The Statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree (in Spanish “El Oso y el Madroño”) is a sculpture from the second half of the 20th century, situated in the Spanish city of Madrid. It represents the coat of arms of Madrid and is found on the east side of the Puerta del Sol, between Calle de Alcalá and Carrera de San Jerónimo, in the historical centre of the capital.

 

The statue is a work of the sculptor Antonio Navarro Santafé (1906-1983) and it was inaugurated on 19 January 1967. It was promoted by the section of Culture of the City council of Madrid, which wanted to represent the main heraldic symbols of the city in a monument.

 

The first appearance of a wild bear and a strawberry tree on the coat of arms of the city was in the 13th century. Previously, it only incorporated a bear in passant attitude, until it was replaced in the aforementioned century by the two current figures. With this change, they wanted to symbolise the resolution adopted by the municipality and the Chapter of Priests and Beneficiaries after a long litigation about the control of Madrilenian pastures and trees. Since this agreement, the former became property of the Chapter and the latter of the council. From here they modified the arms, including a strawberry tree and of a bear in a new posture: leaning on the tree with both paws.

 

The sculpture has always been in the Puerta del Sol, but in two locations inside the square. Before 1986, it was situated in the east side of it, in the vicinity of the building between the Calle de Alcalá and the Carrera St. Jerónimo. That year, it was moved to the front of Carmen Street for the square's reform and remodeling, promoted by mayor Enrique Tierno Galván. In September 2009, with the integral renewal of the square promoted by Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, it has gone back to its original location.

 

The Statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree is made of stone and bronze. It weighs approximately 22 tons (20 tonnes) and stands 13 ft (4 m) tall. It rests on a staggered cubic pedestal of granite.

 

It represents in a real-life form the coat of arms of Madrid, with the tree taller than the bear, who supports his paws on the trunk and directs his attention towards one of the fruits.

 

Antonio Navarro Santafé ( Villena , Alicante , December 22, 1906-id., November 16, 1983) was a Spanish sculptor . On April 24, 1983 he was named Favorite Son of the city of Villena.

 

Born into a humble farming family, he was the seventh child of nine siblings. The family did not have enough money and that is why they had financial problems and to cure his problems, his father and his two older brothers emigrated to Argentina. Some time later, his mother sold the rest of the family assets and, after time, they moved to Madrid in 1913 at Atocha Street , No. 9.

 

In Madrid, from the age of eleven, he had to work to help with the needs of the house. Shortly afterward he went to the studio of the Castellón sculptor José Ortells López , a disciple of Benlliure , and there he made his first sculpture, a head he titled "Peasant". From 1930 he began to carry out important works. He later went to Valencia to the San Carlos School of Fine Arts and then joined the Madrid School of Ceramics as a teacher. Later he was appointed Professor of Drawing at the Colegio de San Ildefonso in Madrid and Master Stonemason of the Villa City Council.

 

He suffered from stuttering, which gave him a shy character and little given to creating "social relationships." This earned him a certain dependence on intermediaries who did not always know how to adequately pay for his work or accept modeling jobs for the firms of other sculptors.

 

About this, he himself wrote:

"When I started to get older, having been living in Madrid for years, and I wanted to fight against the tremendous defect that I already noticed was hurting me, I corrected it somewhat by doing respiratory gymnastics; then someone recommended that I read aloud, syllable, and I read I complete Don Quixote in this way, and breathing deeply. At the height of my life I must admit that the use of such a practice that I have always maintained constantly has helped me on occasions, but any physical weakness, any moment or occasion that affected my nerves, made me fall into the abyss of that evil."

 

His mother was his great supporter in following his vocation in sculpture. She entrusted all of her projects and assignments to her mother and she was the one who first saw her work and gave her her opinion on them. Her mother took care of the order and cleanliness of the sculptor's work studio, as well as acting as secretary when necessary. 5 His death in February 1945 in Madrid was an emotional blow for the sculptor.

 

Navarro Santafé was a sculptor who cultivated diverse themes, ranging from the imagery of virgins and saints, in carving and marble, to the portrait bust, in which he achieved sensational achievements, with an exact resemblance to his sitters, both in stone and in bronze.

 

Monument to the Horse. Jerez de la Frontera

1939. Virgin of the Virtues , Patroness of Villena.

1947. Monument to Ruperto Chapí , monument to the music of Villena in his native Villena .

1959. Virgin of Santa María La Blanca for the burial of the Dukes of Marchena , in San Sebastián .

1967. Statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree in the Puerta del Sol square in Madrid .

1968. Monument to the Berlin Bear, in the Berlin Park , in Madrid.

1968. Bust of Doctor Lafuente Chaos, at the headquarters of the Medical College of the city of Guadalajara .

1970. Monument to the Horse of Jerez de la Frontera , considered one of his crowning works.

1973. Monument to the Fighting Bull in Puerto de Santa María

1983. Hunting Dream, at the Villena Museum.

 

The Puerta del Sol is a public square in Madrid, one of the best known and busiest places in the city. This is the centre (Km 0) of the radial network of Spanish roads. The square also contains the famous clock whose bells mark the traditional eating of the Twelve Grapes and the beginning of a new year. The New Year's celebration has been broadcast live since 31 December 1962 on major radio and television networks including Atresmedia and RTVE.

 

The Puerta del Sol originated as one of the gates in the city wall that surrounded Madrid in the 15th century. Outside the wall, medieval suburbs began to grow around the Christian Wall of the 12th century. The name of the gate came from the rising sun which decorated the entry, since the gate was oriented to the east.

 

Between the 17th and 19th centuries, the area was an important meeting place: as the goal for the couriers coming from abroad and other parts of Spain to the Post Office, it was visited by those eager for the latest news. The stairs to the Saint Philip church at the square were known as the Gradas de San Felipe, and were among the most prolific mentideros de la Corte (this Spanish idiom sounds as "lie-spreaders of the Court", but it is related with the verb mentar, "to say about someone", not mentir, "to lie", so it is more appropriately translated as "places of the City where people gossip").

 

The House of the Post Office was built by French architect Jacques Marquet between 1766 and 1768. The building was the headquarters of the Ministry of Interior and State Security in Francoist Spain. It is currently the seat of the Presidency of the Madrid Community.

 

Sol has seen protests against the March 11th 2004 attacks on commuter trains, and Spain's involvement in the Iraq War . In 2011, the square became established as a focal point and a symbol for the ongoing Spanish democracy demonstrations. The demonstrations included camping in the middle of the plaza (@acampadasol), which began on 15 May 2011 amidst the election campaign for city halls and Autonomous Communities governments and which was fueled by social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook. The demonstrations then spread to more than sixty other cities throughout Spain. Since 12 June 2011, the square has held a free-standing domed structure made from pallets, which served as an information point for the 15-M Movement. This continued throughout the summer of 2011 until the dawn of 2 August, when the national police decided to evict the structure and protestors. Currently, dozens of committees have their assemblies in the iconic square.

 

Despite once being the meeting point of the six major radial roads of Spain, in 2020 the square was pedestrianized and closed to most traffic. Exceptions are made for supplies to shops, emergency services and blood donation campaigns.

 

The Puerta del Sol contains a number of well known sights both domestically and internationally associated with Spain. On the south side, the old Post Office was the headquarters of the Ministry of Interior and State Security in Francoist Spain. The basement of the DGS (Spanish: Dirección General de Seguridad, lit. 'General Directorate of Security') was infamous for being a place where Dissidents to the regime were subjected to torture. The building now serves as the office of the President of Madrid, the head of the regional government of the Autonomous Community of Madrid (not to be confused with the Madrid City Council, which is housed in the Palacio de Cibeles). There are two commemorative plaques in the front of the Royal House of the Post Office: one is devoted to the neighbours of Madrid who rose up against the Napoleonic invasion of Spain on May 2, 1808; the other one is a memorial of the victims of the March 11th, 2004 terrorist attacks.

 

Also on its south side, the square holds a mounted statue of Charles III of Spain, nicknamed "el rey alcalde" ("the mayor-king") due to the extensive public works program he set in motion. The famous Tío Pepe lighted sign was above the square's eastern building between the Calle de Alcalá and the Carrera de San Jerónimo (Apple Store today) for a long time, now is on top of the former Paris Hotel. Also on the east side lies the statue of The Bear and the Strawberry Tree (in Spanish, el Oso y el Madroño), the heraldic symbol of Madrid. Until 2009, the statue stood on the north side at the entrance to Calle del Carmen. The Mariblanca (a female figure named for its white marble) is a copy of a statue (possibly of Venus, and so the restored pedestal claims), which marks the place of a former fountain displaying that figure.

 

The kilómetro cero is a plaque on the ground directly north of the Post Office serving as the symbolic center of Spain, and the point from which kilometer distances are numbered in the Spanish road system.

 

The Puerta is located in the very heart of Madrid. It serves as the kilometre zero from which all radial roads in Spain are measured. This is demonstrated by a plaque on the floor of the square, marking the exact point of Km.0. This was established in 1857, setting six major radial roads, clockwise:

 

N-1 (Northern Road) to Irun, border town with France, via Burgos, starting from Calle Montera and continuing through Calle de Fuencarral and Calle de Bravo Murillo

N-2 (Northeastern Road) to La Jonquera, border town with France, via Zaragoza and Barcelona, starting from Calle de Alcalá

N-3 (Eastern Road) to Valencia, starting from Carrera de San Jerónimo, where the Congress of Deputies is located, and continuing through Paseo del Prado

N-4 (Southern Road) to Córdoba, Seville and Cádiz, starting from Calle Carretas, Calle Concepción Jerónima and Calle de Toledo

N-5 (Southwestern Road) to Badajoz, border town with Portugal, starting from Calle Mayor

N-6 (Northwestern Road) to A Coruña, starting from Calle Preciados, continuing through Gran Vía and Calle de la Princesa

The old plaque was replaced in 2009, as it had become faded after years of foot traffic. It is also the reference for street numbers in Madrid, which begin at the street-end that is closest to Puerta del Sol.

 

Immediately to the southwest lies the Plaza Mayor; the Palacio Real, the official home of the Royal Family, is further west. Parliament and the museum district are to the east and the train station Atocha is to the southeast.

 

Under the square lies a public transport hub served by lines 1, 2 and 3 of the Madrid Metro. A commuter service was inaugurated on 27 June 2009, four years behind schedule. The lateness of the construction was in part due to the discovery of the remains of the Church of Our Lady of Good Success during the excavation of the main chamber. The new station connects the Puerta to Madrid's commuter rail system and, by extension, to Spain's railroads via direct connections to Atocha and Chamartín railway stations.

 

The square connects several commercial and recreational areas together, and thus both it and the surrounding streets consist mainly of shopping establishments catering to locals and tourists alike, like the several El Corte Inglés department store buildings in Preciados Street, La Mallorquina cafe, and numerous, ever-changing restaurants. The area remains active late into the night and early morning since nearby bars and dance clubs often only start entertainment at 1 am. Street music is also common in the area.

 

Side streets close to the square also contain residential flats, some small offices, and tourist hostels.

 

During New Year's Eve 2018–2019, the clock of the Puerta del Sol for the first time in history rang the bells according to the schedule of the Canary Islands. After the traditional twelve strokes of midnight, the clock delayed one hour its needles to adjust to the Canary hour and also gave the chimes at the same time as this archipelago.

 

Madrid is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and its monocentric metropolitan area is the second-largest in the EU. The municipality covers 604.3 km2 (233.3 sq mi) geographical area. Madrid lies on the River Manzanares in the central part of the Iberian Peninsula at about 650 meters above mean sea level. The capital city of both Spain and the surrounding autonomous community of Madrid (since 1983), it is also the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country. The climate of Madrid features hot summers and cool winters.

 

The Madrid urban agglomeration has the second-largest GDP in the European Union and its influence in politics, education, entertainment, environment, media, fashion, science, culture, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities. Due to its economic output, high standard of living, and market size, Madrid is considered the major financial centre and the leading economic hub of the Iberian Peninsula and of Southern Europe. The metropolitan area hosts major Spanish companies such as Telefónica, Iberia, BBVA and FCC. It concentrates the bulk of banking operations in the country and it is the Spanish-speaking city generating the largest amount of webpages. For innovation, Madrid is ranked 19th in the world and 7th in Europe from 500 cities, in the 2022–2023 annual analysts Innovation Cities Index, published by 2ThinkNow.

 

Madrid houses the headquarters of the UN's World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), and the Public Interest Oversight Board (PIOB). It also hosts major international regulators and promoters of the Spanish language: the Standing Committee of the Association of Spanish Language Academies, headquarters of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), the Instituto Cervantes and the Foundation of Urgent Spanish (FundéuRAE). Madrid organises fairs such as FITUR, ARCO, SIMO TCI and the Madrid Fashion Week. Madrid is home to two world-famous football clubs, Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid.

 

While Madrid possesses modern infrastructure, it has preserved the look and feel of many of its historic neighbourhoods and streets. Its landmarks include the Plaza Mayor, the Royal Palace of Madrid; the Royal Theatre with its restored 1850 Opera House; the Buen Retiro Park, founded in 1631; the 19th-century National Library building (founded in 1712) containing some of Spain's historical archives; many national museums, and the Golden Triangle of Art, located along the Paseo del Prado and comprising three art museums: Prado Museum, the Reina Sofía Museum, a museum of modern art, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, which complements the holdings of the other two museums. Cibeles Palace and Fountain has become one of the monument symbols of the city. The mayor is José Luis Martínez-Almeida from the People's Party.

 

The documented history of Madrid dates to the 9th century, even though the area has been inhabited since the Stone Age. The primitive nucleus of Madrid, a walled military outpost in the left bank of the Manzanares, dates back to the second half of the 9th century, during the rule of the Emirate of Córdoba. Conquered by Christians in 1083 or 1085, Madrid consolidated in the Late Middle Ages as a middle to upper-middle rank town of the Crown of Castile. The development of Madrid as administrative centre began when the court of the Hispanic Monarchy was settled in the town in 1561.

 

The primitive urban nucleus of Madrid (Majriṭ) was founded in the late 9th century (from 852 to 886) as a citadel erected on behalf of Muhammad I, the Cordobese emir, on the relatively steep left bank of the Manzanares. Originally it was largely a military outpost for the quartering of troops. Similarly to other fortresses north of the Tagus, Madrid made it difficult to muster reinforcements from the Asturian kingdom to the unruly inhabitants of Toledo, prone to rebellion against the Umayyad rule. Extending across roughly 8 ha, Muslim Madrid consisted of the alcázar and the wider walled citadel (al-Mudayna) with the addition of some housing outside the walls. By the late 10th century, Majriṭ was an important borderland military stronghold territory with great strategic value, owing to its proximity to Toledo. The most generous estimates for the 10th century tentatively and intuitively put the number of inhabitants of the 9 ha settlement at 2,000. The model of repopulation is likely to have been by the Limitanei, characteristic of the borderlands.

 

The settlement is mentioned in the work of the 10th-century Cordobese chronicler Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Razi, with the latter locating the Castle of Madrid within the district of Guadalajara. After the Christian conquest, in the first half of the 12th century Al-Idrisi described Madrid as a "small city and solid fortress, well populated. In the age of Islam, it had a small mosque where the khuṭbah was always delivered," and placed it in the province of the sierra, "al-Sārrāt". It was ascribed by most post-Christian conquest Muslim commentators, including Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi, to Toledo. This may tentatively suggest that the settlement, part of the cora of Guadalajara according to al-Razi, could have been transferred to Toledo following the Fitna of al-Andalus.

 

The city passed to Christian control in the context of the conquest of Toledo; historiography debates whether if the event took place in 1083, before the conquest of Toledo, in the wake of negotiations between Alfonso VI and al-Qadir, or afterwards, as a direct consequence of the seizure of Toledo in 1085.

 

The mosque was reconsecrated as the church of the Virgin of Almudena (almudin, the garrison's granary). The society in the 11th and 12th centuries was structured around knight-villeins as a leading class in the local public, social and economic life. The town had a Muslim and mozarabic preexisting population (a number of the former would remain in the town after the conquest while the later community would remain very large throughout the high middle ages before merging with the new settlers). The town was further repopulated by settlers with a dominant Castilian-Leonese extraction. Frank settlers were a minority but influential community. The Jewish community was probably smaller in number than the mudéjar one, standing out as physicians up until their expulsion. By the end of the middle ages, the best-positioned members of the mudéjar community were the alarifes ('master builders'), who were tasked with public works (including the management of the viajes de agua), and had a leading role in the urbanism of the town in the 15th century.

 

Since the mid-13th century and up to the late 14th century, the concejo of Madrid vied for the control of the Real de Manzanares territory against the concejo of Segovia, a powerful town north of the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range, characterised by its repopulating prowess and its husbandry-based economy, contrasted by the agricultural and less competent in repopulation town of Madrid. After the decline of Sepúlveda, another concejo north of the mountain range, Segovia had become a major actor south of the Guadarrama mountains, expanding across the Lozoya and Manzanares rivers to the north of Madrid and along the Guadarrama river course to its west.

 

The society of Madrid before the 15th century was an agriculture-based one (prevailing over livestock), featuring a noteworthy number of irrigated crops.[16] Two important industries were those of the manufacturing of building materials and leather.

 

John I of Castile gifted Leo V of Armenia the lordship of Madrid together with those of Villa Real and Andújar in 1383. The Madrilenian concejo made sure that the privilege of lordship did not become hereditary, also presumably receiving a non-sale privilege guaranteeing never again to be handed over by the Crown to a lord.

 

Later, Henry III of Castile (1379–1406) rebuilt the town after it was destroyed by fire, and he founded El Pardo just outside its walls.

 

During the 15th century, the town became one of the preferred locations of the monarchs of the Trastámara dynasty, namely John II of Castile and Henry IV of Castile (Madrid was the town in which the latter spent more time and eventually died). Among the appeals the town offered, aside from the abundant game in the surroundings, the strategic location and the closed link between the existing religious sites and the monarchy, the imposing alcázar frequently provided a safe for the Royal Treasure. The town briefly hosted a medieval mint, manufacturing coins from 1467 to 1471. Madrid would also become a frequent seat of the court during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, spending reportedly more than 1000 days in the town, including a 8-month long uninterrupted spell.

