center pier of the lower end of the lock (water navigation) at the soon-to-be-built Rybinsk Hydroelectric Station. Even a blueprint for the project was published in the newspaper.
Manezhnaya Square was suggested as a substitute location because the hydropower plant was still under construction at the time. The final location ended up being in front of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (VSKhV). Meanwhile, in 1953, the “Mother Volga” statue was erected at the hydroelectric station.
When the Monument Fell Out of Favor
The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman statue was rushed into place on a 33-foot (10 m) tall plinth for the inauguration of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition. Vera Mukhina criticized it as a “stump” that kills the momentum of the piece.
I can only throw up my hands helplessly because all my protests to resolve this issue have led to nothing. None of the architects raised a protest over the completely unacceptable staging of this statue, a production that destroyed the entire impulse of sculpture.
Researchers refer to this time in the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman’s history as the “degeneration of the symbol.” Because the sculpture’s emotive upward ambition was lost when it was placed on a low-height pedestal. This time period also coincides with the revival of the political system. As an emblem of authoritarian brutality and equality, the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman became targets of criticism.
For decades, Mukhina and Iofan tried to get the memorial relocated or put on a pedestal that better matched the initial plan. In 1975, the Moscow City Duma agreed to build Boris Iofan’s raised pavilion on which the sculpture would be displayed. However, the architect passed away in 1976, leaving the project unfinished.
The prospect of relocating the memorial was brought up again on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman. One suggestion called for affixing it to the directional sign outside the Central House of Artists on Krymsky Val. The monument’s deteriorating state, however, meant that these plans were never put into action.
Corrosion had eaten away at the supporting framework, and a full frame replacement would have been necessary to move the statue. In 1997, the painter Zurab Tsereteli placed a memorial honoring Peter the Great at the same location, which is located near the Central House of Artists.
In 1998, it was determined that the situation for the Central House of Artists was dire. A collection of artists made a protest to raise awareness of the issue. By dressing up the statue in a red sundress, a blue jumpsuit, and a scarf in the colors of the Russian flag, they staged an unusual event. They then performed a rally and concert at the base of the monument.
Three days after permission was given for the event, the clothing was taken from the monument, and the deputy director responsible for the permit was abruptly fired. Because the permit was determined to contain no illegal content either. The official justification for removing the clothing was that the greater “windage” put too much strain on the framework.
Restoration of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman
In 2003, it was decided to repair the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman, and by 2005, everything was expected to be back to normal. The city of Moscow set aside 35 million rubles for the dismantling, but just the scaffolding alone cost $5 million (roughly 140 million rubles).
Following the completion of the dismantling phase, the project was halted due to suspicions of theft; work did not restart until 2007, following numerous examinations.
The Moscow government declared a new repair competition on December 31, 2008, with a maximum contract amount of 2.395 billion rubles. One company was the sole candidate and ultimately the successful tenderer on December 31.
The company was a subsidiary of a construction company called “Inteco” owned by Elena Baturina, the wife of Moscow’s former mayor Yuri Luzhkov. It contributed a higher amount of 2.905 billion rubles (over $100 million) for the statue. The repairs weren’t finished until November 2009.
Sculptor Vadim Tserkovnikov oversaw the restoration’s conception and execution. Once the materials were manufactured by a research institute, the casting and assembly took place at the Belgorod factory “Energomash”. Due to the lack of initial paperwork and the various characteristics of new-generation materials, experts revised the computations and design of the frame. The team created special coverings and materials.
The sculpture was broken down into 40 individual pieces, photographed, and then analyzed by a machine for corrosion damage using spectrum imaging. Only 10% of the parts needed to be changed entirely; the remainder could be restored.
Simultaneously, they X-rayed over a million welds. Pigeons were able to make a home in the sculpture’s damp interior because of design defects that allowed air to leak in.
Cleaning was the second step in the reconstruction process. Exhaust gases, condensed precipitation, and avian droppings had accumulated for nearly 70 years, taking the form of stalactites in the regions of the scarf and skirt.
A non-governmental organization created a highly poisonous and pourable substance to disintegrate them. At a global showcase in Brussels, this substance was recognized with an award.
The product’s special makeup made it possible to apply it at any angle; it also prevented flow, improved adherence, and made it more than twice as resistant to damaging weather factors. In order to handle all of the sculpture’s finer features, a ton of plaster was needed. It was then coated with a second layer of insulating material.
Tserkovnikov directed the calculation and construction of a novel triple frame, which consisted of the shell’s sustaining frame, an intermediary frame, and a structural frame that linked the two. Due to the incorporation of the storm wind force into the new design, the weight of the pavilion rose by a factor of 2.5 following the reconstruction.
200 tons were the total weight of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman. The sculpture sat atop a pavilion whose design was largely based on Iofana’s 1937 blueprint. The pavilion reached 216 feet (66 m) in length and featured a coat of arms that was originally designed for the 1937 Paris Exposition and had been carefully conserved.
