Russia; Museums of History

St. Petersburg is the cradle of the Bolshevik Revolution and as a result was the political

Czar's Portrait, complete w/ bayonet slashes

center of communism and the beginnings of the Soviet Union. That legacy has not been forgotten. Moscow has a historical museum that showcases the totality of Russian history. St. Petersburg concentrates on the revolutionary aspect.

We visited two museums in St. Petersburg, the Kirov and the Museum of Russian Political History. The Kirov is located in the former apartment of a leading figure of the 1930s USSR, Sergei Kirov. He was a close comrade of Joseph Stalin during Stalin’s rise to power and it was Kirov’s murder that served as the catalyst (excuse?) for the purges of the 1930s.


Kirov was a popular figure within the party and some suspect jealousy led Stalin to order his assassination and then blame Stalin’s own enemies, providing the opportunity to liquidate them. The apartment set up

The Famous Mr. Kirov

the way it would have looked in 1934 when Kirov died.  It is an interesting frozen moment in time and window into the world of an important Soviet leader. The museum dodges the question of who killed him.

The Museum of Russian Political History is more comprehensive. Located in a mansion, commandeered by the Bolsheviks in 1917 it houses Lenin’s office and was the scene of an important moment in the events of that time - a speech Lenin gave from its balcony exhorting the proletariat to revolution.

The museum is pretty neutral about Lenin, but pulls no punches in its largest exhibit on Stalinism. It follows his rise to power and displays pictures and artifacts of his victims. The show trials, the Kulaks digging their own graves as a firing squad watches, the Gulag. It also documents the rapid and impressive development of Soviet industry and agriculture, not hiding the coercive of nature of that process.

The rest of Soviet history is again like the section on Lenin - it happened. Exhibits take no stand on whether it is good or bad, carrying this note all the way to the present, pointing out with some local pride that the current president (Medvedev) and his predecessor and current Prime Minister (Putin) are both from St. Petersburg. It is still the center of Russia's political universe. We'll see what Moscow has to say about that.

Lenin's Office

Moscow: we visited the Museum of Contemporary History. They have a large collection of artifacts spanning the period from the last half of the 19th century to the present.  Interestingly the museum begins with the present and then jumps back. And what does the official State history museum have to say about the present? Actually not much. The only subject that they think merits attention is the process for the selection of the new post Soviet state symbols to replace the hammer and sickle and the red flag. It's often said that history is written by the winners and that is quite apparent in the post Soviet exhibit. In every element of the exhibit is a picture of Putin doing something. No pictures of Yeltsin, who if memory serves proceeded ‘Vlad’ and only one official Post Office style picture of Medvedev who is now President. No ambiguity about who is calling the shots

The rest of the museum all is pretty close to the model observed in St. Petersburg. In this one

Stalin, after the fall...

they spend some time developing the pre-revolutionary circumstances. They recognize
Russia's backwardness made apparent by its defeat by Japan in 1905. Alexander II’s attempts at reform only create chaos, his assassination and then retrenchment. Again after 1905 it seems they try to change without any real understanding of how to accomplish reform or support from the ruling class. No one is happy and the revolution is the result.
The take on Soviet history again singles Stalin out for blame. Lenin and NEP (new economic program) seemed to be improving things but then, Stalin…  WWII and the space program are points of pride for Russians.  Soviet times were not all bad.  One wonders if they think “if only there had been no Stalin.”  It is convenient to have a dead fall guy.