...Today we spin the old globe our way...

When I look for the grandest day of my life,

rummaging in all i 've gone through and seen. 

I name without doubt or internal strife

October 25, 1917...

Comrades,

I am writing these lines on the evening of the 24th. The situation is critical in the extreme. In fact it is now absolutely clear that to delay the uprising would be fatal.

With all my might I urge comrades to realise that everything now hangs by a thread; that we are confronted by problems which are not to be solved by conferences or congresses (even congresses of Soviets), but exclusively by peoples, by the masses, by the struggle of the armed people.

The bourgeois onslaught of the Kornilovites and the removal of Verkhovsky show that we must not wait. We must at all costs, this very evening, this very night, arrest the government, having first disarmed the officer cadets (defeating them, if they resist), and so on.

We must not wait! We may lose everything!

The value of the immediate seizure of power will be the defence of the people (not of the congress, but of the people, the army and the peasants in the first place) from the Kornilovite government, which has driven out Verkhovsky and has hatched a second Kornilov plot.

Who must take power?

That is not important at present. Let the Revolutionary Military Committee do it, or "some other institution" which will declare that it will relinquish power only to the true representatives of the interests of the people, the interests of the army (the immediate proposal of peace), the interests of the peasants (the land to be taken immediately and private property abolished), the interests of the starving.

All districts, all regiments, all forces must be mobilised at once and must immediately send their delegations to the Revolutionary Military Committee and to the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks with the insistent demand that under no circumstances should power be left in the hands of Kerensky and Co. until the 25th of October. The matter must be decided without fail this very evening, or this very night.

History will not forgive revolutionaries for procrastinating when they could be victorious today (and they certainly will be victorious today), while they risk losing much tomorrow, in fact, they risk losing everything.

If we seize power today, we seize it not in opposition to the Soviets but on their behalf.

The seizure of power is the business of the uprising; its political purpose will become clear after the seizure.

It would be a disaster, or a sheer formality, to await the wavering vote of October 25. The people have the right and are in duty bound to decide such questions not by a vote, but by force; in critical moments of revolution, the people have the right and are in duty bound to give directions to their representatives, even their best representatives, and not to wait for them.

This is proved by the history of all revolutions; and it would be an infinite crime on the part of the revolutionaries were they to let the chance slip, knowing that the salvation of the revolution,the offer of peace, the salvation of Petrograd, salvation from famine, the transfer of the land to the peasants depend upon them.

The government is tottering. It must be given the death blow at all costs.

To delay action is fatal.

Map of St. Petersbrug (then Petrograd) in 1917

The Petrograd Soviet Assembly meeting in 1917

This letter written on 24.10 by V.I.Lenin to the Central Committee members was the final call for the uprising. Few hours later, at 01.25am on 25th of October 1917 (7.11 according to Gregorian calendar) Red Guards, sailors and soldiers strormed and conquered the Central Post Office building of St. Petersburg....   

..."Today we spin the old globe our way"...

"They Attempted to Check the Revolution".
 Drawing bby V.Deni, 1935

And from that banner, from every fold

Lenin, alive as ever, cries:

"Workers, prepare for the last assult!

Slaves, unbend your knees and spines!

Proletarian army, rise in force!

Long live the Revolution with speedy victory,

the greatest and justest of all wars

ever fought in history!"

Vladimir Mayakovsky, "Lenin", 1924

One century after, the Great October Socialist Revolution still remains the bright example, 

the guide to the struggle of Man for social emancipation and liberation.

Victory!

"Κάθε άνθρωπος που αγαπά την ελευθερία,

χρωστάει στον Κόκκινο Στρατό περισσότερα 

από ό, τι μπορεί ποτέ να πληρώσει"

Έρνεστ Χέμινγουεϊ

"Every man who loves freedom,

owns to the Red Army much more

than he can ever payback"

Ernest Hemingway

"We are in Berlin: the darkness of the century, the darkness for many countries, the darkness of consciousness and logic is over. Berlin was the symbol of evil, the death's nest, the hotbed of violence. From Berlin flied the vultures to Guernica, to Madrid, to Barcelona. From Berlin started the phalanxes that trampled the gardens of France, that mutilated the antiquities of Greece, that tortured Norway and Yugoslavia, Poland and Netherlands. By reaching Berlin we didn't save only our country, we saved civilization. If is meant to be a new Shakespeare to be born in England, if a new Delacroix will ever exist in France, if came into flesh the dreams of the greatest minds in humanity, a new golden century, this will be possible because the comrade Sidorov, right now, walks in the streets of Berlin, next to the beerhouses  and the barracks, next to the torture's chambers, next to the workshops that knitted "perfect made" hammocks out of women's hair..."

Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg, 27.4.1945

Kurisnsky. Tania (The Feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya). 1947

S. Gerasimov. Partisan's Mother. 1943

A. Deineka. The Defense of Sevastopol. 1942

P. Krivonogov. Victory. 1945

"It's easier to write now, much easier than October of '41: because if grief is silent, joy never skimped the words. And our hearts are full of joy. The tragedy of the 20th century is about to end: We are in Berlin! All this started from something meaningless: The Reichstag burned to the ground by the fascists. This is coming to an end exactly at the same place: Berlin is in flames! 

Justice moves slowly. Its path is spiral. Took years of hard ordeals and hardships, the ashes of Warsaw, of Rotterdam, of Smolensk, before the arsonists meet Nemesis."

Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg, 27.4.1945

A Soviet junior political officer (Politruk)
urges Soviet troops forward against German positions. (12.7.1942)

Victorious Soviet soldiers in Berlin, May 1945.

“Nobody really wanted to die that night because the war was already won,” he declared. “Even a promise by our officers that those who captured the building would get the highest decoration of Hero of the Soviet Union called forth few volunteers. Except for my little company.” The four men G. Zagitov, A. Lisimenko, A. Bobrov and M. Minin made their way towards the Reichstag they were met by heavy fire.

Running in front was Giya Zagitov, who had a flashlight with him. That flashlight helped us to pass through the damaged stairs. All the corridors linked to the stairs were cleared by grenades and long sub machine gun bursts. Right before reaching the attic I tore a one and half meter pipe off the wall to serve as a flagpole. After reaching the spacious attic, we faced the problem of getting to the roof. Again G. Zagitov found a solution - with his flashlight he noticed in the darkness a heavy winch and two chains going to the top. We climbed the chains and then through a tiny window got out to the roof somewhere on the western side of the building. There near a barely noticeable column Zagitov and i began setting up our Red Banner. Suddenly an explosion lighted up the roof and Lisimenko found our old reference-point - a sculpture of a bronze horse and a large woman in a crown. It was immediately decided to set the banner on the sculpture.

The guys raised me onto the horse’s back which shook from the explosions, and then I fixed the banner right in the crown of the bronze giantess.

We checked the time. It was 22:40 local time. 30th of April 1945..."

The Building in which signed the surrender of German Forces.
Karlshorst, Berlin, 9.5.1945

Few days later, the night from 8th to 9th of May, in a villa in the neighborhood of Karlshorst, the Colonel-General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff (Luftwaffe), Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel (Chief of Staff of OKW) and Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg (Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine), sign and deliver to Field Marshal  Georgy Zhukov  the unconditional surrender of the German military forces. After 6 destructive years the war in Europe came finally to an end. The beast was dead...

Victory Parade, Moscow, 24.6.1945

Detail of the Soviet War Memorial Treptower Park,
Berlin, April 2010

Today, exactly 70 years after that day. The day of surrender. 70 years after the defeat of the Nazist - Fascist hordes, the effort to rewrite history is more intense than ever. The aspiring distorters and counterfeiters of history know very well that the preservation of  the collective memory has not so much to do with the past, as it has to do with the present and the future. So do we! And every year, this specific day, we will repeat loud and clear that: 

"If someone examines the corpse of fascism, he will see that has many wounds, from simple scratches to deep injuries. But only one wound was deadly and this was caused by the Red Army."

"The Homeland will never forget their heroes".
Soviet War Memorial Treptower Park, Berlin, April 2010


Struggle against oblivion. Struggle for today and tomorrow!

Carlos Latuff, May 2015

In memory of the Great Antifascist Peoples' Victory.

 In memory of Man!

Τhe Ιncident Dissolved

Don't forget, commemorate our poet

Vladimir Mayakovsky.

Forty six years ago he left away from us

How Mayakovsky is related?

In the factory, an old comrade from Macedonia used to talk about him

Sometimes on Sundays, as we were drinking raki from homeland 

and singing songs about migration and resistance

He had lived i Russia for many years

And he used to take the book with Vladimir's poems

As he was calling him

And he was reading to us

And he was bringing in mind the other Vladimir

And he was in tears sometimes

But i think i said enough

Farewell once again

(The October's poem, Y. Ritsos, 1976)

Vladimir V. Mayakovsky. July 19, 1893 - April 14, 1930 

On 14th of April 1930, at the age of 36, Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky 

committed suicide by shooting himself through the heart. In his death note we can read among other:

And so they say - "the incident dissolved"

 the love boat smashed up 

on the dreary routine.