On November 28, 2009, the assembly of the statue was completed using one of only three custom-built cranes in the globe, imported from Finland. On December 4, 2009, the monument opened to the public for the first time.
The removal, relocation, and refurbishment of the monument totaled 2.9 billion rubles ($100 million). Experts agreed that this figure was at least twice as high as it should be.
Vadim Tserkovnikov explained that the cost of restorating the statue itself was much lower than the cost of its “attributes,” such as the need to construct a pedestal 196 feet (60 m) in height and import a crane from Finland, which together cost several tens of millions of rubles.
Ownership Disputes Over the Statue
Tobacco manufacturer “Yava” paid Vera Mukhina’s son, Vsevolod Zamkov, in 1999 for the right to use the image of his mother’s “Worker and Kolkhoz Woman” in a marketing campaign.
Then, a law firm in Moscow offered to represent Zamkov in trademark infringement cases against several businesses, including Mosfilm Studio, Monolit clothing factory, a distillery, and others, for their use of the images of Worker and Kolkhoz Woman.
The money would be put into a fund for the sculpture’s repair. The court threw out the case because the heir’s claims were unfounded and Mukhina had legally transferred the rights to using the image of her statue.
In fact, on November 20, 1975, and August 28, 1989, respectively, the State Patent Bureau had granted trademarks that would later end on October 10, 2005, and April 5, 2009.
When the “Just Russia” socialist party tried to sue the communist CPRF party in 2007 for copyright infringement and using Mukhina’s work in propagandist materials, they were thrown out of court by the Supreme Court of Russia.
In 2009, the sculpture’s ownership was still up in the air.
The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman Museum
The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman Museum, which showcases the monument’s past through photos, models, and other artifacts, debuted in the base building on September 4, 2010. The total exhibition area was around 34,450 km2 (3,200 m2), and it was split between three floors.
After its reconstruction, the “Rabóchiy i Kolkhóznitsa” pavilion was first given to the museum organization, and then in 2017, it was added to the VDNKh’s collection. The pavilion was disassembled so that it could be “rethought” for the upcoming VDNKh museum.
The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman in Culture
The screensaver for Grigory Alexandrov’s 1947 film Springtime was a photograph of The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman. In 1948, the sculpture was adopted as the studio’s formal emblem. The plaster copy for the photograph was created by Vera Mukhina in November 1950 under a unique arrangement with the director. The statue became the property of the studio.
In 1951, Mukhina was paid 20,000 rubles for her work on the plaster model of The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman, and another 7,500 rubles for the transfer of rights to use her image in the film’s screensaver, as evidenced by papers still in existence from the Mosfilm archives.
The image of “The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman” actually appeared in films much earlier than that, such as “The Foundling” (1939), “Tanya” (1940), and the musical “Hello Moscow!” (1945). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the statue appeared in the films “Suicide”, “Burnt by the Sun” and “Day Watch”, as well as the animated movies “Space Dogs” and “Kikoriki.”
In 1938, a stamp featuring the picture of The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman was issued as a Soviet standard postal stamp. After that, many stamp sets, such as the ones issued in 1961, 1976, and 1988, featured images of the memorial.
Stamps depicting The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman were typically the highest sellers. In 1967, the sculpture was featured on Gosbank’s jubilee series of coinage and appeared on an Albanian postage stamp from 1963.
Numerous smaller replicas of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman statues can be found throughout Russia in places like Bikin and Verkhnyaya Pyshma.
The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman at a Glance
What is the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman monument?
The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman is a famous monument in Moscow, Russia, depicting a male and female figure holding a sickle and a hammer above their heads as they face forward. It is a benchmark of communist realism and an emblem of the Soviet period.
Who created the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman sculpture?
Boris Iofan, the architect, came up with the overall plan and arrangement of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman monument, while Vera Mukhina crafted the actual statue in a plastic version.
What was the initial weight of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman memorial?
The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman monument weighed in at over 63 tons.
What was the inspiration behind the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman statue?
The inspiration behind the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman statue was an ancient monument of Harmodius and Aristogeiton from 477/476 BC, as well as the Winged Victory of Samothrace, a Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic era.
Who were the models for the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman sculpture?
Anna Ivanovna Bogoyavlenskaya served as the female model, while former ballet dancer Igor Basenko and metro builder Sergey Kasner were scouted as models for the male figure.
How long did it take to create the sculpture, and how many people were involved in the construction?
The construction of the sculpture took approximately 3.5 months, and 160 people were employed during construction.
When discussing the genocide of European Jewry, the Babi Yar or Babyn Yar ravine is one of the massacres that stands out. The Nazis killed 33,771 Jewish children, women, and men in under 36 hours on September 29 and 30, 1941, in Kiev, Ukraine. This was more than they had killed in all of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps combined.
