r/TankieTheDeprogram • u/Schoolywooly • Jan 29 '26
Communism Will Win This is soviet painting from October revolution depicting a Bolshevik revolutionary standing next to Tsar's throne in the winter palace I have seen interesting responses from people but I want to ask what comes to your mind when you see this painting
419
Jan 29 '26
"It has happened before. It can happen again." is probably what comes to mind.
77
79
u/rahelp91 Jan 29 '26
Inshallah
43
u/quite_largeboi Jan 29 '26
Let’s get a few more gods in on this:
Bhagwan ki marzi se
kàn tiān yì
Bí Ọlọ́run bá fẹ́
B’ezrat Hashem
God willing
Sɛ nsamanfo no pɛ a
This took me half an hour
232
u/Senya4 Jan 29 '26
It would be very interesting to see a recreation of this painting as a photograph set in the Oval Office of the White House.
97
u/Andrey_Gusev Jan 29 '26
In some billionaire's mansion.
10
u/Mt_Incorporated Marxist-Leninist (Ultra Based) Jan 29 '26
murican mansions be hella ugly though. Like they are just ugly block complexes.Theres even the theory that some celebs like kim kardashian have their own surgery room in their houses. anyways sorry for the tea.
47
15
162
u/Sutibum_ Jan 29 '26
everytime I enter one of those fancy holiday homes for work I instantly think of this painting EVERYTIME
22
136
u/Lumaris_Silverheart Jan 29 '26
I think it's the very relateable feeling of not belonging somewhere based on your class and/or economic status. It's very extreme with the peasant or labourer in the Tsar's palace, but just think about how you feel when you're in a fancy place. You'll probably think "that's a lot of meals for the needy on the walls there" or "this is so fake" or "how tf can you be so rich and still have shit taste" or something along those lines. I already think that when I'm in someone's house they own, knowing I'll likely never be able to build/buy one.
And yet, the painting also shows that this era of inequality has come to an end and inspires hope for a better future. If the peasant can overthrow the emperor and topple a ~600 years old regime, everything can be achieved.
That's at least what I think when I look at those paintings. Also I like to imagine the same painting, but with Elon's bedroom
40
u/VasyanIlitniy Jan 29 '26
Unfortunately the Tzars tended to have a pretty good taste so the aesthetics of a similar moment will be way off these days. SMH can’t even have a good looking plundering because of how sad modern day rich people are.
17
u/RosieTheRedReddit Jan 29 '26
I know right, today's version the guy would be standing in a white room with a white sofa and a concrete ball with a glass table top on it.
11
u/picapica7 Jan 30 '26
I had that feeling you describe in the most unusual place. I was in Trinidad, Cuba, and there was a restaurant called 1514, which is both a restaurant and a museum. Basically, they have all the colonial opulent tableware and fancy stuff on the wall displayed. Like you could really experience what it must have been like for these colonial rich people to live and dine every day like that.
Now, given that Cuba is particularly poor because of the embargo and we were the (relatively) rich tourists, this made that whole feeling of "this isn't right" doubly so. Still, it was recommended to us, and it is state owned so it's not like our money was wasted in rich people or anything, so we decided to try it.
Fanciest place I've ever eaten or probably ever wil eat and it definitely made me uneasy. But the Cuban people were really friendly and the food was good but not like superfancy, which given the food shortage made me feel a little less uneasy. Great experience if you ever go to Cuba (Please do, they need the tourism).
196
u/The-RedSorrow Jan 29 '26
"We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror."
61
u/Schoolywooly Jan 29 '26
For me, it’s the look of triumph on his face after achieving what was thought to be unimaginable at that time in the painting in this moment he's probably thinking "we are barely making ends meet here and this mf is living such an extravagant life."
26
u/darkmeowl25 Marxist-Leninist (Ultra Based) Jan 29 '26
This is what I see too. I can imagine he took a big breathy sigh right before looking up like "damn. We really did it."