 

By the end of the Middle Ages, Madrid was placed as middle to upper-middle rank town of the Castilian urban network in terms of population. The town also enjoyed a vote at the Cortes of Castile (one out of 18) and housed many hermitages and hospitals.

 

Facing the 1492 decree of expulsion, few local Jews opted for leaving, with most preferring to convert instead, remaining as a non-fully assimilated converso community, subject to rejection by Old Christians. Likewise, adoption of Christianism by the mudéjar community facing the 1502 pragmatic law of forced conversion was also widespread. Seeking to protect its economic interests, the council actively promoted assimilation in the latter case by awarding tax and economic benefits, and gifts.

 

The 1520–21 Revolt of the Comuneros succeeded in Madrid, as, following contacts with the neighbouring city of Toledo, the comunero rebels deposed the corregidor, named Antonio de Astudillo, by 17 June 1520. Juan Zapata and Pedro de Montemayor found themselves among the most uncompromising supporters of the comunero cause in Madrid, with the former becoming the captain of the local militias while the later was captured by royalists and executed by late 1520. The end of revolt came through a negotiation, though, and another two of the leading figures of the uprising (the Bachelor Castillo and Juan Negrete) went unpunished.

 

Philip II (1527–1598), moved the court to Madrid in 1561. Although he made no official declaration, the seat of the court became the de facto capital. Unlikely to have more than 20,000 inhabitants by the time, the city grew approaching the 100,000 mark by the end of the 16th century. The population plummeted (reportedly reduced to a half) during the 5-year period the capital was set in Valladolid (1601–1606), with estimations of roughly 50–60,000 people leaving the city. The move (often framed in modern usage as a case of real estate speculation) was promoted by the valido of Philip III, Duke of Lerma, who had previously acquired many properties in Valladolid. Madrid undertook a mammoth cultural and economic crisis and the decimation of the price of housing ensued. Lerma acquired then cheap real estate in Madrid, and suggested the King to move back the capital to Madrid. The king finally accepted the additional 250,000 ducats offered by the town of Madrid in order to help financing the move of the royal court back to Madrid.

 

During the 17th century, Madrid had a estate-based society. The nobility, a quantitatively large group, swarmed around the royal court. The ecclesial hierarchy, featuring a nobiliary extraction, shared with the nobility the echelon of the Madrilenian society. The lower clergy, featuring a humble extraction, usually had a rural background, although clerics regular often required certifications of limpieza de sangre if not hidalguía. There were plenty of civil servants, who enjoyed considerable social prestige. There was a comparatively small number of craftsmen, traders and goldsmiths. Domestic staff was also common with servants such as pages, squires, butlers and also slaves (owned as symbol of social status). And lastly at the lowest end, there were homeless people, unemployed immigrants, and discharged soldiers and deserters.

 

During the 17th century, Madrid grew rapidly. The royal court attracted many of Spain's leading artists and writers to Madrid, including Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Velázquez during the so-called cultural Siglo de Oro.

 

By the end of the Ancient Regime, Madrid hosted a slave population, tentatively estimated to range from 6,000 to 15,000 out of total population larger than 150,000. Unlike the case of other Spanish cities, during the 18th century the slave population in Madrid was unbalanced in favour of males over females.

 

In 1739 Philip V began constructing new palaces, including the Palacio Real de Madrid. Under Charles III (1716–1788) that Madrid became a truly modern city. Charles III, who cleaned up the city and its government, became one of the most popular kings to rule Madrid, and the saying "the best mayor, the king" became widespread. Besides completing the Palacio Real, Charles III is responsible for many of Madrid's finest buildings and monuments, including the Prado and the Puerta de Alcalá.

 

Amid one of the worst subsistence crises of the Bourbon monarchy, the installation of news lanterns for the developing street lighting system—part of the new modernization policies of the Marquis of Esquilache, the new Sicilian minister—led to an increase on oil prices. This added to an increasing tax burden imposed on a populace already at the brink of famine.[42] In this context, following the enforcing of a ban of the traditional Spanish dress (long cape and a wide-brimmed hat) in order to facilitate the identification of criminal suspects, massive riots erupted in March 1766 in Madrid, the so-called "Mutiny of Esquilache".

 

During the second half of the 18th century, the increasing number of carriages brought a collateral increment of pedestrian accidents, forcing the authorities to take measures against traffic, limiting the number of animals per carriage (in order to reduce speed) and eventually decreeing the full ban of carriages in the city (1787).

 

On 27 October 1807, Charles IV and Napoleon signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau, which allowed French troops passage through Spanish territory to join Spanish troops and invade Portugal, which had refused to obey the order for an international blockade against England. In February 1808, Napoleon used the excuse that the blockade against England was not being respected at Portuguese ports to send a powerful army under his brother-in-law, General Joachim Murat. Contrary to the treaty, French troops entered via Catalonia, occupying the plazas along the way. Thus, throughout February and March 1808, cities such as Barcelona and Pamplona remained under French rule.

 

While all this was happening, the Mutiny of Aranjuez (17 March 1808) took place, led by Charles IV's own son, crown prince Ferdinand, and directed against him. Charles IV resigned and Ferdinand took his place as King Ferdinand VII. In May 1808, Napoleon's troops entered the city. On 2 May 1808 (Spanish: Dos de Mayo), the Madrileños revolted against the French forces, whose brutal behavior would have a lasting impact on French rule in Spain and France's image in Europe in general. Thus, Ferdinand VII returned to a city that had been occupied by Murat.

 

Both the king and his father became virtual prisoners of the French army. Napoleon, taking advantage of the weakness of the Bourbons, forced both, first the father and then the son, to meet him at Bayonne, where Ferdinand VII arrived on 20 April. Here Napoleon forced both kings to abdicate on 5 May, handing the throne to his brother Joseph Bonaparte.

 

On 2 May, the crowd began to concentrate at the Palacio Real and watched as the French soldiers removed the royal family members from the palace. On seeing the infante Francisco de Paula struggling with his captor, the crowd launched an assault on the carriages, shouting ¡Que se lo llevan! (They're taking him away from us!). French soldiers fired into the crowd. The fighting lasted for hours and is reflected in Goya's painting, The Second of May 1808, also known as The Charge of the Mamelukes.

 

Meanwhile, the Spanish military remained garrisoned and passive. Only the artillery barracks at Monteleón under Captain Luis Daoíz y Torres, manned by four officers, three NCOs and ten men, resisted. They were later reinforced by a further 33 men and two officers led by Pedro Velarde y Santillán, and distributed weapons to the civilian population. After repelling a first attack under French General Lefranc, both Spanish commanders died fighting heroically against reinforcements sent by Murat. Gradually, the pockets of resistance fell. Hundreds of Spanish men and women and French soldiers were killed in this skirmish.

 

On 12 August 1812, following the defeat of the French forces at Salamanca, English and Portuguese troops entered Madrid and surrounded the fortified area occupied by the French in the district of Retiro. Following two days of Siege warfare, the 1,700 French surrendered and a large store of arms, 20,000 muskets and 180 cannon, together with many other supplies were captured, along with two French Imperial Eagles.

 

"In the early years of this century, Madrid was a very ugly town, with few architectural monuments, with horrible housing."

 

Antonio Alcalá Galiano. Recuerdos de un anciano.

 

On 29 October, Hill received Wellington's positive order to abandon Madrid and march to join him. After a clash with Soult's advance guard at Perales de Tajuña on the 30th, Hill broke contact and withdrew in the direction of Alba de Tormes. Joseph re-entered his capital on 2 November.

 

After the war of independence Ferdinand VII returned to the throne (1814). The projects of reform by Joseph Bonaparte were abandoned; during the Fernandine period, despite the proposal of several architectural projects for the city, the lack of ability to finance those led to works often being postponed or halted.

 

After a liberal military revolution, Colonel Riego made the king swear to respect the Constitution. Liberal and conservative government thereafter alternated, ending with the enthronement of Isabella II.

 

At the time the reign of Isabella II started, the city was still enclosed behind its walls, featuring a relatively slow demographic growth as well as very high population density. After the 1833 administrative reforms for the country devised by Javier de Burgos (including the configuration of the current province of Madrid), Madrid was to become the capital of the new liberal state.

 

Madrid experienced substantial changes during the 1830s. The corregimiento and the corregidor (institutions from the Ancien Regime) were ended for good, giving rise to the constitutional alcalde in the context of the liberal transformations. Purged off from Carlist elements, the civil office and the military and palatial milieus recognised legitimacy to the dynastic rights of Isabella II.

 

The reforms enacted by Finance Minister Juan Álvarez Mendizábal in 1835–1836 led to the confiscation of ecclesiastical properties and the subsequent demolition of churches, convents and adjacent orchards in the city (similarly to other Spanish cities); the widening of streets and squares ensued.

 

In 1854, amid economic and political crisis, following the pronunciamiento of group of high officers commanded by Leopoldo O'Donnell garrisoned in the nearby town of Vicálvaro in June 1854 (the so-called "Vicalvarada"), the 7 July Manifesto of Manzanares, calling for popular rebellion, and the ousting of Luis José Sartorius from the premiership on 17 July, popular mutiny broke out in Madrid, asking for a real change of system, in what it was to be known as the Revolution of 1854. With the uprising in Madrid reaching its pinnacle on 17, 18 and 19 July, the rebels, who erected barricades in the streets, were bluntly crushed by the new government.

 

1858 was a marked year for the city with the arrival of the waters from the Lozoya. The Canal de Isabel II was inaugurated on 24 June 1858. A ceremony took place soon after in Calle Ancha de San Bernardo to celebrate it, unveiling a 30-metre-high water source in the middle of the street.

 

The plan for the Ensanche de Madrid ('widening of Madrid') by Carlos María de Castro was passed through a royal decree issued on 19 July 1860. The plan for urban expansion by Castro, a staunch Conservative, delivered a segregation of the well-off class, the middle class and the artisanate into different zones. The southern part of the Ensanche was at a disadvantage with respect to the rest of the Ensanche, insofar, located on the way to the river and at a lower altitude, it was a place of passage for the sewage runoff, thereby being described as a "space of urban degradation and misery". Beyond the Ensanches, slums and underclass neighborhoods were built in suburbs such as Tetuán, Prosperidad or Vallecas.

 

Student unrest took place in 1865 following the ministerial decree against the expression of ideas against the monarchy and the church and the forced removal of the rector of the Universidad Central, unwilling to submit. In a crescendo of protests, the night of 10 April 2,000 protesters clashed against the civil guard. The unrest was crudely quashed, leaving 14 deaths, 74 wounded students and 114 arrests (in what became known as the "Night of Saint Daniel"), becoming the precursor of more serious revolutionary attempts.

 

The Glorious Revolution resulting in the deposition of Queen Isabella II started with a pronunciamiento in the bay of Cádiz in September 1868. The success of the uprising in Madrid on 29 September prompted the French exile of the queen, who was on holiday in San Sebastián and was unable to reach the capital by train. General Juan Prim, the leader of the liberal progressives, was received by the Madrilenian people at his arrival to the city in early October in a festive mood. He pronounced his famous speech of the "three nevers" directed against the Bourbons, and delivered a highly symbolical hug to General Serrano, leader of the revolutionary forces triumphant in the 28 September battle of Alcolea, in the Puerta del Sol.

 

On 27 December 1870 the car in which General Prim, the prime minister, was travelling, was shot by unknown hit-men in the Turk Street, nearby the Congress of Deputies. Prim, wounded in the attack, died three days later, with the elected monarch Amadeus, Duke of Aosta, yet to swear the constitution.

 

The creation of the Salamanca–Sol–Pozas tram service in Madrid in 1871 meant the introduction of the first collective system of transportation in the city, predating the omnibus.

 

The economy of the city further modernized during the second half of the 19th century, consolidating its status as a service and financial centre. New industries were mostly focused in book publishing, construction and low-tech sectors. The introduction of railway transport greatly helped Madrid's economic prowess, and led to changes in consumption patterns (such as the substitution of salted fish for fresh fish from the Spanish coasts) as well as further strengthening the city's role as a logistics node in the country's distribution network.

 

The late 19th century saw the introduction of the electric power distribution. As by law, the city council could not concede an industrial monopoly to any company, the city experienced a huge competition among the companies in the electricity sector. The absence of a monopoly led to an overlapping of distribution networks, to the point that in the centre of Madrid 5 different networks could travel through the same street. Electric lighting in the streets was introduced in the 1890s.

 

By the end of the 19th century, the city featured access to water, a central status in the rail network, a cheap workforce and access to financial capital. With the onset of the new century, the Ensanche Sur (in the current day district of Arganzuela) started to grow to become the main industrial area of the municipality along the first half of the 20th century.

 

In the early 20th century Madrid undertook a major urban intervention in its city centre with the creation of the Gran Vía, a monumental thoroughfare (then divided in three segments with different names) whose construction slit the city from top to bottom with the demolition of multitude of housing and small streets. Anticipated in earlier projects, and following the signature of the contract, the works formally started in April 1910 with a ceremony led by King Alfonso XIII.

 

Also with the turn of the century, Madrid had become the cultural capital of Spain as centre of top knowledge institutions (the Central University, the Royal Academies, the Institución Libre de Enseñanza or the Ateneo de Madrid), also concentrating the most publishing houses and big daily newspapers, amounting for the bulk of the intellectual production in the country.

 

In 1919 the Madrid Metro (known as the Ferrocarril Metropolitano by that time) inaugurated its first service, which went from Sol to the Cuatro Caminos area.

 

In the 1919–1920 biennium Madrid witnessed the biggest wave of protests seen in the city up to that date, being the centre of innumerable strikes; despite being still surpassed by Barcelona's, the industrial city par excellence in that time, this cycle decisively set the foundations for the social unrest that took place in the 1930s in the city.

 

The situation the monarchy had left Madrid in 1931 was catastrophic, with tens of thousands of kids receiving no education and a huge rate of unemployment.

 

After the proclamation of the Second Republic on 14 April 1931 the citizens of Madrid understood the free access to the Casa de Campo (until then an enclosed property with exclusive access for the royalty), was a consequence of the fall of the monarchy, and informally occupied the area on 15 April. After the signing of a decree on 20 April which granted the area to the Madrilenian citizens in order to become a "park for recreation and instruction", the transfer was formally sealed on 6 May when Minister Indalecio Prieto formally delivered the Casa de Campo to Mayor Pedro Rico. The Spanish Constitution of 1931 was the first legislating on the state capital, setting it explicitly in Madrid. During the 1930s, Madrid enjoyed "great vitality"; it was demographically young, but also young in the sense of its relation with the modernity. During this time the prolongation of the Paseo de la Castellana towards the north was projected. The proclamation of the Republic slowed down the building of new housing. The tertiary sector gave thrust to the economy. Illiteracy rates were down to below 20%, and the city's cultural life grew notably during the so-called Silver Age of Spanish culture; the sales of newspaper also increased. Anti-clericalism and Catholicism lived side by side in Madrid; the burning of convents initiated after riots in the city in May 1931 worsened the political environment. The 1934 insurrection largely failed in Madrid.

 

In order to deal with the unemployment, the new Republican city council hired many jobless people as gardeners and street cleaners.

 

Prieto, who sought to turn the city into the "Great Madrid", capital of the Republic, charged Secundino Zuazo with the project for the opening of a south–north axis in the city through the northward enlargement of the Paseo de la Castellana and the construction of the Nuevos Ministerios administrative complex in the area (halted by the Civil War, works in the Nuevos Ministerios would finish in 1942). Works on the Ciudad Universitaria, already started during the monarchy in 1929, also resumed.

 

The military uprising of July 1936 was defeated in Madrid by a combination of loyal forces and workers' militias. On 20 July armed workers and loyal troops stormed the single focus of resistance, the Cuartel de La Montaña, defended by a contingent of 2,000 rebel soldiers accompanied by 500 falangists under the command of General Fanjul, killing over one hundred of rebels after their surrender. Aside from the Cuartel de la Montaña episode, the wider scheme for the coup in the capital largely failed both due to disastrous rebel planning and due to the Government delivering weapons to the people wanting to defend the Republic, with the city becoming a symbol of popular resistance, "the people in arms".

 

After the quelling of the coup d'état, from 1936–1939, Madrid remained under the control of forces loyal to the Republic. Following the seemingly unstoppable advance towards Madrid of rebel land troops, the first air bombings on Madrid also started. Immediately after the bombing of the nearing airports of Getafe and Cuatro Vientos, Madrid proper was bombed for the first time in the night of the 27–28 August 1936 by a Luftwaffe's Junkers Ju 52 that threw several bombs on the Ministry of War and the Station of the North. Madrid "was to become the first big European city to be bombed by aviation".

 

Rebel General Francisco Franco, recently given the supreme military command over his faction, took a detour in late September to "liberate" the besieged Alcázar de Toledo. Meanwhile, this operation gave time to the republicans in Madrid to build defenses and start receiving some foreign support.

 

The summer and autumn of 1936 saw the Republican Madrid witness of heavy-handed repression by communist and socialist groups, symbolised by the murder of prisoners in checas and sacas directed mostly against military personnel and leading politicians linked to the rebels, which, culminated by the horrific Paracuellos massacres in the context of a simultaneous major rebel offensive against the city, were halted by early December. Madrid, besieged from October 1936, saw a major offensive in its western suburbs in November of that year.

 

In the last weeks of the war, the collapse of the republic was speeded by Colonel Segismundo Casado, who, endorsed by some political figures such as Anarchist Cipriano Mera and Julián Besteiro, a PSOE leader who had held talks with the Falangist fifth column in the city, threw a military coup against the legitimate government under the pretext of excessive communist preponderance, propelling a mini-civil war in Madrid that, won by the casadistas, left roughly 2,000 casualties between 5–10 March 1939.

 

The city fell to the nationalists on 28 March 1939.