Freedom to kill
The massacre at Babi Yar (“Old Women’s Ravine”) in Ukraine, west of Kiev (or Kyiv), was the first major destruction operation after Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, which broke the German-Soviet Treaty of August 23, 1939.
Each Wehrmacht unit that invaded the Soviet Union was followed by “Deployment Groups,” or Einsatzgruppen. These groups were run by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), which Reinhard Heydrich created in September 1939 by combining the Gestapo and Kripo with the Reichssicherheitshauptamt.
Beginning in August of 1941, these groups were given wide rein to brutally murder the Jewish civilian population hiding behind the war lines.
The Jewish population
There were around 5 million Jews in the Soviet Union at that time, with the vast majority residing in the western provinces of the past Tsarist era. Cities were where they were most likely to be found. At this time, 160,000 Jews made up over a quarter of Kiev’s population.
The Red Army’s mobilization at the end of June 1941 and the policy of evacuating a variety of Soviet citizens enabled 100,000 Jews to depart Kiev by September. During the time of the German-Soviet Pact, no one knew about how the Nazis treated Jews in Germany and the other places they took over.
Time bombs and a large fire
As they advanced on Kiev on September 19, 1941, German forces committed a series of horrific atrocities. The Khreshchatyk Street government buildings were demolished by the time bombs placed by the NKVD (a ministry of the Soviets) and the Red Army before they withdrew. The time bombs started a massive fire that raged for five days across the heart of the city.
As the Bolsheviks who committed these bombings were seen by the Nazis as the agents of the Jews (and vice versa), an order to punish them was issued on September 28. People who spoke Yiddish in Kiev and the surrounding area were told to gather in a street near the Jewish cemetery at 8 a.m. on September 29, the holy day of Yom Kippur, with their “identity papers, money, valuables, warm clothes, underwear, and other belongings.”
The notice was written in Russian, German, and Ukrainian on a white background with dark letters. Those who failed to appear would be put to death.
Destination ravine
This 1942 picture, discovered on the corpse of a Nazi officer killed in Russia, depicts a Nazi fire squad murdering Soviet people at Babi Yar, Kiev. (AP Photo)
The Jews of Kiev proceeded to the meeting spot designated by the Nazis, certain that they would be transported or put to work at a nearby freight depot next to the gathering place. But the Jews of Kiev were not deported and rather had to undress, leave their belongings, and walk to a ravine nearby.
All of the Jews were killed by Paul Blobel’s Kommando 4A of the Einsatzgruppen’s Group C and two battalions of the Ukrainian auxiliary police unit. Until 1943, hundreds of Jews, Gypsies, Soviet captives, and Ukrainian patriots were killed in this same valley. The Nazis had the bodies burned and the Soviet prisoners of war covered the mass grave before they withdrew in November 1943.
After the “Great Patriotic War” (1941–1945) was over with victory, Jews who were now just “peaceful Soviet citizens” were still not allowed to have their persecutions discussed openly. This included the Babi Yar Massacre as well. However, witness statements were growing rapidly, particularly in the Yiddish language.
The accounts of survivors
For instance, there were the accounts of survivors like Dina Pronicheva, who managed to free herself from a mound of bodies without injury, and the accounts of war journalists Vasily Grossman and Ilya Ehrenburg, which were collated by Lev Ozerov in The Black Book. Dina Pronicheva testified at the Soviet military tribunal in Kiev in January 1946, when the perpetrators of the atrocities were on trial. Babi Yar. Context (2021), a film by Sergei Loznitsa, features this testimony.
The Soviet Government considered erasing the massacre’s location as early as 1946. A brick business had been dumping its waste into the ravine, and the Jewish cemetery had been demolished, but all that changed in March 1961 when a dam burst and flooded the Babi Yar district.
At that moment, discussions concerning Babi Yar became public. After visiting the site of the forgotten ravine in 1961, Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko said, “Over Babi Yar there are no monuments.” By reaffirming their Jewishness, the poet was restoring their dignity. In 1976, a huge memorial to the Babi Yar Massacre was built in the strict Soviet realism style, but it didn’t actually say anything about Jews.
Until the fall of the Soviet Union and Ukraine’s independence in 1991, neither the Jewish identity of many of the victims nor the cooperation of certain Ukrainians with the Babi Yar massacre was acknowledged publicly. Yet, more victims claim a place in the memory of the Babi Yar Holocaust.
Today, it’s not the lack of Babi Yar monuments that is unexpected; rather, it’s the abundance of them: about thirty in all. Constructing a memorial center for Babi Yar has been discussed since 2000. All of these initiatives have been, and still are, the subject of heated debate.
The television tower was built next to the ravine that had been turned into a park, and on March 1, 2022, Russian missiles fired at this tower. Ukraine’s then-President Volodymyr Zelensky strongly condemned the efforts to cover up the Soviet invasion and bombing of Babi Yar.
Bibliography
Ray Brandon, Wendy Lower. (Book) “The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization.”