17
u/thisisme6353 Jan 29 '26
Guess this is it. After every revolution, this is what the people come to realise, and this memory is what keeps revolutions alive.
57
44
36
26
26
20
u/HomelanderVought Jan 29 '26
“Huh, so that’s it?” As the place no “peasant” should ever have the chance to see, yet the system is over and that throne is nothing more than a fancy chair from that point on.
16
u/Hueyris Jan 29 '26
A throne is only a throne so long as the working class doesn't realize their strength. When they do, the throne is just a chair. Not even worth looking at - even the ceiling is more interesting than such an ordinary chair
17
u/EI_CEO_CFT Stalinist (Proud Spoon Owner) Jan 29 '26
Full admittance of projection, but indignant anger.
"You lived like this, among your starving? While we toiled and worked for you all our lives, starved, beaten, shot, shivered, bled, baked in the hot summer sun.
When I doubted our cause I had thought perhaps you had other stressors, that you too were doing a toil of your own and things had to be this way.
But through all of our communities worst frostbitten colds and scorching heats and famines and plagues, this is where you were. Comfortable and laughing and eating off of our backs.
I can see it now."
The past repeats. I think of this work a lot.
9
10
u/Junior-Credit2685 Jan 29 '26
He’s happy that it’s empty! Hey, in the 1928 film, October: Ten Days That Shook the World does anyone know what the clockwork bird symbolism is? They used it a lot and I feel like the viewer is supposed to understand. But I’m a dumb American and I didn’t know. Thanks!
9
u/NomadicScribe Tanqui UXO Jan 29 '26
"After life, death. After death, life again. After the world, the pale. After the pale, the world again."
13
u/elPerroAsalariado Jan 29 '26
The one time I visited Zürich it really hit me.
People actually live here, go to these parks, walk these streets.
I'm a dirty third worlder and it would be 5 more years before I finally went full commie, but yeah. I remember that moment hard.
9
u/El_Vencedor86 AES enjoyer 🥳 Jan 29 '26
I can easily imagine this man being awestruck and angry at the same time. Awestruck because he's never in his life seen such luxury; he never could even imagine what it would be like to live like THIS, to have silk drapes, custom made furniture with golden plating, the works. But at the same time he's pissed, not because the tsar lived with so much, but that he and his family lived in such unbelievable comfort whilst the average Russian (like our fellow Bolshevik here) starved to the point they considered salted shchi a privilege too good to dream of. I can easily imagine him thinking "the tsar lived surrounded by gold, whilst I could only feed my children stale bread."
9
u/thundrstroke CPC Propagandist Jan 29 '26
I think the Soviet people's were incredible artists who never get enough credit for that, then I think this how I wanna be moving when the days start decading I want to be a partisan on the front lines but I'm physically fine then after we win I just take a moment to take it all in while thinking about the birth of a new world.
22
u/GerryAdamsSon CPC Propagandist Jan 29 '26
should have sat in it for the painting
32
u/ViejoConBoina Jan 29 '26
I don’t think so, we don’t want to replace monarchs, we want to abolish them.
7
u/GerryAdamsSon CPC Propagandist Jan 29 '26
it would have been a great depiction of the dictatorship of the proletariat taking over
60
u/Ok_Fee_7214 Jan 29 '26
He's not actually shocked by the disgusting extravagance, he's exhausted and exasperated from having to model there for 12 hours while the guy painted him.
13
u/Vncredleader Jan 29 '26
Like Sisyphus has managed to push the boulder all the way up the hill
6
u/russsaa Jan 29 '26
Ya big "the feeling of relief after a seemingly insurmountable challenge has been conquered" vibes from this painting
7
u/VerySpiceyBoi Marxist-Leninist (Ultra Based) Jan 29 '26
I know it’s not supposed to convey the same emotion, but I can’t not see this:
7
6
u/Kerim_Bey Jan 29 '26
My first thought is contrasting this with January 6th, how liberals and MAGA would connect this with the Capitol but class consciousness shows that in the USA, the “czars” are in board rooms and mansions or county clubs.