 

Following the onset of the Francoist dictatorship in the city, the absence of personal and associative freedoms and the heavy-hand repression of people linked to a republican past greatly deprived the city from social mobilization, trade unionism and intellectual life. This added to a climate of general shortage, with ration coupons rampant and a lingering autarchic economy lasting until the mid 1950s. Meat and fish consumption was scarce in Post-War Madrid, and starvation and lack of proteins were a cause of high mortality.

 

With the country ruined after the war, the Falange command had nonetheless high plans for the city and professionals sympathetic to the regime dreamed (based on an organicist conception) about the notion of building a body for the "Spanish greatness" placing a great emphasis in Madrid, what they thought to be the imperial capital of the New State. In this sense, urban planners sought to highlight and symbolically put in value the façade the city offered to the Manzanares River, the "Imperial Cornice", bringing projects to accompany the Royal Palace such as the finishing of the unfinished cathedral (with the start of works postponed to 1950 and ultimately finished in the late 20th century), a never-built "house of the Party" and many others. Nonetheless these delusions of grandeur caught up with reality and the scarcity during the Post-War and most of the projects ended up either filed, unfinished or mutilated, with the single clear success being the Gutiérrez Soto's Cuartel del Ejército del Aire.

 

The intense demographic growth experienced by the city via mass immigration from the rural areas of the country led to the construction of plenty of housing in the peripheral areas of the city to absorb the new population (reinforcing the processes of social polarization of the city), initially comprising substandard housing (with as many as 50,000 shacks scattered around the city by 1956). A transitional planning intended to temporarily replace the shanty towns were the poblados de absorción, introduced since the mid-1950s in locations such as Canillas, San Fermín, Caño Roto, Villaverde, Pan Bendito [es], Zofío and Fuencarral, aiming to work as a sort of "high-end" shacks (with the destinataries participating in the construction of their own housing) but under the aegis of a wider coordinated urban planning.

 

Together with the likes of Cairo, Santiago de Chile, Rome, Buenos Aires or Lisbon, Francoist Madrid became an important transnational hub of the global Neofascist network that facilitated the survival and resumption of (neo)fascist activities after 1945.

 

In the 1948–1954 period the municipality greatly increased in size through the annexation of 13 surrounding municipalities, as its total area went up from 68,42 km2 to 607,09 km2. The annexed municipalities were Chamartín de la Rosa (5 June 1948), Carabanchel Alto (29 April 1948), Carabanchel Bajo (29 April 1948), Canillas (30 March 1950), Canillejas (30 March 1950), Hortaleza (31 March 1950), Barajas (31 March 1950), Vallecas (22 December 1950), El Pardo (27 March 1951), Vicálvaro (20 October 1951), Fuencarral (20 October 1951) Aravaca (20 October 1951) and Villaverde (31 July 1954).

 

The population of the city peaked in 1975 at 3,228,057 inhabitants.

 

Benefiting from prosperity in the 1980s, Spain's capital city has consolidated its position as the leading economic, cultural, industrial, educational and technological center of the Iberian peninsula. The relative decline in population since 1975 reverted in the 1990s, with the city recovering a population of roughly 3 million inhabitants by the end of the 20th century.

 

Since the late 1970s and through the 1980s Madrid became the center of the cultural movement known as la Movida. Conversely, just like in the rest of the country, a heroin crisis took a toll in the poor neighborhoods of Madrid in the 1980s.

 

On 11 March 2004, three days before Spain's general elections and exactly 2 years and 6 months after the September 11 attacks in the US, Madrid was hit by a terrorist attack when Islamic terrorists belonging to an al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist cell placed a series of bombs on several trains during the morning rush hour, killing 191 people and injuring 1,800.

 

The administrations that followed Álvarez del Manzano's, also conservative, led by Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón and Ana Botella, launched three unsuccessful bids for the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympics. Madrid was a centre of the anti-austerity protests that erupted in Spain in 2011. As consequence of the spillover of the 2008 financial and mortgage crisis, Madrid has been affected by the increasing number of second-hand homes held by banks and house evictions. The mandate of left-wing Mayor Manuela Carmena (2015–2019) delivered the renaturalization of the course of the Manzanares across the city.

 

Since the late 2010s, the challenges the city faces include the increasingly unaffordable rental prices (often in parallel with the gentrification and the spike of tourist apartments in the city centre) and the profusion of betting shops in working-class areas, equalled to an "epidemics" among the young people.

View On Black

Shot it at a brick factory in West Bengal,India.

The conditions of women in India has, in many ways, worsened. Despite constitutional protection and assurances, their status is found to be lower than men. It is characterized by over-work, invasion of sexually exploitative market forces in society, illiteracy, sub-human physical living conditions, high fertility, high malnutrition and near women is discussed and early intervention for the girl is emphasized in order to improve the status of the women.

For more photos like this one.click MY SITE subirbasak.orgfree.com.....

the international phenomena

cell phones...................

in spite of the poverty, heat, malnutrition, disease ,slums, political corruption, illiteracy

lack of water and electricity black outs.

 

phones:?

 

Porvenir, SPM

 

Photography’s new conscience

linktr.ee/GlennLosack

linktr.ee/GlennLosack

  

glosack.wixsite.com/tbws

 

 

handcuffed

to

poverty

illiteracy

hunger

corruption

and

10000

other

dilemmas

 

as INDYA

votes

 

Delhi

 

Photography’s new conscience

linktr.ee/GlennLosack

linktr.ee/GlennLosack

  

glosack.wixsite.com/tbws

Welcome 2017.

Let us pray that it will be a year with peace, happiness and abundance of new friends.

 

Violence against women and girls is everyone's problem. It brings down an entire society. We are ALL touched by femicide in India. Census data shows that poverty and illiteracy are not key factors in India’s female genocide as many assume. The survival of girls is determined by a patriarchal politics of wealth control.

Save the Girl, Educate the Girl.

  

Photo: Firoz Ahmad at Barmer, Rajasthan_ CmF_Tata Trusts SHG.

 

She was tiny, intense, dramatic, perhaps tragic. Her name is Daniela Martia and I met her on the streets of Chinatown. She approached and asked for money. I think she had seen me give money to another woman just moments earlier. She was in a somewhat agitated state. I offered money as payment for a photograph. Possibly she is iliterate. I had trouble understanding her name at first and asked if she would write it in my notebook. She made an indecipherable squiggle. Not a signature. More like a child would make. If she is iliterate, she's certainly in the minority.The literacy rate in Cuba is 95%. January 1st 1961 Castro's governement declared that iliteracy would be wiped out within one year and hired thousands of teachers. Despite great scepticism & scoffing from foreigners, by Dec 1961 700,000 citizens had learned to read & write!

 

NB: Andy teaches Plastic Arts in elementary school. Told me he's paid $10 a month.

 

Downloading, I was surprised to discover that the 3 photos I 'd taken of Daniela had recorded a pronounced emotional transition ( shown here in the order I shot them).

 

Thanks everyone. Your input on previous pics has been terrific. Happy weekend!

  

View Large On Black

毛泽东（1893年12月26日-1976年9月9日），字润之（原作咏芝，后改润芝），笔名子任。湖南湘潭人。中国人民的领袖，伟大的马克思主义者，伟大的无产阶级革命家 [23] 、战略家、理论家，中国共产党、中国人民解放军和中华人民共和国的主要缔造者和领导人，马克思主义中国化的伟大开拓者，近代以来中国伟大的爱国者和民族英雄，中国共产党第一代中央领导集体的核心，领导中国人民彻底改变自己命运和国家面貌的一代伟人 [16] [23] 。

1949至1976年，毛泽东担任中华人民共和国最高领导人。他对马克思列宁主义的发展、军事理论的贡献以及对共产党的理论贡献被称为毛泽东思想。因毛泽东担任过的主要职务几乎全部称为主席，所以也被人们尊称为“毛主席”。

毛泽东被视为现代世界历史中最重要的人物之一，《时代》杂志也将他评为20世纪最具影响100人之一

  

Mao Zedong[a] (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC), which he led as the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from the establishment of the PRC in 1949 until his death in 1976. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, his theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism. Mao was the son of a prosperous peasant in Shaoshan, Hunan. He supported Chinese nationalism and had an anti-imperialist outlook early in his life, and was particularly influenced by the events of the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 and May Fourth Movement of 1919. He later adopted Marxism–Leninism while working at Peking University as a librarian and became a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), leading the Autumn Harvest Uprising in 1927. During the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the CCP, Mao helped to found the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, led the Jiangxi Soviet's radical land reform policies, and ultimately became head of the CCP during the Long March. Although the CCP temporarily allied with the KMT under the Second United Front during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), China's civil war resumed after Japan's surrender, and Mao's forces defeated the Nationalist government, which withdrew to Taiwan in 1949. On 1 October 1949, Mao proclaimed the foundation of the PRC, a Marxist–Leninist single-party state controlled by the CCP. In the following years he solidified his control through the Chinese Land Reform against landlords, the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries, the "Three-anti and Five-anti Campaigns", and through a psychological victory in the Korean War, which altogether resulted in the deaths of several million Chinese. From 1953 to 1958, Mao played an important role in enforcing planned economy in China, constructing the first Constitution of the PRC, launching the industrialisation program, and initiating military projects such as the "Two Bombs, One Satellite" project and Project 523. His foreign policies during this time were dominated by the Sino-Soviet split which drove a wedge between China and the Soviet Union. In 1955, Mao launched the Sufan movement, and in 1957 he launched the Anti-Rightist Campaign, in which at least 550,000 people, mostly intellectuals and dissidents, were persecuted. In 1958, he launched the Great Leap Forward that aimed to rapidly transform China's economy from agrarian to industrial, which led to the deadliest famine in history and the deaths of 15–55 million people between 1958 and 1962. In 1963, Mao launched the Socialist Education Movement, and in 1966 he initiated the Cultural Revolution, a program to remove "counter-revolutionary" elements in Chinese society which lasted 10 years and was marked by violent class struggle, widespread destruction of cultural artifacts, and an unprecedented elevation of Mao's cult of personality. Tens of millions of people were persecuted during the Revolution, while the estimated number of deaths ranges from hundreds of thousands to millions. After years of ill health, Mao suffered a series of heart attacks in 1976 and died at the age of 82. During Mao's era, China's population grew from around 550 million to over 900 million while the government did not strictly enforce its family planning policy.

A controversial figure within and outside China, Mao is still regarded as one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century. Beyond politics, Mao is also known as a theorist, military strategist, and poet. During the Mao era, China was heavily involved with other southeast Asian communist conflicts such as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cambodian Civil War, which brought the Khmer Rouge to power. The government during Mao's rule was responsible for vast numbers of deaths with estimates ranging from 40 to 80 million victims through starvation, persecution, prison labour, and mass executions. Mao has been praised for transforming China from a semi-colony to a leading world power, with greatly advanced literacy, women's rights, basic healthcare, primary education and life expectancy. During Mao's lifetime, the English-language media universally rendered his name as Mao Tse-tung, using the Wade-Giles system of transliteration for Standard Chinese though with the circumflex accent in the syllable Tsê dropped. Due to its recognizability, the spelling was used widely, even by the Foreign Ministry of the PRC after Hanyu Pinyin became the PRC's official romanisation system for Mandarin Chinese in 1958; the well-known booklet of Mao's political statements, The Little Red Book, was officially entitled Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung in English translations. While the pinyin-derived spelling Mao Zedong is increasingly common, the Wade-Giles-derived spelling Mao Tse-tung continues to be used in modern publications to some extent.Mao Zedong was born on 26 December 1893, in Shaoshan village, Hunan.His father, Mao Yichang, was a formerly impoverished peasant who had become one of the wealthiest farmers in Shaoshan. Growing up in rural Hunan, Mao described his father as a stern disciplinarian, who would beat him and his three siblings, the boys Zemin and Zetan, as well as an adopted girl, Zejian. Mao's mother, Wen Qimei, was a devout Buddhist who tried to temper her husband's strict attitude.[14] Mao too became a Buddhist, but abandoned this faith in his mid-teenage years. At age 8, Mao was sent to Shaoshan Primary School. Learning the value systems of Confucianism, he later admitted that he did not enjoy the classical Chinese texts preaching Confucian morals, instead favouring classic novels like Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin. At age 13, Mao finished primary education, and his father united him in an arranged marriage to the 17-year-old Luo Yixiu, thereby uniting their land-owning families. Mao refused to recognise her as his wife, becoming a fierce critic of arranged marriage and temporarily moving away. Luo was locally disgraced and died in 1910, at only 21 years old. While working on his father's farm, Mao read voraciously and developed a "political consciousness" from Zheng Guanying's booklet which lamented the deterioration of Chinese power and argued for the adoption of representative democracy.[18] Interested in history, Mao was inspired by the military prowess and nationalistic fervour of George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte. His political views were shaped by Gelaohui-led protests which erupted following a famine in Changsha, the capital of Hunan; Mao supported the protesters' demands, but the armed forces suppressed the dissenters and executed their leaders.[20] The famine spread to Shaoshan, where starving peasants seized his father's grain. He disapproved of their actions as morally wrong, but claimed sympathy for their situation. At age 16, Mao moved to a higher primary school in nearby Dongshan, where he was bullied for his peasant background. Inspired by Sun's republicanism, the army rose up across southern China, sparking the Xinhai Revolution. Changsha's governor fled, leaving the city in republican control.[29] Supporting the revolution, Mao joined the rebel army as a private soldier, but was not involved in fighting. The northern provinces remained loyal to the emperor, and hoping to avoid a civil war, Sun—proclaimed "provisional president" by his supporters—compromised with the monarchist general Yuan Shikai. The monarchy was abolished, creating the Republic of China, but the monarchist Yuan became president. The revolution over, Mao resigned from the army in 1912, after six months as a soldier. Around this time, Mao discovered socialism from a newspaper article; proceeding to read pamphlets by Jiang Kanghu, the student founder of the Chinese Socialist Party, Mao remained interested yet unconvinced by the idea. Mao moved to Beijing, where his mentor Yang Changji had taken a job at Peking University. Yang thought Mao exceptionally "intelligent and handsome",[ securing him a job as assistant to the university librarian Li Dazhao, who would become an early Chinese Communist. Li authored a series of New Youth articles on the October Revolution in Russia, during which the Communist Bolshevik Party under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin had seized power. Lenin was an advocate of the socio-political theory of Marxism, first developed by the German sociologists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and Li's articles added Marxism to the doctrines in Chinese revolutionary movement. Becoming "more and more radical", Mao was initially influenced by Peter Kropotkin's anarchism, which was the most prominent radical doctrine of the day. Chinese anarchists, such as Cai Yuanpei, Chancellor of Peking University, called for complete social revolution in social relations, family structure, and women's equality, rather than the simple change in the form of government called for by earlier revolutionaries. He joined Li's Study Group and "developed rapidly toward Marxism" during the winter of 1919.[51] Paid a low wage, Mao lived in a cramped room with seven other Hunanese students, but believed that Beijing's beauty offered "vivid and living compensation". A number of his friends took advantage of the anarchist-organised Mouvement Travail-Études to study in France, but Mao declined, perhaps because of an inability to learn languages. At the university, Mao was snubbed by other students due to his rural Hunanese accent and lowly position. He joined the university's Philosophy and Journalism Societies and attended lectures and seminars by the likes of Chen Duxiu, Hu Shih, and Qian Xuantong.[ Mao's time in Beijing ended in the spring of 1919, when he travelled to Shanghai with friends who were preparing to leave for France. He did not return to Shaoshan, where his mother was terminally ill. She died in October 1919 and her husband died in January 1920.On 4 May 1919, students in Beijing gathered at the Tiananmen to protest the Chinese government's weak resistance to Japanese expansion in China. Patriots were outraged at the influence given to Japan in the Twenty-One Demands in 1915, the complicity of Duan Qirui's Beiyang Government, and the betrayal of China in the Treaty of Versailles, wherein Japan was allowed to receive territories in Shandong which had been surrendered by Germany. These demonstrations ignited the nationwide May Fourth Movement and fuelled the New Culture Movement which blamed China's diplomatic defeats on social and cultural backwardness. In Changsha, Mao had begun teaching history at the Xiuye Primary School[ and organising protests against the pro-Duan Governor of Hunan Province, Zhang Jingyao, popularly known as "Zhang the Venomous" due to his corrupt and violent rule. In late May, Mao co-founded the Hunanese Student Association with He Shueng and Deng Zhongxia, organising a student strike for June and in July 1919 began production of a weekly radical magazine, Xiang River Review. Using vernacular language that would be understandable to the majority of China's populace, he advocated the need for a "Great Union of the Popular Masses", strengthened trade unions able to wage non-violent revolution.[clarification needed] His ideas were not Marxist, but heavily influenced by Kropotkin's concept of mutual aid. Students in Beijing rallying during the May Fourth Movement

