[lbo-talk] Lenin Platz in Berlin

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 8/7/07, Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> > Speaking of Stalin, we finally got to see the Lenin
> > Statue in
> > Seattle. Set in the heart of the hipster Fremont
> > neighborhood, you
> > can almost see the air quotes around it. But it's
> > pretty cool.
> > According to the plaque, it's the only known statue
> > of VI that shows
> > him surrounded by guns and flames rather than
> > holding a book or some
> > such.
>
> He's usually depicted pointing or gazing off into the
> Shining Communist Future or somesuch.
>
> I read an article a few years ago on the really big
> Soviet sculptor who specialized in Lenins, including
> this one three blocks from my
> apartment:http://www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/poolman99/worldtour-sep06/1158641940/dsc00562.jpg/tpod.html
> . He also did Stalin's death mask. Anyway, he said he
> did his first Lenin at the age of about 8, when Lenin
> died. He said he remembered that everybody was really
> sad, so he went down to the river and made a little
> Lenin out of clay.
<snip>
> PS. Yoshie, the Iran Air office I mentioned a while
> ago is immediatetely to Lenin's left there, just out
> of view. :)

To the left of a statue of Lenin, just out of view -- how appropriate.

Lenin Platz in Berlin
by Fadhil al-Azzawi

There in his square
he stood, arms stretched forward
as if begging the passers-by
to stop and hear him out.
He wore his ragged black coat
and had his grey cap
pulled over his eyes.
I saw him prophesy revolution
to workers and soldiers
and threaten the bourgeoisie with Hell.

He did not have a chair to sit on
so he remained standing
and waited forever.

When they arrested him
he was asleep and dreaming
on his high platform.
They cut through his hardened body
with an electric saw
and carried his marble head
with a rented forklift
to a storeroom of archaeological remains.

The workers covered his grassy square
with cement
afraid the thieves of the class struggle
would plunder its invaluable dust.

A lot of blood stuck to our shoes
as we walked the streets
following his coffin.

_Dasvedanya!_

Translated by the author
and Khaled Mattawa

Banipal, No. 6, Autumn 1999, p. 7

Cf. Fadhil al-Azzawi (Iraq, 1940):
<http://iraq.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=424>
-- 
Yoshie