Against the Dead Hand
The Uncertain Struggle for Global Capitalism
Chapter One
The Weight of the Past
Near Gorky Park, on the banks of the Moskva River, lies the Graveyard
of Fallen Monuments. It is located on the grounds of the
New Tretyakov Gallery-a lifeless, white hulk of a building that
houses the premier collection of paintings from the school of Soviet Socialist
Realism. Stroll the museum's uncrowded exhibits and you will see such
forgotten masterpieces as Yefim Cheptsov's Meeting of the Village Communist
Cell, Arkady Platsov's Tractor Drivers' Supper, and Pyotor Kotov's Building the
Kuznetsk Metal Works Blast Furnace. Walk outside, turn left, and you enter
the graveyard.
Scattered over a few acres are the toppled icons of the Soviet faith. The
star of the collection is the towering statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of
the Soviet secret police, which stood in Lubyanka Square in front of KGB
headquarters until it was hauled down after the failed coup of 1991. Statues
and busts of Lenin can be found aplenty, and there is even a red marble statue
of Stalin-his face partially shattered, staring impassively over a gruesome
jumble of stacked stone heads p ... read full excerpt from Against the Dead Hand: The Uncertain Struggle for Global Capitalism ebook