Zhang banned the Student Association, but Mao continued publishing after assuming editorship of the liberal magazine New Hunan (Xin Hunan) and offered articles in popular local newspaper Ta Kung Pao. Several of these advocated feminist views, calling for the liberation of women in Chinese society; Mao was influenced by his forced arranged-marriage.[61] In December 1919, Mao helped organise a general strike in Hunan, securing some concessions, but Mao and other student leaders felt threatened by Zhang, and Mao returned to Beijing, visiting the terminally ill Yang Changji.[62] Mao found that his articles had achieved a level of fame among the revolutionary movement, and set about soliciting support in overthrowing Zhang.[63] Coming across newly translated Marxist literature by Thomas Kirkup, Karl Kautsky, and Marx and Engels—notably The Communist Manifesto—he came under their increasing influence, but was still eclectic in his views. Mao visited Tianjin, Jinan, and Qufu,[65] before moving to Shanghai, where he worked as a laundryman and met Chen Duxiu, noting that Chen's adoption of Marxism "deeply impressed me at what was probably a critical period in my life". In Shanghai, Mao met an old teacher of his, Yi Peiji, a revolutionary and member of the Kuomintang (KMT), or Chinese Nationalist Party, which was gaining increasing support and influence. Yi introduced Mao to General Tan Yankai, a senior KMT member who held the loyalty of troops stationed along the Hunanese border with Guangdong. Tan was plotting to overthrow Zhang, and Mao aided him by organising the Changsha students. In June 1920, Tan led his troops into Changsha, and Zhang fled. In the subsequent reorganisation of the provincial administration, Mao was appointed headmaster of the junior section of the First Normal School. Now receiving a large income, he married Yang Kaihui, daughter of Yang Changji, in the winter of 1920. The Chinese Communist Party was founded by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao in the French concession of Shanghai in 1921 as a study society and informal network. Mao set up a Changsha branch, also establishing a branch of the Socialist Youth Corps and a Cultural Book Society which opened a bookstore to propagate revolutionary literature throughout Hunan.[68] He was involved in the movement for Hunan autonomy, in the hope that a Hunanese constitution would increase civil liberties and make his revolutionary activity easier. When the movement was successful in establishing provincial autonomy under a new warlord, Mao forgot his involvement.[69] By 1921, small Marxist groups existed in Shanghai, Beijing, Changsha, Wuhan, Guangzhou, and Jinan; it was decided to hold a central meeting, which began in Shanghai on 23 July 1921. The first session of the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was attended by 13 delegates, Mao included. After the authorities sent a police spy to the congress, the delegates moved to a boat on South Lake near Jiaxing, in Zhejiang, to escape detection. Although Soviet and Comintern delegates attended, the first congress ignored Lenin's advice to accept a temporary alliance between the Communists and the "bourgeois democrats" who also advocated national revolution; instead they stuck to the orthodox Marxist belief that only the urban proletariat could lead a socialist revolution. Mao was now party secretary for Hunan stationed in Changsha, and to build the party there he followed a variety of tactics. In August 1921, he founded the Self-Study University, through which readers could gain access to revolutionary literature, housed in the premises of the Society for the Study of Wang Fuzhi, a Qing dynasty Hunanese philosopher who had resisted the Manchus. He joined the YMCA Mass Education Movement to fight illiteracy, though he edited the textbooks to include radical sentiments. He continued organising workers to strike against the administration of Hunan Governor Zhao Hengti. Yet labour issues remained central. The successful and famous Anyuan coal mines strikes [zh] (contrary to later Party historians) depended on both "proletarian" and "bourgeois" strategies. Liu Shaoqi and Li Lisan and Mao not only mobilised the miners, but formed schools and cooperatives and engaged local intellectuals, gentry, military officers, merchants, Red Gang dragon heads and even church clergy. Mao's labour organizing work in the Anyuan mines also involved his wife Yang Kaihui, who worked for women's rights, including literacy and educational issues, in the nearby peasant communities. Although Mao and Yang were not the originators of this political organizing method of combining labor organizing among male workers with a focus on women's rights issues in their communities, they were among the most effective at using this method. Mao's political organizing success in the Anyuan mines resulted in Chen Duxiu inviting him to become a member of the Communist Party's Central Committee. Mao claimed that he missed the July 1922 Second Congress of the Communist Party in Shanghai because he lost the address. Adopting Lenin's advice, the delegates agreed to an alliance with the "bourgeois democrats" of the KMT for the good of the "national revolution". Communist Party members joined the KMT, hoping to push its politics leftward. Mao enthusiastically agreed with this decision, arguing for an alliance across China's socio-economic classes, and eventually rose to become propaganda chief of the KMT. Mao was a vocal anti-imperialist and in his writings he lambasted the governments of Japan, the UK and US, describing the latter as "the most murderous of hangmen". At the Third Congress of the Communist Party in Shanghai in June 1923, the delegates reaffirmed their commitment to working with the KMT. Supporting this position, Mao was elected to the Party Committee, taking up residence in Shanghai. At the First KMT Congress, held in Guangzhou in early 1924, Mao was elected an alternate member of the KMT Central Executive Committee, and put forward four resolutions to decentralise power to urban and rural bureaus. His enthusiastic support for the KMT earned him the suspicion of Li Li-san, his Hunan comrade. In late 1924, Mao returned to Shaoshan, perhaps to recuperate from an illness. He found that the peasantry were increasingly restless and some had seized land from wealthy landowners to found communes. This convinced him of the revolutionary potential of the peasantry, an idea advocated by the KMT leftists but not the Communists. In the winter of 1925, Mao fled to Guangzhou after his revolutionary activities attracted the attention of Zhao's regional authorities. There, he ran the 6th term of the KMT's Peasant Movement Training Institute from May to September 1926. The Peasant Movement Training Institute under Mao trained cadre and prepared them for militant activity, taking them through military training exercises and getting them to study basic left-wing texts. In March 1927, Mao appeared at the Third Plenum of the KMT Central Executive Committee in Wuhan, which sought to strip General Chiang of his power by appointing Wang Jingwei leader. There, Mao played an active role in the discussions regarding the peasant issue, defending a set of "Regulations for the Repression of Local Bullies and Bad Gentry", which advocated the death penalty or life imprisonment for anyone found guilty of counter-revolutionary activity, arguing that in a revolutionary situation, "peaceful methods cannot suffice". In April 1927, Mao was appointed to the KMT's five-member Central Land Committee, urging peasants to refuse to pay rent. Mao led another group to put together a "Draft Resolution on the Land Question", which called for the confiscation of land belonging to "local bullies and bad gentry, corrupt officials, militarists and all counter-revolutionary elements in the villages". Proceeding to carry out a "Land Survey", he stated that anyone owning over 30 mou (four and a half acres), constituting 13% of the population, were uniformly counter-revolutionary. He accepted that there was great variation in revolutionary enthusiasm across the country, and that a flexible policy of land redistribution was necessary.[ Presenting his conclusions at the Enlarged Land Committee meeting, many expressed reservations, some believing that it went too far, and others not far enough. Ultimately, his suggestions were only partially implemented.

When party leader Sun Yat-sen died in May 1925, he was succeeded by Chiang Kai-shek, who moved to marginalise the left-KMT and the Communists. Mao nevertheless supported Chiang's National Revolutionary Army, who embarked on the Northern Expedition attack in 1926 on warlords. In the wake of this expedition, peasants rose up, appropriating the land of the wealthy landowners, who were in many cases killed. Such uprisings angered senior KMT figures, who were themselves landowners, emphasising the growing class and ideological divide within the revolutionary movement. Fresh from the success of the Northern Expedition against the warlords, Chiang turned on the Communists, who by now numbered in the tens of thousands across China. Chiang ignored the orders of the Wuhan-based left KMT government and marched on Shanghai, a city controlled by Communist militias. As the Communists awaited Chiang's arrival, he loosed the White Terror, massacring 5000 with the aid of the Green Gang.[90][93] In Beijing, 19 leading Communists were killed by Zhang Zuolin.[94][95] That May, tens of thousands of Communists and those suspected of being communists were killed, and the CCP lost approximately 15,000 of its 25,000 members.[95]

 

The CCP continued supporting the Wuhan KMT government, a position Mao initially supported,[95] but by the time of the CCP's Fifth Congress he had changed his mind, deciding to stake all hope on the peasant militia.[96] The question was rendered moot when the Wuhan government expelled all Communists from the KMT on 15 July.[96] The CCP founded the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of China, better known as the "Red Army", to battle Chiang. A battalion led by General Zhu De was ordered to take the city of Nanchang on 1 August 1927, in what became known as the Nanchang Uprising. They were initially successful, but were forced into retreat after five days, marching south to Shantou, and from there they were driven into the wilderness of Fujian.[96] Mao was appointed commander-in-chief of the Red Army and led four regiments against Changsha in the Autumn Harvest Uprising, in the hope of sparking peasant uprisings across Hunan. On the eve of the attack, Mao composed a poem—the earliest of his to survive—titled "Changsha". His plan was to attack the KMT-held city from three directions on 9 September, but the Fourth Regiment deserted to the KMT cause, attacking the Third Regiment. Mao's army made it to Changsha, but could not take it; by 15 September, he accepted defeat and with 1000 survivors marched east to the Jinggang Mountains of Jiangxi. The CCP Central Committee, hiding in Shanghai, expelled Mao from their ranks and from the Hunan Provincial Committee, as punishment for his "military opportunism", for his focus on rural activity, and for being too lenient with "bad gentry". The more orthodox Communists especially regarded the peasants as backward and ridiculed Mao's idea of mobilizing them.[67] They nevertheless adopted three policies he had long championed: the immediate formation of Workers' councils, the confiscation of all land without exemption, and the rejection of the KMT. Mao's response was to ignore them.[He established a base in Jinggangshan City, an area of the Jinggang Mountains, where he united five villages as a self-governing state, and supported the confiscation of land from rich landlords, who were "re-educated" and sometimes executed. He ensured that no massacres took place in the region, and pursued a more lenient approach than that advocated by the Central Committee. In addition to land redistribution, Mao promoted literacy and non-hierarchical organizational relationships in Jinggangshan, transforming the area's social and economic life and attracted many local supporters. Mao proclaimed that "Even the lame, the deaf and the blind could all come in useful for the revolutionary struggle", he boosted the army's numbers,[103] incorporating two groups of bandits into his army, building a force of around 1,800 troops.[104] He laid down rules for his soldiers: prompt obedience to orders, all confiscations were to be turned over to the government, and nothing was to be confiscated from poorer peasants. In doing so, he moulded his men into a disciplined, efficient fighting force. In spring 1928, the Central Committee ordered Mao's troops to southern Hunan, hoping to spark peasant uprisings. Mao was skeptical, but complied. They reached Hunan, where they were attacked by the KMT and fled after heavy losses. Meanwhile, KMT troops had invaded Jinggangshan, leaving them without a base.[107] Wandering the countryside, Mao's forces came across a CCP regiment led by General Zhu De and Lin Biao; they united, and attempted to retake Jinggangshan. They were initially successful, but the KMT counter-attacked, and pushed the CCP back; over the next few weeks, they fought an entrenched guerrilla war in the mountains.[105][108] The Central Committee again ordered Mao to march to south Hunan, but he refused, and remained at his base. Contrastingly, Zhu complied, and led his armies away. Mao's troops fended the KMT off for 25 days while he left the camp at night to find reinforcements. He reunited with the decimated Zhu's army, and together they returned to Jinggangshan and retook the base. There they were joined by a defecting KMT regiment and Peng Dehuai's Fifth Red Army. In the mountainous area they were unable to grow enough crops to feed everyone, leading to food shortages throughout the winter. In 1928, Mao met and married He Zizhen, an 18-year-old revolutionary who would bear him six children.. In January 1929, Mao and Zhu evacuated the base with 2,000 men and a further 800 provided by Peng, and took their armies south, to the area around Tonggu and Xinfeng in Jiangxi.[113] The evacuation led to a drop in morale, and many troops became disobedient and began thieving; this worried Li Lisan and the Central Committee, who saw Mao's army as lumpenproletariat, that were unable to share in proletariat class consciousness.[114][115] In keeping with orthodox Marxist thought, Li believed that only the urban proletariat could lead a successful revolution, and saw little need for Mao's peasant guerrillas; he ordered Mao to disband his army into units to be sent out to spread the revolutionary message. Mao replied that while he concurred with Li's theoretical position, he would not disband his army nor abandon his base.[115][116] Both Li and Mao saw the Chinese revolution as the key to world revolution, believing that a CCP victory would spark the overthrow of global imperialism and capitalism. In this, they disagreed with the official line of the Soviet government and Comintern. Officials in Moscow desired greater control over the CCP and removed Li from power by calling him to Russia for an inquest into his errors. They replaced him with Soviet-educated Chinese Communists, known as the "28 Bolsheviks", two of whom, Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian, took control of the Central Committee. Mao disagreed with the new leadership, believing they grasped little of the Chinese situation, and he soon emerged as their key rival. n February 1930, Mao created the Southwest Jiangxi Provincial Soviet Government in the region under his control. In November, he suffered emotional trauma after his second wife Yang Kaihui and sister were captured and beheaded by KMT general He Jian. Facing internal problems, members of the Jiangxi Soviet accused him of being too moderate, and hence anti-revolutionary. In December, they tried to overthrow Mao, resulting in the Futian incident, during which Mao's loyalists tortured many and executed between 2000 and 3000 dissenters.The CCP Central Committee moved to Jiangxi which it saw as a secure area. In November, it proclaimed Jiangxi to be the Soviet Republic of China, an independent Communist-governed state. Although he was proclaimed Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Mao's power was diminished, as his control of the Red Army was allocated to Zhou Enlai. Meanwhile, Mao recovered from tuberculosis. The KMT armies adopted a policy of encirclement and annihilation of the Red armies. Outnumbered, Mao responded with guerrilla tactics influenced by the works of ancient military strategists like Sun Tzu, but Zhou and the new leadership followed a policy of open confrontation and conventional warfare. In doing so, the Red Army successfully defeated the first and second encirclements.[128][129] Angered at his armies' failure, Chiang Kai-shek personally arrived to lead the operation. He too faced setbacks and retreated to deal with the further Japanese incursions into China.[126][130] As a result of the KMT's change of focus to the defence of China against Japanese expansionism, the Red Army was able to expand its area of control, eventually encompassing a population of 3 million. Mao proceeded with his land reform program. In November 1931 he announced the start of a "land verification project" which was expanded in June 1933. He also orchestrated education programs and implemented measures to increase female political participation. Chiang viewed the Communists as a greater threat than the Japanese and returned to Jiangxi, where he initiated the fifth encirclement campaign, which involved the construction of a concrete and barbed wire "wall of fire" around the state, which was accompanied by aerial bombardment, to which Zhou's tactics proved ineffective. Trapped inside, morale among the Red Army dropped as food and medicine became scarce. The leadership decided to evacuate. On 14 October 1934, the Red Army broke through the KMT line on the Jiangxi Soviet's south-west corner at Xinfeng with 85,000 soldiers and 15,000 party cadres and embarked on the "Long March". In order to make the escape, many of the wounded and the ill, as well as women and children, were left behind, defended by a group of guerrilla fighters whom the KMT massacred.[133][134] The 100,000 who escaped headed to southern Hunan, first crossing the Xiang River after heavy fighting,[ and then the Wu River, in Guizhou where they took Zunyi in January 1935. Temporarily resting in the city, they held a conference; here, Mao was elected to a position of leadership, becoming Chairman of the Politburo, and de facto leader of both Party and Red Army, in part because his candidacy was supported by Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. Insisting that they operate as a guerrilla force, he laid out a destination: the Shenshi Soviet in Shaanxi, Northern China, from where the Communists could focus on fighting the Japanese. Mao believed that in focusing on the anti-imperialist struggle, the Communists would earn the trust of the Chinese people, who in turn would renounce the KMT. From Zunyi, Mao led his troops to Loushan Pass, where they faced armed opposition but successfully crossed the river. Chiang flew into the area to lead his armies against Mao, but the Communists outmanoeuvred him and crossed the Jinsha River.[137] Faced with the more difficult task of crossing the Tatu River, they managed it by fighting a battle over the Luding Bridge in May, taking Luding.[138] Marching through the mountain ranges around Ma'anshan,[139] in Moukung, Western Szechuan, they encountered the 50,000-strong CCP Fourth Front Army of Zhang Guotao, and together proceeded to Maoerhkai and then Gansu. Zhang and Mao disagreed over what to do; the latter wished to proceed to Shaanxi, while Zhang wanted to retreat east to Tibet or Sikkim, far from the KMT threat. It was agreed that they would go their separate ways, with Zhu De joining Zhang.[140] Mao's forces proceeded north, through hundreds of kilometres of Grasslands, an area of quagmire where they were attacked by Manchu tribesman and where many soldiers succumbed to famine and disease.[141][142] Finally reaching Shaanxi, they fought off both the KMT and an Islamic cavalry militia before crossing the Min Mountains and Mount Liupan and reaching the Shenshi Soviet; only 7,000–8000 had survived.[142][143] The Long March cemented Mao's status as the dominant figure in the party. In November 1935, he was named chairman of the Military Commission. From this point onward, Mao was the Communist Party's undisputed leader, even though he would not become party chairman until 1943.. Mao's troops arrived at the Yan'an Soviet during October 1935 and settled in Pao An, until spring 1936. While there, they developed links with local communities, redistributed and farmed the land, offered medical treatment, and began literacy programs.[142][145][146] Mao now commanded 15,000 soldiers, boosted by the arrival of He Long's men from Hunan and the armies of Zhu De and Zhang Guotao returned from Tibet.[145] In February 1936, they established the North West Anti-Japanese Red Army University in Yan'an, through which they trained increasing numbers of new recruits.[147] In January 1937, they began the "anti-Japanese expedition", that sent groups of guerrilla fighters into Japanese-controlled territory to undertake sporadic attacks.[148][149] In May 1937, a Communist Conference was held in Yan'an to discuss the situation.[150] Western reporters also arrived in the "Border Region" (as the Soviet had been renamed); most notable were Edgar Snow, who used his experiences as a basis for Red Star Over China, and Agnes Smedley, whose accounts brought international attention to Mao's cause..On the Long March, Mao's wife He Zizen had been injured by a shrapnel wound to the head. She travelled to Moscow for medical treatment; Mao proceeded to divorce her and marry an actress, Jiang Qing.[152][153] He Zizhen was reportedly "dispatched to a mental asylum in Moscow to make room" for Qing.[154] Mao moved into a cave-house and spent much of his time reading, tending his garden and theorising.[155] He came to believe that the Red Army alone was unable to defeat the Japanese, and that a Communist-led "government of national defence" should be formed with the KMT and other "bourgeois nationalist" elements to achieve this goal.[156] Although despising Chiang Kai-shek as a "traitor to the nation",[157] on 5 May, he telegrammed the Military Council of the Nanking National Government proposing a military alliance, a course of action advocated by Stalin.[158] Although Chiang intended to ignore Mao's message and continue the civil war, he was arrested by one of his own generals, Zhang Xueliang, in Xi'an, leading to the Xi'an Incident; Zhang forced Chiang to discuss the issue with the Communists, resulting in the formation of a United Front with concessions on both sides on 25 December 1937. The Japanese had taken both Shanghai and Nanking (Nanjing)—resulting in the Nanking Massacre, an atrocity Mao never spoke of all his life—and was pushing the Kuomintang government inland to Chungking.[160] The Japanese's brutality led to increasing numbers of Chinese joining the fight, and the Red Army grew from 50,000 to 500,000.[161][162] In August 1938, the Red Army formed the New Fourth Army and the Eighth Route Army, which were nominally under the command of Chiang's National Revolutionary Army.[163] In August 1940, the Red Army initiated the Hundred Regiments Campaign, in which 400,000 troops attacked the Japanese simultaneously in five provinces. It was a military success that resulted in the death of 20,000 Japanese, the disruption of railways and the loss of a coal mine.[162][164] From his base in Yan'an, Mao authored several texts for his troops, including Philosophy of Revolution, which offered an introduction to the Marxist theory of knowledge; Protracted Warfare, which dealt with guerrilla and mobile military tactics; and New Democracy, which laid forward ideas for China's future. In 1944, the U.S. sent a special diplomatic envoy, called the Dixie Mission, to the Chinese Communist Party. The American soldiers who were sent to the mission were favourably impressed. The party seemed less corrupt, more unified, and more vigorous in its resistance to Japan than the Kuomintang. The soldiers confirmed to their superiors that the party was both strong and popular over a broad area.[166] In the end of the mission, the contacts which the U.S. developed with the Chinese Communist Party led to very little.[166] After the end of World War II, the U.S. continued their diplomatic and military assistance to Chiang Kai-shek and his KMT government forces against the People's Liberation Army (PLA) led by Mao Zedong during the civil war and abandoned the idea of a coalition government which would include the CCP.[167] Likewise, the Soviet Union gave support to Mao by occupying north-eastern China, and secretly giving it to the Chinese communists in March 1946. In 1948, under direct orders from Mao, the People's Liberation Army starved out the Kuomintang forces occupying the city of Changchun. At least 160,000 civilians are believed to have perished during the siege, which lasted from June until October. PLA lieutenant colonel Zhang Zhenglu, who documented the siege in his book White Snow, Red Blood, compared it to Hiroshima: "The casualties were about the same. Hiroshima took nine seconds; Changchun took five months."[169] On 21 January 1949, Kuomintang forces suffered great losses in decisive battles against Mao's forces.[170] In the early morning of 10 December 1949, PLA troops laid siege to Chongqing and Chengdu on mainland China, and Chiang Kai-shek fled from the mainland to Formosa (Taiwan). Mao proclaimed the establishment of The People's Republic of China from the Gate of Heavenly Peace (Tian'anmen) on 1 October 1949, and later that week declared "The Chinese people have stood up" (中国人民从此站起来了).[172] Mao went to Moscow for long talks in the winter of 1949–50. Mao initiated the talks which focused on the political and economic revolution in China, foreign policy, railways, naval bases, and Soviet economic and technical aid. The resulting treaty reflected Stalin's dominance and his willingness to help Mao. Mao pushed the Party to organise campaigns to reform society and extend control. These campaigns were given urgency in October 1950, when Mao made the decision to send the People's Volunteer Army, a special unit of the People's Liberation Army, into the Korean War and fight as well as to reinforce the armed forces of North Korea, the Korean People's Army, which had been in full retreat. The United States placed a trade embargo on the People's Republic as a result of its involvement in the Korean War, lasting until Richard Nixon's improvements of relations. At least 180 thousand Chinese troops died during the war.. Mao directed operations to the minutest detail. As the Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), he was also the Supreme Commander in Chief of the PLA and the People's Republic and Chairman of the Party. Chinese troops in Korea were under the overall command of then newly installed Premier Zhou Enlai, with General Peng Dehuai as field commander and political commissar.. During the land reform campaigns, large numbers of landlords and rich peasants were beaten to death at mass meetings organised by the Communist Party as land was taken from them and given to poorer peasants, which significantly reduced economic inequality.[177][178] The Campaign to Suppress Counter-revolutionaries[179] targeted bureaucratic burgeoisie, such as compradores, merchants and Kuomintang officials who were seen by the party as economic parasites or political enemies.[180] In 1976, the U.S. State department estimated as many as a million were killed in the land reform, and 800,000 killed in the counter-revolutionary campaign.Mao himself claimed that a total of 700,000 people were killed in attacks on "counter-revolutionaries" during the years 1950–1952.[182] Because there was a policy to select "at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution",[183] the number of deaths range between 2 million[183][184][179] and 5 million.[185][186] In addition, at least 1.5 million people,[187] perhaps as many as 4 to 6 million,[188] were sent to "reform through labour" camps where many perished.[188] Mao played a personal role in organising the mass repressions and established a system of execution quotas,[189] which were often exceeded.[179] He defended these killings as necessary for the securing of power.The Mao government is credited with eradicating both consumption and production of opium during the 1950s using unrestrained repression and social reform.[7][191] Ten million addicts were forced into compulsory treatment, dealers were executed, and opium-producing regions were planted with new crops. Remaining opium production shifted south of the Chinese border into the Golden Triangle region. Starting in 1951, Mao initiated two successive movements in an effort to rid urban areas of corruption by targeting wealthy capitalists and political opponents, known as the three-anti/five-anti campaigns. Whereas the three-anti campaign was a focused purge of government, industrial and party officials, the five-anti campaign set its sights slightly broader, targeting capitalist elements in general. Workers denounced their bosses, spouses turned on their spouses, and children informed on their parents; the victims were often humiliated at struggle sessions, where a targeted person would be verbally and physically abused until they confessed to crimes. Mao insisted that minor offenders be criticised and reformed or sent to labour camps, "while the worst among them should be shot". In January 1958, Mao launched the second Five-Year Plan, known as the Great Leap Forward, a plan intended to turn China from an agrarian nation to an industrialised one and as an alternative model for economic growth to the Soviet model focusing on heavy industry that was advocated by others in the party. Under this economic program, the relatively small agricultural collectives that had been formed to date were rapidly merged into far larger people's communes, and many of the peasants were ordered to work on massive infrastructure projects and on the production of iron and steel. Some private food production was banned, and livestock and farm implements were brought under collective ownership. Under the Great Leap Forward, Mao and other party leaders ordered the implementation of a variety of unproven and unscientific new agricultural techniques by the new communes. The combined effect of the diversion of labour to steel production and infrastructure projects, and cyclical natural disasters led to an approximately 15% drop in grain production in 1959 followed by a further 10% decline in 1960 and no recovery in 1961. In an effort to win favour with their superiors and avoid being purged, each layer in the party exaggerated the amount of grain produced under them. Based upon the falsely reported success, party cadres were ordered to requisition a disproportionately high amount of that fictitious harvest for state use, primarily for use in the cities and urban areas but also for export. The result, compounded in some areas by drought and in others by floods, was that farmers were left with little food for themselves and many millions starved to death in the Great Chinese Famine. The people of urban areas in China were given food stamps each month, but the people of rural areas were expected to grow their own crops and give some of the crops back to the government. The death count in rural parts of China surpassed the deaths in the urban centers. Additionally, the Chinese government continued to export food that could have been allocated to the country's starving citizens.[204] The famine was a direct cause of the death of some 30 million Chinese peasants between 1959 and 1962.[205] Furthermore, many children who became malnourished during years of hardship died after the Great Leap Forward came to an end in 1962.In late autumn 1958, Mao condemned the practices that were being used during Great Leap Forward such as forcing peasants to do exhausting labour without enough food or rest which resulted in epidemics and starvation. He also acknowledged that anti-rightist campaigns were a major cause of "production at the expense of livelihood." He refused to abandon the Great Leap Forward to solve these difficulties, but he did demand that they be confronted. After the July 1959 clash at Lushan Conference with Peng Dehuai, Mao launched a new anti-rightist campaign along with the radical policies that he previously abandoned. It wasn't until the spring of 1960, that Mao would again express concern about abnormal deaths and other abuses, but he did not move to stop them. Bernstein concludes that the Chairman "wilfully ignored the lessons of the first radical phase for the sake of achieving extreme ideological and developmental goals" Mao stepped down as President of China on 27 April 1959.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong

 

1961年

毛泽东像集（七）

毛泽东像集（七）(19张)

1月14日至18日，主持召开中共八届九中全会，号召大兴调查研究之风。这次会议正式批准了调整国民经济的八字方针。会后组织和领导三个调查组，深入浙江、湖南、广东农村调查研究。

5月21日至6月12日，主持召开中共中央工作会议，讨论修改《农村人民公社工作条例（草案）》（即农业六十条）。其中规定，取消供给制；办不办食堂，完全由社员讨论决定。

8月23日至9月16日，在庐山主持召开中共中央工作会议，讨论工业、粮食、财贸、教育等问题。会议强调切实地执行调整经济的八字方针。

9月29日，提出“三级所有，队为基础”，将农村人民公社的基本核算单位下放到生产队。 [10]

1962年

1月11日至2月7日，主持召开中共扩大的中央工作会议（又称“七千人大会”），作关于民主集中制问题的重要讲话。

7月至9月，在北戴河、北京先后召开中共中央工作会议和八届十中全会，批判所谓“黑暗风”、“单干风”、“翻案风”，作关于阶级、形势、矛盾和党内团结问题的讲话，进一步发展了关于阶级斗争是社会主义社会的主要矛盾的错误论点。

1963年

2月11日至28日，召开中共中央工作会议，会议确定在农村普遍进行“四清”运动和城市开展“五反”运动。

3月5日，在《人民日报》发表题词“向雷锋同志学习”。

5月，在杭州主持制定《中共中央关于目前农村工作若干问题的决定（草案）》（简称“前十条”），作为指导农村“四清”的纲领性文件。

12月16日，听取聂荣臻关于科学技术十年规划的汇报，指出：不搞科学技术，生产力无法提高。

12月，作出关于文艺工作的第一个批示。

1964年

2月13日，召集教育工作座谈会，提出改革教育体制的设想。

5月，在听取关于第三个五年计划的汇报时，提出两个拳头（农业、国防）一个屁股（基础工业）的思想；还提出把全国划分为一、二、三线的战略布局。

6月15日和16日，观看北京、济南部队军事训练汇报表演。

6月16日，在北京十三陵召开的小型会议上，作关于培养无产阶级革命事业接班人的讲话。

6月，再次对文艺工作作批示，文艺界进而扩大到意识形态其他领域，错误地开展了过火的政治批判。

10月16日，中国第一颗原子弹爆炸成功。

12月15日至28日，主持召开中央工作会议，讨论制定《农村社会主义教育运动中目前提出的一些问题》（简称“二十三条”），部分地纠正“四清”运动中“左”的做法，但错误地提出“运动的重点是整党内那些走资本主义道路的当权派”。 [12]

1965年

5月22日至29日，重上井冈山。

7月27日，会见从海外归来的原国民党政府代总统李宗仁和夫人。

11月初，批准发表《评新编历史剧〈海瑞罢官〉》一文，揭开“文化大革命”的序幕。

1966年

3月12日，致信刘少奇，提出“备战备荒为人民”。

3月底，错误地指责由彭真主持制定的文化革命五人小组《关于当前学术讨论的汇报提纲》。 [12]

5月7日，作出“五·七指示”，提出人民解放军“应该是一个大学校”，各行各业要以本业为主，“兼学别样”，“教育要革命”等。

5月16日，中共中央政治局扩大会议通过毛泽东主持制定的《中国共产党中央委员会通知》，对当时党和国家政治形势作了严重错误的估计。

8月1日至12日，主持召开中共八届十一中全会，通过《关于无产阶级文化大革命的决定》。会议期间，印发了毛泽东5日写的《炮打司令部——我的一张大字报》，不点名地批评了刘少奇、邓小平。5月的中央政治局扩大会议和这次会议的召开，是“文化大革命”全面发动的标志。

8月18日至11月26日，在北京先后八次接见来自全国各地的院校师生和红卫兵。

1967年

1月，对上海“一月革命”表示支持。此后夺权之风遍及全国。

1月23日，批示发出《中国人民解放军坚决支持革命左派群众的决定》。

2月11日和16日，谭震林、陈毅、叶剑英、李富春、李先念、徐向前、聂荣臻等不满林彪、江青一伙的倒行逆施，对“文化大革命”的错误做法提出了强烈的批评，是为“大闹怀仁堂”。毛泽东在听取了中央文革小组的汇报后，表示很不满意。 [12]

6月17日，中国第一颗氢弹爆炸成功。

7月至9月，视察华北、中南和华东地区，号召“实现革命的大联合”，指出“正确地对待干部”。

8月底，批准对中央文革小组成员王力、关锋实行隔离审查。1968年1月，又对戚本禹实行隔离审查。

1968年

1月16日，对江青等人送来的所谓“伍豪等脱离共产党启事”等材料作出重要批示：“此事早已弄清，是国民党造谣污蔑”，使他们诬陷周恩来的图谋未能得逞。

10月13日至31日，主持召开中共八届十二中全会，在极不正常的情况下，通过诬陷刘少奇并开除他的党籍的错误决定。 [12]

12月22日，“知识青年到农村去，接受贫下中农的再教育，很有必要”的指示，在《人民日报》发表，知识青年上山下乡的热潮由此开始。

1969年

4月1日至24日，主持召开中国共产党第九次全国代表大会，批准“文化大革命”的错误理论和实践，并把林彪定为接班人写入党章。 [13]

4月28日，在中共九届一中全会上再次当选为中央委员会主席。

1970年

4月24日，中国第一颗人造地球卫星发射成功。

5月20日，发表《全世界人民团结起来，打败美国侵略者及其一切走狗！》的声明。

8月23日至9月6日，在庐山主持召开中共九届二中全会，写《我的一点意见》，揭露挫败林彪、陈伯达企图抢班夺权的阴谋。

12月18日，会见美国友人斯诺，表示欢迎美国总统尼克松来华访问。

1971-1976年

1971年

8月至9月，在南方巡视期间，同当地党政军负责人多次谈话，揭露林彪的阴谋。途中机警地几次变更行动计划，于9月12日回到北京，粉碎林彪集团的反革命武装政变阴谋。

9月13日，同周恩来等果断地处理林彪叛逃事件。在周恩来请示要不要拦截林彪座机时，毛泽东表示：“由他去吧”。

10月25日，第二十六届联合国大会以压倒多数通过决议，恢复中华人民共和国在联合国的一切合法权利，把蒋介石集团的代表驱逐出去。

11月14日，接见参加成都地区座谈会的同志，为所谓“二月逆流”平反。

1972年

1月10日，参加陈毅的追悼会。

2月21日，会见来华访问的美国总统尼克松；28日，中美双方在上海发表联合公报，决定实现中美两国关系正常化。

9月27日，会见日本内阁总理大臣田中角荣；29日，中日两国政府发表联合声明，宣布实现中日邦交正常化，正式建立外交关系。

1973年

3月，提议恢复邓小平的国务院副总理职务。

8月24日至28日，主持召开中国共产党第十次全国代表大会，使一批老一辈无产阶级革命家重新进入中央委员会，但同时江青集团的势力也得到加强。

8月30日，在中共十届一中全会上当选中央委员会主席。

12月，提出邓小平担任中共中央政治局委员、人民解放军总参谋长。还提出要给贺龙、罗瑞卿、杨成武、余立金、傅崇碧平反。

1974年

1月18日，批准转发《林彪与孔孟之道》材料。“批林批孔”运动由此开始。

2月22日，会见赞比亚总统卡翁达，谈话中提出“三个世界”划分的思想。

7月17日，在中共中央政治局会议上批评王洪文、张春桥、江青、姚文元搞帮派活动，第一次提出“四人帮”问题。

9月29日，经毛泽东批准，中共中央为贺龙平反。

10月4日，提议由邓小平担任国务院第一副总理职务。

11月12日，对江青来信作批示，批评她的“组阁”野心，明确指出“不要由你组阁（当后台老板）”。

1975年

1月13日至17日，第四届全国人民代表大会第一次会议在北京举行，会议重申在本世纪内实现四个现代化，选出以朱德为委员长的全国人大常务委员会组成人员，任命周恩来为总理、邓小平等为副总理的国务院组成人员。会后，周恩来病重，国务院工作实际由邓小平主持。

2月，在毛泽东支持下，邓小平开始领导对铁路、教育等方面的调整整顿工作。

5月3日，召集在北京的中共中央政治局委员谈话，强调要搞马列主义，要团结，要光明正大，再次批评“四人帮”。

7月14日，对文艺问题发表谈话，指出党的文艺政策应该调整。

11月下旬，审阅批准《打招呼的讲话要点》，错误地发动所谓“批邓、反击右倾翻案风”运动。 [13]

1976年

1月8日，周恩来在北京逝世。

1月21日、28日，先后提议华国锋任国务院代总理和主持中央日常工作。

3月下旬至4月5日，北京市上百万群众连续几天自发到天安门广场，献花圈、诗词，悼念周恩来，声讨“四人帮”。毛泽东错误地批准了否定“天安门事件”的报告 [13] 。

4月7日，根据毛泽东提议，中共中央政治局通过《中共中央关于华国锋同志任中共中央第一副主席、国务院总理的决议》和《关于撤销邓小平党内外一切职务的决议》。

9月9日，在北京逝世。

 

baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%AF%9B%E6%B3%BD%E4%B8%9C/113835

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until his death in 1924, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia, and later the Soviet Union, became a one-party socialist state governed by the Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Leninism.

 

Born to a schoolteacher's family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brother's 1887 execution. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Tsarist government, he devoted the following years to a law degree. He relocated to Saint Petersburg in 1893 where he became a senior Marxist activist. In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye in Siberia for three years, where he married Nadezhda Krupskaya. After his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent theorist in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In 1903, he took a key role in the RSDLP ideological split, leading the Bolshevik faction against Julius Martov's Mensheviks. Following Russia's failed Revolution of 1905, he initially campaigned for the First World War to be transformed into a Europe-wide proletarian revolution, which, as a Marxist, he believed would cause the overthrow of capitalism and the rise of socialism. After the 1917 February Revolution ousted the Tsar and established a Provisional Government, he returned to Russia and played a leading role in the October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the new government.