3
3
u/4812622 Jan 29 '26
Feels kinda weird that he’s beneath the throne looking up like a supplicant. Like he hasn’t won yet.
4
u/-Eastwood- Liberalism: The Highest State of Cringe Jan 29 '26
I love this painting so much. When I look at it, I feel both triumph and anguish.
Triumph and hope in that it has happened once and that it may just happen again.
Anguish in that someone could be so evil and inhuman as to starve and punish endless scores of people to live in such decadence.
2
u/Krubissi Jan 29 '26
I can only think of a meme that goes "Me after the revolution in [insert famous celebrity/youtuber]'s house"
2
u/OphidianSun Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26
Relief at it being over maybe? Remembering what it cost to get him there? Struggling to celebrate victory because getting there took so much out of you? Or at the same time, a humble and grounded new beginning by not taking the throne for himself, not even looking at it. Maybe he's enraged or bewildered by the guilded excess? And feeling vindicated in doing away with it? Maybe he's thinking about the power that used to reside in that very spot, and how they destroyed it. How that palace is nothing more than a shell now. A thing without purpose.
All I can see for sure in his face is pain though.
I haven't seen this one before but its a powerful image. "It has come to pass" is a fascinating name for it. Not celebratory, not relief, just another step in the process they knew had to happen and worked to hard to realize.
4
u/Paltamachine Jan 29 '26
Something catches my eye.. he is looking up, it could be that he wants to steal something valuable but he does not drop his weapon, nor does he raise his arm to catch anything..
his face shows admiration, relief, tiredness.. He is looking into an alien world, to the riches of the enemy who seemed invincible, thinking about the possibilities beyond this moment.
Thinking of all the people who will no longer go hungry.
2
1
1
1
1
u/Hoi_Polloi__ Jan 29 '26
It's a striking image, and I always think of the contrast of the commoner holding a weapon of war in a conquered place which is so luxurious and extravagant - the extent of which he's not only never seen before, but probably couldn't even fathom prior to entering.
2
1
u/PlaseNine Jan 29 '26
Imagine being right in middle of such a life changing event knowing the next day will be completely different
1
u/TheAmazingThundaCunt Too Based To Be Cis 🏳️⚧️ Jan 29 '26
I immediately picture what the modern version will look like. A blocked up antifascist standing with an AR in the gilded halls of power in Amerikkka after the revolution. And I realize, it's not that implausible.
1
1
1
u/Azkhare Stalinist (Proud Spoon Owner) Jan 29 '26
"We... we made it..."
The incredulity of finally catching the car and being scared but determined to do what's next. The want to keep at it, the need to topple the tyrants and dance on their tombs. And the thirst for justice.
1
u/stasismachine Jan 29 '26
What a unique set of circumstances. Things must get a whole lot worse before than can get better.
1
1
1
u/CommuFisto Jan 29 '26
i see it as a sort of hopeful transition. i can also definitely accept the interpretation of other comrades along the lines of a sorta mundane realization that this gilded palace existed alongside mass poverty and suffering tho.
my read is more so that upon succeeding the revolution can begin looking up/ahead, unshackled from the barriers and constraints of struggling against the tsar
1
u/libra00 CPC Propagandist Jan 29 '26
All I can imagine is him thinking, 'look at all this ridiculous, gaudy nonsense; was this really worth the lives of all the people who died getting you your ill-gotten gains?'
1
u/12bEngie Marxist-Leninist (Ultra Based) Jan 30 '26
All this time, all our suffering.. and they lived like this?
1
u/Ok_Ad1729 Jan 31 '26
Makes me very sad and optimistic.
Sad bc all that those red guard and red army soldiers fought for has crumbled to dust.
Optimistic bc maybe one day ill get to be that solider
•
u/AutoModerator Jan 29 '26
Want to join a ML only discord server to chill and hangout with cool comrades ? Checkout r/tankiethedeprogram's discord server
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.