I'm through with life 

and [we] should absolve

 from mutual hurts, afflictions and spleen.

The Spacewalk

Drawing inspired by Alexey's Leonov spacewalk

On the morning of 18 March 1965, the cosmonauts were woken up for their flight. They were given a medical and then observed several traditions that had developed in the years since Gagarin’s launch. Yuri opened a bottle of champagne and poured it into glasses for the cosmonauts to sip. Then they signed the bottle, making a pledge to drink the rest on their return from space. Afterwards, they urinated on one of the wheels of the bus used to transport them to the launch pad at Baikonur. At 07.00 GMT, the R-7 rocket’s engines ignited and propelled the two cosmonauts into the sky. 

Upon reaching orbit, Belyayev deployed the airlock while Leonov strapped on his life support system. Then, with a slap on the back from Belyayev to see him off, Leonov crawled into the airlock and closed the hatch behind him. Leonov waited patiently while Belyayev equalized the pressure in the airlock with the zero pressure in space. This would help purge nitrogen gas from Leonov’s body, protecting him against decompression sickness, also known as “the bends”. Eventually, the all-clear was given to open the external hatch. As Leonov looked out at the Earth, night was turning to day, and Africa filled his field of view...

We established contact over the Black Sea. Yuri Gagarin was on the other end.
"Almaz, you can step out, we see you well". And i jumped.
Alexey Leonov's walk lasted for 12 minutes and 9 seconds.

“As soon as we were in orbit the command was given to open the airlock. I went out the airlock and the hatch was closed behind me. It's hard to imagine what it is like. My feeling was that i was a grain of sand. Only out there can you feel the greatness and enormity of all that's around us. On Earth you just don't get a sense of it... The silence struck me. I could hear my heart beating so clearly..." 

...It was then that things began to go wrong. I felt my spacesuit losing it's shape. My fingers had slipped out of the gloves and my feet from the boots. The suit felt loose around my body. So i had to do something. I couldn't reel myself in on the cord. It was impossible in these gloves. And if i stayed like this i just wouldn't fit back through the airlock. But worst of all, five minutes more and i would be in the Earth's shadow and i wouldn't be able to see anything at all. Silently, without reporting to ground control i decided to halve the pressure in my suit..."

Pavel Belyayev and Alexey Leonov during the Voskhod 2 mission.

Pavel Belyayev and Alexey Leonov back on Earth

Yesterday (18.3.2015) marks exactly half a century since mankind took a daredevil leap into open space... The Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Leonov performed the first extravehicular activity in human history, as a part of the Voskhod 2 Soviet manned space mission, adding another milestone in the exploration of space! The two cosmonauts returned safe to earth the other day, March 19, 1965, 09:02:17 UTC.

Alexey Leonov on 1965 USSR 10 kopek stamp. 

Μια φορά και ένα καιρό!

Odessa, Ukrainian SSR. Once upon a time...

 - Socialism eller Barbari / Σοσιαλισμός ή Βαρβαρότητα / Socialism or Barbarism -

                               To those who were murdered by the Ukrainian neonazis in the Labor Union House, Odessa, 2.5.2014.

The Moral of Life!

The first night they are approaching 

and they steal a flower from our garden

and we say nothing.

The second day they are not hiding anymore,

they are walking among the flowers

they kill our dog

and we say nothing.

And all of a sudden it comes a day 

- the most clear of all- 

when they get easily into our home

they steal our moon

because they know our fear 

which chokes the voice in our throat

And because we said nothing

we can't do anything anymore!

V. Mayakovsky "Freedom of expression"

Vladimir Mayakovsky, 19.7.1893 - 14.4.1930

Τη πρώτη νύχτα πλησιάζουνε

και κλέβουν ένα λουλούδι

από τον κήπο μας

και δε λέμε τίποτα.

Τη δεύτερη νύχτα δε κρύβονται πλέον

περπατούνε στα λουλούδια,

σκοτώνουν το σκυλί μας

και δε λέμε τίποτα.

Ώσπου μια μέρα

-την πιο διάφανη απ’ όλες-

μπαίνουν άνετα στο σπίτι μας

ληστεύουν το φεγγάρι μας

γιατί ξέρουνε το φόβο μας

που πνίγει τη φωνή στο λαιμό μας.

Κι επειδή δεν είπαμε τίποτα

πλέον δε μπορούμε να πούμε τίποτα

Β. Μαγιακόφσκι "Ελευθερία Έκφρασης"

The Moral of Life: No Compromise!