 

Lenin's Bolshevik government initially shared power with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, elected soviets, and a multi-party Constituent Assembly, although by 1918 it had centralised power in the new Communist Party. Lenin's administration redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalised banks and large-scale industry. It withdrew from the First World War by signing a treaty conceding territory to the Central Powers, and promoted world revolution through the Communist International. Opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror, a violent campaign administered by the state security services; tens of thousands were killed or interned in concentration camps. His administration defeated right and left-wing anti-Bolshevik armies in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922 and oversaw the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921. Responding to wartime devastation, famine, and popular uprisings, in 1921 Lenin encouraged economic growth through the New Economic Policy. Several non-Russian nations had secured independence from Russia after 1917, but five were forcibly re-united into the new Soviet Union in 1922, while others repelled Soviet invasions. His health failing, Lenin died in Gorki, with Joseph Stalin succeeding him as the pre-eminent figure in the Soviet government.

 

Widely considered one of the most significant and influential figures of the 20th century, Lenin was the posthumous subject of a pervasive personality cult within the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991. He became an ideological figurehead behind Marxism–Leninism and a prominent influence over the international communist movement. A controversial and highly divisive historical figure, Lenin is viewed by his supporters as a champion of socialism, communism, anti-imperialism and the working class, while his critics accuse him of establishing a totalitarian dictatorship that oversaw mass killings and political repression of dissidents.

 

University and political radicalisation: 1887–1893

Upon entering Kazan University in August 1887, Lenin moved into a nearby flat. There, he joined a zemlyachestvo, a form of university society that represented the men of a particular region. This group elected him as its representative to the university's zemlyachestvo council, and he took part in a December demonstration against government restrictions that banned student societies. The police arrested Lenin and accused him of being a ringleader in the demonstration; he was expelled from the university, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs exiled him to his family's Kokushkino estate. There, he read voraciously, becoming enamoured with Nikolay Chernyshevsky's 1863 pro-revolutionary novel What Is to Be Done?

 

Lenin's mother was concerned by her son's radicalisation, and was instrumental in convincing the Interior Ministry to allow him to return to the city of Kazan, but not the university. On his return, he joined Nikolai Fedoseev's revolutionary circle, through which he discovered Karl Marx's 1867 book Capital. This sparked his interest in Marxism, a socio-political theory that argued that society developed in stages, that this development resulted from class struggle, and that capitalist society would ultimately give way to socialist society and then communist society. Wary of his political views, Lenin's mother bought a country estate in Alakaevka village, Samara Oblast, in the hope that her son would turn his attention to agriculture. He had little interest in farm management, and his mother soon sold the land, keeping the house as a summer home.

 

In September 1889, the Ulyanov family moved to the city of Samara, where Lenin joined Alexei Sklyarenko's socialist discussion circle. There, Lenin fully embraced Marxism and produced a Russian language translation of Marx and Friedrich Engels's 1848 political pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto. He began to read the works of the Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov, agreeing with Plekhanov's argument that Russia was moving from feudalism to capitalism and so socialism would be implemented by the proletariat, or urban working class, rather than the peasantry. This Marxist perspective contrasted with the view of the agrarian-socialist Narodnik movement, which held that the peasantry could establish socialism in Russia by forming peasant communes, thereby bypassing capitalism. This Narodnik view developed in the 1860s with the People's Freedom Party and was then dominant within the Russian revolutionary movement. Lenin rejected the premise of the agrarian-socialist argument but was influenced by agrarian-socialists like Pyotr Tkachev and Sergei Nechaev and befriended several Narodniks.

 

In May 1890, Maria, who retained societal influence as the widow of a nobleman, persuaded the authorities to allow Lenin to take his exams externally at the University of St Petersburg, where he obtained the equivalent of a first-class degree with honours. The graduation celebrations were marred when his sister Olga died of typhoid. Lenin remained in Samara for several years, working first as a legal assistant for a regional court and then for a local lawyer. He devoted much time to radical politics, remaining active in Sklyarenko's group and formulating ideas about how Marxism applied to Russia. Inspired by Plekhanov's work, Lenin collected data on Russian society, using it to support a Marxist interpretation of societal development and counter the claims of the Narodniks. He wrote a paper on peasant economics; it was rejected by the liberal journal Russian Thought.

 

Revolutionary activity

Early activism and imprisonment: 1893–1900

In late 1893, Lenin moved to Saint Petersburg. There, he worked as a barrister's assistant and rose to a senior position in a Marxist revolutionary cell that called itself the Social-Democrats after the Marxist Social Democratic Party of Germany. Championing Marxism within the socialist movement, he encouraged the founding of revolutionary cells in Russia's industrial centres. By late 1894, he was leading a Marxist workers' circle, and meticulously covered his tracks to evade police spies. He began a romantic relationship with Nadezhda "Nadya" Krupskaya, a Marxist schoolteacher. He also authored a political tract criticising the Narodnik agrarian-socialists, What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats; around 200 copies were illegally printed in 1894.

 

Hoping to cement connections between his Social-Democrats and Emancipation of Labour, a group of Russian Marxists based in Switzerland, Lenin visited the country to meet group members Plekhanov and Pavel Axelrod. He proceeded to Paris to meet Marx's son-in-law Paul Lafargue and to research the Paris Commune of 1871, which he considered an early prototype for a proletarian government. Financed by his mother, he stayed in a Swiss health spa before travelling to Berlin, where he studied for six weeks at the Staatsbibliothek and met the Marxist Wilhelm Liebknecht. Returning to Russia with a stash of illegal revolutionary publications, he travelled to various cities distributing literature to striking workers. While involved in producing a news sheet, Rabochee delo (Workers' Cause), he was among 40 activists arrested in St. Petersburg and charged with sedition.

 

Refused legal representation or bail, Lenin denied all charges against him but remained imprisoned for a year before sentencing. He spent this time theorising and writing. In this work he noted that the rise of industrial capitalism in Russia had caused large numbers of peasants to move to the cities, where they formed a proletariat. From his Marxist perspective, Lenin argued that this Russian proletariat would develop class consciousness, which would in turn lead them to violently overthrow tsarism, the aristocracy, and the bourgeoisie and to establish a proletariat state that would move toward socialism.

 

In February 1897, Lenin was sentenced without trial to three years' exile in eastern Siberia. He was granted a few days in Saint Petersburg to put his affairs in order and used this time to meet with the Social-Democrats, who had renamed themselves the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. His journey to eastern Siberia took 11 weeks, for much of which he was accompanied by his mother and sisters. Deemed only a minor threat to the government, he was exiled to Shushenskoye, Minusinsky District, where he was kept under police surveillance; he was nevertheless able to correspond with other revolutionaries, many of whom visited him, and permitted to go on trips to swim in the Yenisei River and to hunt duck and snipe.

 

In May 1898, Nadya joined him in exile, having been arrested in August 1896 for organising a strike. She was initially posted to Ufa, but persuaded the authorities to move her to Shushenskoye, where she and Lenin married on 10 July 1898. Settling into a family life with Nadya's mother Elizaveta Vasilyevna, in Shushenskoye the couple translated English socialist literature into Russian. There, Lenin wrote A Protest by Russian Social-Democrats to criticise German Marxist revisionists like Eduard Bernstein who advocated a peaceful, electoral path to socialism. He also finished The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899), his longest book to date, which criticised the agrarian-socialists and promoted a Marxist analysis of Russian economic development. Published under the pseudonym of Vladimir Ilin, upon publication it received predominantly poor reviews.

 

Munich, London, and Geneva: 1900–1905

After his exile, Lenin settled in Pskov in early 1900. There, he began raising funds for a newspaper, Iskra (Spark), a new organ of the Russian Marxist party, now calling itself the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In July 1900, Lenin left Russia for Western Europe; in Switzerland he met other Russian Marxists, and at a Corsier conference they agreed to launch the paper from Munich, where Lenin relocated in September. Containing contributions from prominent European Marxists, Iskra was smuggled into Russia, becoming the country's most successful underground publication for 50 years. He first adopted the pseudonym Lenin in December 1901, possibly based on the Siberian River Lena; he often used the fuller pseudonym of N. Lenin, and while the N did not stand for anything, a popular misconception later arose that it represented Nikolai. Under this pseudonym, in 1902 he published his most influential publication to date, the pamphlet What Is to Be Done?, which outlined his thoughts on the need for a vanguard party to lead the proletariat to revolution.

 

Nadya joined Lenin in Munich and became his secretary. They continued their political agitation, as Lenin wrote for Iskra and drafted the RSDLP programme, attacking ideological dissenters and external critics, particularly the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR),[ a Narodnik agrarian-socialist group founded in 1901. Despite remaining a Marxist, he accepted the Narodnik view on the revolutionary power of the Russian peasantry, accordingly, penning the 1903 pamphlet To the Village Poor. To evade Bavarian police, Lenin moved to London with Iskra in April 1902, where he befriended fellow Russian-Ukrainian Marxist Leon Trotsky. Lenin fell ill with erysipelas and was unable to take such a leading role on the Iskra editorial board; in his absence, the board moved its base of operations to Geneva.

 

The second RSDLP Congress was held in London in July 1903. At the conference, a schism emerged between Lenin's supporters and those of Julius Martov. Martov argued that party members should be able to express themselves independently of the party leadership; Lenin disagreed, emphasising the need for a strong leadership with complete control over the party. Lenin's supporters were in the majority, and he termed them the "majoritarians" (bol'sheviki in Russian; Bolsheviks); in response, Martov termed his followers the "minoritarians" (men'sheviki in Russian; Mensheviks). Arguments between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks continued after the conference; the Bolsheviks accused their rivals of being opportunists and reformists who lacked discipline, while the Mensheviks accused Lenin of being a despot and autocrat. Enraged at the Mensheviks, Lenin resigned from the Iskra editorial board and in May 1904 published the anti-Menshevik tract One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. The stress made Lenin ill, and to recuperate he holidayed in Switzerland. The Bolshevik faction grew in strength; by spring 1905, the whole RSDLP Central Committee was Bolshevik, and in December they founded the newspaper Vperyod (Forward).

 

Revolution of 1905 and its aftermath: 1905–1914

In January 1905, the Bloody Sunday massacre of protesters in St. Petersburg sparked a spate of civil unrest in the Russian Empire known as the Revolution of 1905. Lenin urged Bolsheviks to take a greater role in the events, encouraging violent insurrection. In doing so, he adopted SR slogans regarding "armed insurrection", "mass terror", and "the expropriation of gentry land", resulting in Menshevik accusations that he had deviated from orthodox Marxism. In turn, he insisted that the Bolsheviks split completely with the Mensheviks; many Bolsheviks refused, and both groups attended the Third RSDLP Congress, held in London in April 1905. Lenin presented many of his ideas in the pamphlet Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, published in August 1905. Here, he predicted that Russia's liberal bourgeoisie would be sated by a transition to constitutional monarchy and thus betray the revolution; instead, he argued that the proletariat would have to build an alliance with the peasantry to overthrow the Tsarist regime and establish the "provisional revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry."

 

The uprising has begun. Force against Force. Street fighting is raging, barricades are being thrown up, rifles are cracking, guns are booming. Rivers of blood are flowing, the civil war for freedom is blazing up. Moscow and the South, the Caucasus and Poland are ready to join the proletariat of St. Petersburg. The slogan of the workers has become: Death or Freedom!

 

In response to the revolution of 1905, which had failed to overthrow the government, Tsar Nicholas II accepted a series of liberal reforms in his October Manifesto. In this climate, Lenin felt it safe to return to St. Petersburg. Joining the editorial board of Novaya Zhizn (New Life), a radical legal newspaper run by Maria Andreyeva, he used it to discuss issues facing the RSDLP. He encouraged the party to seek out a much wider membership, and advocated the continual escalation of violent confrontation, believing both to be necessary for a successful revolution. Recognising that membership fees and donations from a few wealthy sympathisers were insufficient to finance the Bolsheviks' activities, Lenin endorsed the idea of robbing post offices, railway stations, trains, and banks. Under the lead of Leonid Krasin, a group of Bolsheviks began carrying out such criminal actions, the best-known taking place in June 1907, when a group of Bolsheviks acting under the leadership of Joseph Stalin committed an armed robbery of the State Bank in Tiflis, Georgia.

 

Although he briefly supported the idea of reconciliation between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, Lenin's advocacy of violence and robbery was condemned by the Mensheviks at the Fourth RSDLP Congress, held in Stockholm in April 1906. Lenin was involved in setting up a Bolshevik Centre in Kuokkala, Grand Duchy of Finland, which was at the time an autonomous state within the Russian Empire, before the Bolsheviks regained dominance of the RSDLP at its Fifth Congress, held in London in May 1907. As the Tsarist government cracked down on opposition, both by disbanding Russia's legislative assembly, the Second Duma, and by ordering its secret police, the Okhrana, to arrest revolutionaries, Lenin fled Finland for Switzerland. There, he tried to exchange those banknotes stolen in Tiflis that had identifiable serial numbers on them.

 

Alexander Bogdanov and other prominent Bolsheviks decided to relocate the Bolshevik Centre to Paris; although Lenin disagreed, he moved to the city in December 1908. Lenin disliked Paris, lambasting it as "a foul hole", and while there he sued a motorist who knocked him off his bike. Lenin became very critical of Bogdanov's view that Russia's proletariat had to develop a socialist culture in order to become a successful revolutionary vehicle. Instead, Lenin favoured a vanguard of socialist intelligentsia who would lead the working-classes in revolution. Furthermore, Bogdanov, influenced by Ernest Mach, believed that all concepts of the world were relative, whereas Lenin stuck to the orthodox Marxist view that there was an objective reality independent of human observation. Bogdanov and Lenin holidayed together at Maxim Gorky's villa in Capri in April 1908 on returning to Paris, Lenin encouraged a split within the Bolshevik faction between his and Bogdanov's followers, accusing the latter of deviating from Marxism.

 

In May 1908, Lenin lived briefly in London, where he used the British Museum Reading Room to write Materialism and Empirio-criticism, an attack on what he described as the "bourgeois-reactionary falsehood" of Bogdanov's relativism. Lenin's factionalism began to alienate increasing numbers of Bolsheviks, including his former close supporters Alexei Rykov and Lev Kamenev. The Okhrana exploited his factionalist attitude by sending a spy, Roman Malinovsky, to act as a vocal Lenin supporter within the party. Various Bolsheviks expressed their suspicions about Malinovsky to Lenin, although it is unclear if the latter was aware of the spy's duplicity; it is possible that he used Malinovsky to feed false information to the Okhrana.

 

In August 1910, Lenin attended the Eighth Congress of the Second International, an international meeting of socialists, in Copenhagen as the RSDLP's representative, following this with a holiday in Stockholm with his mother. With his wife and sisters, he then moved to France, settling first in Bombon and then Paris. Here, he became a close friend to the French Bolshevik Inessa Armand; some biographers suggest that they had an extra-marital affair from 1910 to 1912. Meanwhile, at a Paris meeting in June 1911, the RSDLP Central Committee decided to move their focus of operations back to Russia, ordering the closure of the Bolshevik Centre and its newspaper, Proletari. Seeking to rebuild his influence in the party, Lenin arranged for a party conference to be held in Prague in January 1912, and although 16 of the 18 attendants were Bolsheviks, he was heavily criticised for his factionalist tendencies and failed to boost his status within the party.

 

Moving to Kraków in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, a culturally Polish part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he used Jagiellonian University's library to conduct research. He stayed in close contact with the RSDLP, which was operating in the Russian Empire, convincing the Duma's Bolshevik members to split from their parliamentary alliance with the Mensheviks. In January 1913, Stalin, whom Lenin referred to as the "wonderful Georgian", visited him, and they discussed the future of non-Russian ethnic groups in the Empire. Due to the ailing health of both Lenin and his wife, they moved to the rural town of Biały Dunajec, before heading to Bern for Nadya to have surgery on her goitre.

 

First World War: 1914–1917

The [First World] war is being waged for the division of colonies and the robbery of foreign territory; thieves have fallen out–and to refer to the defeats at a given moment of one of the thieves in order to identify the interests of all thieves with the interests of the nation or the fatherland is an unconscionable bourgeois lie.

 

Lenin was in Galicia when the First World War broke out. The war pitted the Russian Empire against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and due to his Russian citizenship, Lenin was arrested and briefly imprisoned until his anti-Tsarist credentials were explained. Lenin and his wife returned to Bern, before relocating to Zürich in February 1916. Lenin was angry that the German Social-Democratic Party was supporting the German war effort, which was a direct contravention of the Second International's Stuttgart resolution that socialist parties would oppose the conflict and saw the Second International as defunct. He attended the Zimmerwald Conference in September 1915 and the Kienthal Conference in April 1916, urging socialists across the continent to convert the "imperialist war" into a continent-wide "civil war" with the proletariat pitted against the bourgeoisie and aristocracy. In July 1916, Lenin's mother died, but he was unable to attend her funeral. Her death deeply affected him, and he became depressed, fearing that he too would die before seeing the proletarian revolution.

 

In September 1917, Lenin published Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, which argued that imperialism was a product of monopoly capitalism, as capitalists sought to increase their profits by extending into new territories where wages were lower and raw materials cheaper. He believed that competition and conflict would increase and that war between the imperialist powers would continue until they were overthrown by proletariat revolution and socialism established. He spent much of this time reading the works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Aristotle, all of whom had been key influences on Marx. This changed Lenin's interpretation of Marxism; whereas he once believed that policies could be developed based on predetermined scientific principles, he concluded that the only test of whether a policy was correct was its practice. He still perceived himself as an orthodox Marxist, but he began to diverge from some of Marx's predictions about societal development; whereas Marx had believed that a "bourgeoisie-democratic revolution" of the middle-classes had to take place before a "socialist revolution" of the proletariat, Lenin believed that in Russia the proletariat could overthrow the Tsarist regime without an intermediate revolution.

 

February Revolution and the July Days: 1917

In February 1917, the February Revolution broke out in St. Petersburg, renamed Petrograd at the beginning of the First World War, as industrial workers went on strike over food shortages and deteriorating factory conditions. The unrest spread to other parts of Russia, and fearing that he would be violently overthrown, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated. The State Duma took over control of the country, establishing the Russian Provisional Government and converting the Empire into a new Russian Republic. When Lenin learned of this from his base in Switzerland, he celebrated with other dissidents. He decided to return to Russia to take charge of the Bolsheviks but found that most passages into the country were blocked due to the ongoing conflict. He organised a plan with other dissidents to negotiate a passage for them through Germany, with which Russia was then at war. Recognising that these dissidents could cause problems for their Russian enemies, the German government agreed to permit 32 Russian citizens to travel by train through their territory, among them Lenin and his wife. For political reasons, Lenin and the Germans agreed to a cover story that Lenin had travelled by sealed train carriage through German territory, but in fact the train was not truly sealed, and the passengers were allowed to disembark to, for example, spend the night in Frankfurt. The group travelled by train from Zürich to Sassnitz, proceeding by ferry to Trelleborg, Sweden, and from there to the Haparanda–Tornio border crossing and then to Helsinki before taking the final train to Petrograd in disguise.

 

Arriving at Petrograd's Finland Station in April, Lenin gave a speech to Bolshevik supporters condemning the Provisional Government and again calling for a continent-wide European proletarian revolution. Over the following days, he spoke at Bolshevik meetings, lambasting those who wanted reconciliation with the Mensheviks and revealing his "April Theses", an outline of his plans for the Bolsheviks, which he had written on the journey from Switzerland. He publicly condemned both the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries, who dominated the influential Petrograd Soviet, for supporting the Provisional Government, denouncing them as traitors to socialism. Considering the government to be just as imperialist as the Tsarist regime, he advocated immediate peace with Germany and Austria-Hungary, rule by soviets, the nationalisation of industry and banks, and the state expropriation of land, all with the intention of establishing a proletariat government and pushing toward a socialist society. By contrast, the Mensheviks believed that Russia was insufficiently developed to transition to socialism and accused Lenin of trying to plunge the new Republic into civil war. Over the coming months Lenin campaigned for his policies, attending the meetings of the Bolshevik Central Committee, prolifically writing for the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda, and giving public speeches in Petrograd aimed at converting workers, soldiers, sailors, and peasants to his cause.

 

Sensing growing frustration among Bolshevik supporters, Lenin suggested an armed political demonstration in Petrograd to test the government's response. Amid deteriorating health, he left the city to recuperate in the Finnish village of Neivola. The Bolsheviks' armed demonstration, the July Days, took place while Lenin was away, but upon learning that demonstrators had violently clashed with government forces, he returned to Petrograd and called for calm. Responding to the violence, the government ordered the arrest of Lenin and other prominent Bolsheviks, raiding their offices, and publicly alleging that he was a German agent provocateur. Evading arrest, Lenin hid in a series of Petrograd safe houses. Fearing that he would be killed, Lenin and fellow senior Bolshevik Grigory Zinoviev escaped Petrograd in disguise, relocating to Razliv. There, Lenin began work on the book that became The State and Revolution, an exposition on how he believed the socialist state would develop after the proletariat revolution, and how from then on the state would gradually wither away, leaving a pure communist society. He began arguing for a Bolshevik-led armed insurrection to topple the government, but at a clandestine meeting of the party's central committee this idea was rejected. Lenin then headed by train and by foot to Finland, arriving at Helsinki on 10 August, where he hid away in safe houses belonging to Bolshevik sympathisers.

 

October Revolution: 1917

In August 1917, while Lenin was in Finland, General Lavr Kornilov, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, sent troops to Petrograd in what appeared to be a military coup attempt against the Provisional Government. Premier Alexander Kerensky turned to the Petrograd Soviet, including its Bolshevik members, for help, allowing the revolutionaries to organise workers as Red Guards to defend the city. The coup petered out before it reached Petrograd, but the events had allowed the Bolsheviks to return to the open political arena. Fearing a counter-revolution from right-wing forces hostile to socialism, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who dominated the Petrograd Soviet had been instrumental in pressuring the government to normalise relations with the Bolsheviks. Both the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries had lost much popular support because of their affiliation with the Provisional Government and its unpopular continuation of the war. The Bolsheviks capitalised on this, and soon the pro-Bolshevik Marxist Trotsky was elected leader of the Petrograd Soviet. In September, the Bolsheviks gained a majority in the workers' sections of both the Moscow and Petrograd Soviets.

 

Recognising that the situation was safer for him, Lenin returned to Petrograd. There he attended a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee on 10 October, where he again argued that the party should lead an armed insurrection to topple the Provisional Government. This time the argument won with ten votes against two. Critics of the plan, Zinoviev and Kamenev, argued that Russian workers would not support a violent coup against the regime and that there was no clear evidence for Lenin's assertion that all of Europe was on the verge of proletarian revolution. The party began plans to organise the offensive, holding a final meeting at the Smolny Institute on 24 October. This was the base of the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), an armed militia largely loyal to the Bolsheviks that had been established by the Petrograd Soviet during Kornilov's alleged coup.

 

In October, the MRC was ordered to take control of Petrograd's key transport, communication, printing and utilities hubs, and did so without bloodshed. Bolsheviks besieged the government in the Winter Palace and overcame it and arrested its ministers after the cruiser Aurora, controlled by Bolshevik seamen, fired a blank shot to signal the start of the revolution. During the insurrection, Lenin gave a speech to the Petrograd Soviet announcing that the Provisional Government had been overthrown. The Bolsheviks declared the formation of a new government, the Council of People's Commissars, or Sovnarkom. Lenin initially turned down the leading position of Chairman, suggesting Trotsky for the job, but other Bolsheviks insisted and ultimately Lenin relented. Lenin and other Bolsheviks then attended the Second Congress of Soviets on 26 and 27 October and announced the creation of the new government. Menshevik attendees condemned the illegitimate seizure of power and the risk of civil war. In these early days of the new regime, Lenin avoided talking in Marxist and socialist terms so as not to alienate Russia's population, and instead spoke about having a country controlled by the workers. Lenin and many other Bolsheviks expected proletariat revolution to sweep across Europe in days or months.

 

Lenin's government

Organising the Soviet government: 1917–1918

The Provisional Government had planned for a Constituent Assembly to be elected in November 1917; against Lenin's objections, Sovnarkom agreed for the vote to take place as scheduled. In the constitutional election, the Bolsheviks gained approximately a quarter of the vote, being defeated by the agrarian-focused Socialist-Revolutionaries. Lenin argued that the election was not a fair reflection of the people's will, that the electorate had not had time to learn the Bolsheviks' political programme, and that the candidacy lists had been drawn up before the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries split from the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Nevertheless, the newly elected Russian Constituent Assembly convened in Petrograd in January 1918. Sovnarkom argued that it was counter-revolutionary because it sought to remove power from the soviets, but the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks denied this. The Bolsheviks presented the Assembly with a motion that would strip it of most of its legal powers; when the Assembly rejected the motion, Sovnarkom declared this as evidence of its counter-revolutionary nature and forcibly disbanded it.

 

Lenin rejected repeated calls, including from some Bolsheviks, to establish a coalition government with other socialist parties. Although refusing a coalition with the Mensheviks or Socialist-Revolutionaries, Sovnarkom partially relented; they allowed the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries five posts in the cabinet in December 1917. This coalition only lasted four months until March 1918, when the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries pulled out of the government over a disagreement about the Bolsheviks' approach to ending the First World War. At their 7th Congress in March 1918, the Bolsheviks changed their official name from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party to the Russian Communist Party, as Lenin wanted to both distance his group from the increasingly reformist German Social Democratic Party and to emphasise its ultimate goal, that of a communist society.

 

Although ultimate power officially rested with the country's government in the form of Sovnarkom and the Executive Committee (VTSIK) elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets (ARCS), the Communist Party was de facto in control in Russia, as acknowledged by its members at the time. By 1918, Sovnarkom began acting unilaterally, claiming a need for expediency, with the ARCS and VTSIK becoming increasingly marginalised, so the soviets no longer had a role in governing Russia. During 1918 and 1919, the government expelled Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries from the soviets. Russia had become a one-party state.

 

Within the party was established a Political Bureau (Politburo) and Organisation Bureau (Orgburo) to accompany the existing Central Committee; the decisions of these party bodies had to be adopted by Sovnarkom and the Council of Labour and Defence. Lenin was the most significant figure in this governance structure as well as being the Chairman of Sovnarkom and sitting on the Council of Labour and Defence, and on the Central Committee and Politburo of the Communist Party. The only individual to have anywhere near this influence was Lenin's right-hand man, Yakov Sverdlov, who died in March 1919 during a flu pandemic. In November 1917, Lenin and his wife took a two-room flat within the Smolny Institute; the following month they left for a brief holiday in Halila, Finland. In January 1918, he survived an assassination attempt in Petrograd; Fritz Platten, who was with Lenin at the time, shielded him and was injured by a bullet.

 

Concerned that the German Army posed a threat to Petrograd, in March 1918 Sovnarkom relocated to Moscow, initially as a temporary measure. There, Lenin, Trotsky, and other Bolshevik leaders moved into the Kremlin, where Lenin lived with his wife and sister Maria in a first-floor apartment adjacent to the room in which the Sovnarkom meetings were held. Lenin disliked Moscow, but rarely left the city centre during the rest of his life. He survived a second assassination attempt, in Moscow in August 1918; he was shot following a public speech and injured badly. A Socialist-Revolutionary, Fanny Kaplan, was arrested and executed. The attack was widely covered in the Russian press, generating much sympathy for Lenin and boosting his popularity. As a respite, he was driven in September 1918 to the luxurious Gorki estate, just outside Moscow, recently nationalized for him by the government.

 

Social, legal, and economic reform: 1917–1918

To All Workers, Soldiers and Peasants. The Soviet authority will at once propose a democratic peace to all nations and an immediate armistice on all fronts. It will safeguard the transfer without compensation of all land—landlord, imperial, and monastery—to the peasants' committees; it will defend the soldiers' rights, introducing a complete democratisation of the army; it will establish workers' control over industry; it will ensure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly on the date set; it will supply the cities with bread and the villages with articles of first necessity; and it will secure to all nationalities inhabiting Russia the right of self-determination ... Long live the revolution!

 

Upon taking power, Lenin's regime issued a series of decrees. The first was a Decree on Land, which declared that the landed estates of the aristocracy and the Orthodox Church should be nationalised and redistributed to peasants by local governments. This contrasted with Lenin's desire for agricultural collectivisation but provided governmental recognition of the widespread peasant land seizures that had already occurred. In November 1917, the government issued the Decree on the Press that closed many opposition media outlets deemed counter revolutionary. They claimed the measure would be temporary; the decree was widely criticised, including by many Bolsheviks, for compromising freedom of the press.

 

In November 1917, Lenin issued the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, which stated that non-Russian ethnic groups living inside the Republic had the right to secede from Russian authority and establish their own independent nation-states. Many nations declared independence (Finland and Lithuania in December 1917, Latvia and Ukraine in January 1918, Estonia in February 1918, Transcaucasia in April 1918, and Poland in November 1918). Soon, the Bolsheviks actively promoted communist parties in these independent nation-states, while at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of the Soviets in July 1918 a constitution was approved that reformed the Russian Republic into the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Seeking to modernise the country, the government officially converted Russia from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar used in Europe.

 

In November 1917, Sovnarkom issued a decree abolishing Russia's legal system, calling on the use of "revolutionary conscience" to replace the abolished laws. The courts were replaced by a two-tier system, namely the Revolutionary Tribunals to deal with counter-revolutionary crimes, and the People's Courts to deal with civil and other criminal offences. They were instructed to ignore pre-existing laws and base their rulings on the Sovnarkom decrees and a "socialist sense of justice." November also saw an overhaul of the armed forces; Sovnarkom implemented egalitarian measures, abolished previous ranks, titles, and medals, and called on soldiers to establish committees to elect their commanders.

 

Earth of Filth".

In October 1917, Lenin issued a decree limiting work for everyone in Russia to eight hours per day. He also issued the Decree on Popular Education that stipulated that the government would guarantee free, secular education for all children in Russia, and a decree establishing a system of state orphanages. To combat mass illiteracy, a literacy campaign was initiated; an estimated 5 million people enrolled in crash courses of basic literacy from 1920 to 1926. Embracing the equality of the sexes, laws were introduced that helped to emancipate women, by giving them economic autonomy from their husbands and removing restrictions on divorce. Zhenotdel, a Bolshevik women's organisation, was established to further these aims. Under Lenin, Russia became the first country to legalize abortion on demand in the first trimester. Militantly atheist, Lenin and the Communist Party wanted to demolish organised religion. In January 1918, the government decreed the separation of church and state, and prohibited religious instruction in schools.

 

In November 1917, Lenin issued the Decree on Workers' Control, which called on the workers of each enterprise to establish an elected committee to monitor their enterprise's management. That month they also issued an order requisitioning the country's gold, and nationalised the banks, which Lenin saw as a major step toward socialism. In December, Sovnarkom established a Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh), which had authority over industry, banking, agriculture, and trade. The factory committees were subordinate to the trade unions, which were subordinate to VSNKh; the state's centralised economic plan was prioritised over the workers' local economic interests. In early 1918, Sovnarkom cancelled all foreign debts and refused to pay interest owed on them. In April 1918, it nationalised foreign trade, establishing a state monopoly on imports and exports. In June 1918, it decreed nationalisation of public utilities, railways, engineering, textiles, metallurgy, and mining, although often these were state-owned in name only. Full-scale nationalisation did not take place until November 1920, when small-scale industrial enterprises were brought under state control.

 

A faction of the Bolsheviks known as the "Left Communists" criticised Sovnarkom's economic policy as too moderate; they wanted nationalisation of all industry, agriculture, trade, finance, transport, and communication. Lenin believed that this was impractical at that stage and that the government should only nationalise Russia's large-scale capitalist enterprises, such as the banks, railways, larger landed estates, and larger factories and mines, allowing smaller businesses to operate privately until they grew large enough to be successfully nationalised. Lenin also disagreed with the Left Communists about the economic organisation; in June 1918, he argued that centralised economic control of industry was needed, whereas Left Communists wanted each factory to be controlled by its workers, a syndicalist approach that Lenin considered detrimental to the cause of socialism.

 

Adopting a left-libertarian perspective, both the Left Communists and other factions in the Communist Party critiqued the decline of democratic institutions in Russia. Internationally, many socialists decried Lenin's regime and denied that he was establishing socialism; in particular, they highlighted the lack of widespread political participation, popular consultation, and industrial democracy. In late 1918, the Czech-Austrian Marxist Karl Kautsky authored an anti-Leninist pamphlet condemning the anti-democratic nature of Soviet Russia, to which Lenin published a vociferous reply, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky. German Marxist Rosa Luxemburg echoed Kautsky's views, while Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin described the Bolshevik seizure of power as "the burial of the Russian Revolution."

 

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: 1917–1918

[By prolonging the war] we unusually strengthen German imperialism, and the peace will have to be concluded anyway, but then the peace will be worse because it will be concluded by someone other than ourselves. No doubt the peace which we are now being forced to conclude is an indecent peace, but if war commences our government will be swept away and the peace will be concluded by another government.

 

Upon taking power, Lenin believed that a key policy of his government must be to withdraw from the First World War by establishing an armistice with the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. He believed that ongoing war would create resentment among war-weary Russian troops, to whom he had promised peace, and that these troops and the advancing German Army threatened both his own government and the cause of international socialism. By contrast, other Bolsheviks, in particular Nikolai Bukharin and the Left Communists, believed that peace with the Central Powers would be a betrayal of international socialism and that Russia should instead wage "a war of revolutionary defence" that would provoke an uprising of the German proletariat against their own government.

 

Lenin proposed a three-month armistice in his Decree on Peace of November 1917, which was approved by the Second Congress of Soviets and presented to the German and Austro-Hungarian governments. The Germans responded positively, viewing this as an opportunity to focus on the Western Front and stave off looming defeat. In November, armistice talks began at Brest-Litovsk, the headquarters of the German high command on the Eastern Front, with the Russian delegation being led by Trotsky and Adolph Joffe. Meanwhile, a ceasefire until January was agreed. During negotiations, the Germans insisted on keeping their wartime conquests, which included Poland, Lithuania, and Courland, whereas the Russians countered that this was a violation of these nations' rights to self-determination. Some Bolsheviks had expressed hopes of dragging out negotiations until proletarian revolution broke out throughout Europe. On 7 January 1918, Trotsky returned from Brest-Litovsk to St. Petersburg with an ultimatum from the Central Powers: either Russia accept Germany's territorial demands or the war would resume.

 

In January and again in February, Lenin urged the Bolsheviks to accept Germany's proposals. He argued that the territorial losses were acceptable if it ensured the survival of the Bolshevik-led government. The majority of Bolsheviks rejected his position, hoping to prolong the armistice and call Germany's bluff. On 18 February, the German Army launched Operation Faustschlag, advancing further into Russian-controlled territory and conquering Dvinsk within a day. At this point, Lenin finally convinced a small majority of the Bolshevik Central Committee to accept the Central Powers' demands. On 23 February, the Central Powers issued a new ultimatum: Russia had to recognise German control not only of Poland and the Baltic states but also of Ukraine or face a full-scale invasion.

 

On 3 March, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed. It resulted in massive territorial losses for Russia, with 26% of the former Empire's population, 37% of its agricultural harvest area, 28% of its industry, 26% of its railway tracks, and three-quarters of its coal and iron deposits being transferred to German control. Accordingly, the Treaty was deeply unpopular across Russia's political spectrum, and several Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries resigned from Sovnarkom in protest. After the Treaty, Sovnarkom focused on trying to foment proletarian revolution in Germany, issuing an array of anti-war and anti-government publications in the country; the German government retaliated by expelling Russia's diplomats. The Treaty nevertheless failed to stop the Central Powers' defeat; in November 1918, the German Emperor Wilhelm II abdicated and the country's new administration signed the Armistice with the Allies. As a result, Sovnarkom proclaimed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk void.

 

Anti-Kulak campaigns, Cheka, and Red Terror: 1918–1922

[The bourgeoisie] practised terror against the workers, soldiers and peasants in the interests of a small group of landowners and bankers, whereas the Soviet regime applies decisive measures against landowners, plunderers and their accomplices in the interests of the workers, soldiers and peasants.

 

By early 1918, many cities in western Russia faced famine as a result of chronic food shortages. Lenin blamed this on the kulaks, or wealthier peasants, who allegedly hoarded the grain that they had produced to increase its financial value. In May 1918, he issued a requisitioning order that established armed detachments to confiscate grain from kulaks for distribution in the cities, and in June called for the formation of Committees of Poor Peasants to aid in requisitioning. This policy resulted in vast social disorder and violence, as armed detachments often clashed with peasant groups, helping to set the stage for the civil war. A prominent example of Lenin's views was his August 1918 telegram to the Bolsheviks of Penza, which called upon them to suppress a peasant insurrection by publicly hanging at least 100 "known kulaks, rich men, [and] bloodsuckers."

 

The requisitions disincentivised peasants from producing more grain than they could personally consume, and thus production slumped. A booming black market supplemented the official state-sanctioned economy, and Lenin called on speculators, black marketeers and looters to be shot. Both the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries condemned the armed appropriations of grain at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets in July 1918. Realising that the Committees of the Poor Peasants were also persecuting peasants who were not kulaks and thus contributing to anti-government feeling among the peasantry, in December 1918 Lenin abolished them.

 

Lenin repeatedly emphasised the need for terror and violence in overthrowing the old order and ensuring the success of the revolution. Speaking to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets in November 1917, he declared that "the state is an institution built up for the sake of exercising violence. Previously, this violence was exercised by a handful of moneybags over the entire people; now we want [...] to organise violence in the interests of the people." He strongly opposed suggestions to abolish capital punishment. Fearing anti-Bolshevik forces would overthrow his administration, in December 1917 Lenin ordered the establishment of the Emergency Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, or Cheka, a political police force led by Felix Dzerzhinsky.

 

In September 1918, Sovnarkom passed a decree that inaugurated the Red Terror, a system of repression orchestrated by the Cheka secret police.[261] Although sometimes described as an attempt to eliminate the entire bourgeoisie, Lenin did not want to exterminate all members of this class, merely those who sought to reinstate their rule. The majority of the Terror's victims were well-to-do citizens or former members of the Tsarist administration; others were non-bourgeois anti-Bolsheviks and perceived social undesirables such as prostitutes. The Cheka claimed the right to both sentence and execute anyone whom it deemed to be an enemy of the government, without recourse to the Revolutionary Tribunals. Accordingly, throughout Soviet Russia the Cheka carried out killings, often in large numbers. For example, the Petrograd Cheka executed 512 people in a few days. There are no surviving records to provide an accurate figure of how many perished in the Red Terror; later estimates of historians have ranged between 10,000 and 15,000, and 50,000 to 140,000.

 

Lenin never witnessed this violence or participated in it first-hand, and publicly distanced himself from it. His published articles and speeches rarely called for executions, but he regularly did so in his coded telegrams and confidential notes. Many Bolsheviks expressed disapproval of the Cheka's mass executions and feared the organisation's apparent unaccountability. The Communist Party tried to restrain its activities in February 1919, stripping it of its powers of tribunal and execution in those areas not under official martial law, but the Cheka continued as before in swathes of the country. By 1920, the Cheka had become the most powerful institution in Soviet Russia, exerting influence over all other state apparatus.

 

A decree in April 1919 resulted in the establishment of concentration camps, which were entrusted to the Cheka, later administered by a new government agency, Gulag. By the end of 1920, 84 camps had been established across Soviet Russia, holding about 50,000 prisoners; by October 1923, this had grown to 315 camps and about 70,000 inmates. Those interned in the camps were used as slave labour. From July 1922, intellectuals deemed to be opposing the Bolshevik government were exiled to inhospitable regions or deported from Russia altogether; Lenin personally scrutinised the lists of those to be dealt with in this manner. In May 1922, Lenin issued a decree calling for the execution of anti-Bolshevik priests, causing between 14,000 and 20,000 deaths. The Russian Orthodox Church was worst affected; the government's anti-religious policies also harmed Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, Jewish synagogues, and Islamic mosques.

 

Civil War and the Polish–Soviet War: 1918–1920

The existence of the Soviet Republic alongside the imperialist states over the long run is unthinkable. In the end, either the one or the other will triumph. And until that end will have arrived, a series of the most terrible conflicts between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois governments is unavoidable. This means that the ruling class, the proletariat, if it only wishes to rule and is to rule, must demonstrate this also with its military organization.

 

Lenin expected Russia's aristocracy and bourgeoisie to oppose his government, but he believed that the numerical superiority of the lower classes, coupled with the Bolsheviks' ability to effectively organise them, guaranteed a swift victory in any conflict. In this, he failed to anticipate the intensity of the violent opposition to Bolshevik rule in Russia. A long and bloody Civil War ensued between the Bolshevik Reds and the anti-Bolshevik Whites, starting in 1917 and ending in 1923 with the Reds' victory. It also encompassed ethnic conflicts on Russia's borders, and anti-Bolshevik peasant and left-wing uprisings throughout the former Empire. Accordingly, various historians have seen the civil war as representing two distinct conflicts: one between the revolutionaries and the counterrevolutionaries, and the other between different revolutionary factions.

 

The White armies were established by former Tsarist military officers, and included Anton Denikin's Volunteer Army in South Russia, Alexander Kolchak's forces in Siberia, and Nikolai Yudenich's troops in the newly independent Baltic states. The Whites were bolstered when 35,000 members of the Czech Legion, who were prisoners of war from the conflict with the Central Powers, turned against Sovnarkom and allied with the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), an anti-Bolshevik government established in Samara. The Whites were also backed by Western governments who perceived the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as a betrayal of the Allied war effort and feared the Bolsheviks' calls for world revolution. In 1918, Great Britain, France, United States, Canada, Italy, and Serbia landed 10,000 troops in Murmansk, seizing Kandalaksha, while later that year British, American, and Japanese forces landed in Vladivostok. Western troops soon pulled out of the civil war, instead only supporting the Whites with officers, technicians and armaments, but Japan remained because they saw the conflict as an opportunity for territorial expansion.

 

Lenin tasked Trotsky with establishing a Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, and with his support, Trotsky organised a Revolutionary Military Council in September 1918, remaining its chairman until 1925. Recognising their valuable military experience, Lenin agreed that officers from the old Tsarist army could serve in the Red Army, although Trotsky established military councils to monitor their activities. The Reds held control of Russia's two largest cities, Moscow and Petrograd, as well as most of Great Russia, while the Whites were located largely on the former Empire's peripheries. The latter were therefore hindered by being both fragmented and geographically scattered, and because their ethnic Russian supremacism alienated the region's national minorities. Anti-Bolshevik armies carried out the White Terror, a campaign of violence against perceived Bolshevik supporters which was typically more spontaneous than the state-sanctioned Red Terror. Both White and Red Armies were responsible for attacks against Jewish communities, prompting Lenin to issue a condemnation of antisemitism, blaming prejudice against Jews on capitalist propaganda.

 

In July 1918, Sverdlov informed Sovnarkom that the Ural Regional Soviet had overseen the murder of the former Tsar and his immediate family in Yekaterinburg to prevent them from being rescued by advancing White troops. Although lacking proof, biographers and historians like Richard Pipes and Dmitri Volkogonov have expressed the view that the killing was probably sanctioned by Lenin; conversely, historian James Ryan cautioned that there was "no reason" to believe this. Whether Lenin sanctioned it or not, he still regarded it as necessary, highlighting the precedent set by the execution of Louis XVI in the French Revolution.

 

After the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries had abandoned the coalition and increasingly viewed the Bolsheviks as traitors to the revolution. In July 1918, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Yakov Blumkin assassinated the German ambassador to Russia, Wilhelm von Mirbach, hoping that the ensuing diplomatic incident would lead to a relaunched revolutionary war against Germany. The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries then launched a coup in Moscow, shelling the Kremlin and seizing the city's central post office before being stopped by Trotsky's forces. The party's leaders and many members were arrested and imprisoned but were treated more leniently than other opponents of the Bolsheviks.

 

By 1919, the White armies were in retreat and by the start of 1920 were defeated on all three fronts. Although Sovnarkom were victorious, the territorial extent of the Russian state had been reduced, for many non-Russian ethnic groups had used the disarray to push for national independence. In March 1921, during a related war against Poland, the Peace of Riga was signed, splitting disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia sought to re-conquer all newly independent nations of the former Empire, although their success was limited. Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania all repelled Soviet invasions, while Ukraine, Belarus (as a result of the Polish–Soviet War), Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia were occupied by the Red Army. By 1921, Soviet Russia had defeated the Ukrainian national movements and occupied the Caucasus, although anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Central Asia lasted until the late 1920s.

 

After the German Ober Ost garrisons were withdrawn from the Eastern Front following the Armistice, both Soviet Russian armies and Polish ones moved in to fill the vacuum. The newly independent Polish state and the Soviet government each sought territorial expansion in the region. Polish and Russian troops first clashed in February 1919, with the conflict developing into the Polish–Soviet War. Unlike the Soviets' previous conflicts, this had greater implications for the export of revolution and the future of Europe. Polish forces pushed into Ukraine and by May 1920 had taken Kiev from the Soviets. After forcing the Polish Army back, Lenin urged the Red Army to invade Poland itself, believing that the Polish proletariat would rise up to support the Russian troops and thus spark European revolution. Trotsky and other Bolsheviks were sceptical, but agreed to the invasion. The Polish proletariat did not rise, and the Red Army was defeated at the Battle of Warsaw. The Polish armies pushed the Red Army back into Russia, forcing Sovnarkom to sue for peace; the war culminated in the Peace of Riga, in which Russia ceded territory to Poland.

 

Death and funeral: 1923–1924

Lenin's funeral, as painted by Isaac Brodsky, 1925

In March 1923, Lenin had a third stroke and lost his ability to speak; that month, he experienced partial paralysis on his right side and began exhibiting sensory aphasia. By May, he appeared to be making a slow recovery, regaining some of his mobility, speech, and writing skills. In October, he made a final visit to the Kremlin. In his final weeks, Lenin was visited by Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Bukharin; the latter visited him at his Gorki mansion on the day of his death. On 21 January 1924, Lenin fell into a coma and died later that day at age 53. His official cause of death was recorded as an incurable disease of the blood vessels. "Good dog", are said to have been Lenin's last words, upon his dog having brought him a dead bird.

 

The Soviet government publicly announced Lenin's death the following day. On 23 January, mourners from the Communist Party, trade unions, and Soviets visited his Gorki home to inspect the body, which was carried aloft in a red coffin by leading Bolsheviks. Transported by train to Moscow, the coffin was taken to the House of Trade Unions, where the body lay in state. Over the next three days, around a million mourners came to see the body, many queuing for hours in the freezing conditions. On 26 January, the eleventh All-Union Congress of Soviets met to pay respects, with speeches by Kalinin, Zinoviev, and Stalin. Notably, Trotsky was absent; he had been convalescing in the Caucasus, and he later claimed that Stalin sent him a telegram with the incorrect date of the planned funeral, making it impossible for him to arrive in time. Lenin's funeral took place the following day, when his body was carried to Red Square, accompanied by martial music, where assembled crowds listened to a series of speeches before the corpse was placed into the vault of a specially erected mausoleum. Despite the freezing temperatures, tens of thousands attended.

 

Against Krupskaya's protestations, Lenin's body was embalmed to preserve it for long-term public display in the Red Square mausoleum. During this process, Lenin's brain was removed; in 1925 an institute was established to dissect it, revealing that Lenin had had severe sclerosis. In July 1929, the Politburo agreed to replace the temporary mausoleum with a permanent one in granite, which was finished in 1933. His sarcophagus was replaced in 1940 and again in 1970. For safety amid the Second World War, from 1941 to 1945 the body was temporarily moved to Tyumen. As of 2023, his body remains on public display in Lenin's Mausoleum on Red Square.

Por favor, no use esta imagen en su web, blogs u otros medios sin mi permiso explícito. © Todos los derechos reservados.

© Alejandro Cárdaba Rubio/2015

 

HUNUKÚ

La localidad de Hunukú está situado en el Municipio de Temozón (en el Estado de Yucatán). Tiene 2659 habitantes. Hunukú está a 33 metros de altitud.

En la localidad hay 1335 hombres y 1324 mujeres. La relación mujeres/hombres es de 0.992. El ratio de fecundidad de la población femenina es de 3.22 hijos por mujer. El porcentaje de analfabetismo entre los adultos es del 13.84% (11.16% en los hombres y 16.54% en las mujeres) y el grado de escolaridad es de 4.80 (5.37 en hombres y 4.25 en mujeres).

En Hunukú el 86.99% de los adultos habla alguna lengua indígena. En la localidad se encuentran 538 viviendas, de las cuales el 0.11% disponen de una computadora.

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Hunukú

The town of Hunukú is located in the town of Temozon (in the State of Yucatan). It has 2659 inhabitants. Hunukú is 33 meters.

In the resort there are 1335 men and 1324 women. The female / male ratio is 0.992. The fertility rate of the female population is 3.22 children per woman. The illiteracy rate among adults is 13.84% (11.16% for men and 16.54% women) and the level of education is 4.80 (5.37 in men and 4.25 in women).

In Hunukú the 86.99% of the adults speak an indigenous language. In the resort are 538 housing units, of which 0.11% have a computer.

 

Más Información / More Information: mexico.pueblosamerica.com/i/hunuku/

Since the 1960s, improvements have been achieved in the overall educational level, which can be seen in the increase in average years of regular education received. The development of part-time schools have brought adult, distance and continuing education to farms, factories, offices, and other places. Evening, time off work / study leave classes allow people to receive education without leaving their jobs. Policies to upgrade adult education have begun to complement the campaign against illiteracy. A basic Chinese vocabulary in simplified strokes is taught to millions of illiterate people in short, intensive courses. Despite progress made, Yunnan's illiteracy rate remains one of the highest in China mainly due to insufficient education among minority peoples.

In higher education, Yunnan has one "National Key University"—Yunnan University in Kunming. There is also a growing number of technical schools, among which the most prominent are the Southwest Forestry University, Yunnan Agricultural University, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Kunming Medical University, Yunnan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Kunming University of Science and Technology. Other notable establishments of learning are the Kunming branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Yunnan Astronomical Observatory, and the Yunnan Provincial Library.As of 2000, there were 24 institutions of higher learning in Yunnan, with an enrollment of over 90,400 students and a faculty of 9,237; 2,562 secondary schools with an enrollment of more than 2,137,400 students and 120,461 teachers; and 22,151 primary schools with an enrollment of 4,720,600 pupils and a faculty of 210,507. The gross enrollment rate of school-age children was 99.02%.

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Cathedral of Saint Mary the Royal of the Almudena commonly known as the Almudena Cathedral for short, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Madrid, the capital city of Spain. It is the seat of the Archdiocese of Madrid. A fairly young cathedral by Spanish standards, its construction began in 1883 and finished over a century later, when it was consecrated by Pope John Paul II in 1993.

 

It is located opposite the Royal Palace and much of its final appearance was defined considering this regal surrounding.

 

When the capital of Spain was transferred from Toledo to Madrid in 1561, the seat of the Church in Spain remained in Toledo and the new capital had no cathedral. Plans for a cathedral in Madrid dedicated to the Virgin of Almudena were discussed as early as the 16th century but even though Spain built more than 40 cities overseas during that century, plenty of cathedrals and fortresses, the cost of expanding and keeping the Empire came first and the construction of Madrid's cathedral was postponed.

 

The building was designed by Francisco de Cubas. The original plan had been to create a parochial church. The foundation stone was laid in 1883, but when Pope Leo XIII granted a bull in 1885 for the creation of the Madrid-Alcalá bishopric, the plans for the church were changed to that of a Gothic revival cathedral.

 

The cathedral seems to have been built on the site of a medieval mosque that was destroyed in 1083 when Alfonso VI reconquered Madrid.

 

Construction was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War, and the site lay abandoned until 1950, when Fernando Chueca Goitia adapted the plans of de Cubas to a baroque exterior to match the grey and white façade of the Palacio Real that stands directly opposite.

 

The cathedral was completed in 1993, when it was consecrated by Pope John Paul II. Its patron saints are Santa María la Real de la Almudena and Saint Isidro Labrador.

 

On 22 May 2004, the marriage of King Felipe VI, then crown prince, to Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano took place at the cathedral.

 

The Neo-Gothic interior is uniquely modern, with chapels and statues of contemporary artists, in heterogeneous styles, from historical revivals to "pop-art" decor. The Blessed Sacrament Chapel features mosaics by Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik. The icons in the apse were painted by Kiko Argüello, artist and founder of the Neocatechumenal Way.

 

The Neo-Romanesque crypt houses a 16th-century image of the Virgen de la Almudena. Nearby along the Calle Mayor, excavations have unearthed remains of Moorish and medieval city walls.

 

People buried at Almudena Cathedral include:

Her Majesty Mercedes of Orléans, Queen of Spain (1860–1878)

His Highness Prince Ferdinand of Bavaria (1884–1958)

His Highness Jose Eugenio, Prince of Bavaria (1909–1966)

His Highness Luis Alfonso, Prince of Bavaria (1906–1983)

Her Highness Doña María de la Asunción Solange de Mesía y de Lesseps, Princess of Bavaria and Countess of Odiel (1911–2005)

Carmen Franco, 1st Duchess of Franco (1926–2017)

Cristóbal Martínez-Bordiú, 10th Marquess of Villaverde (1922–1998)

Francisco de Cubas, I Marquess of Cubas (1826–1899)

Francisco de Cubas y Erice, II Marquess of Cubas, II Marquess of Fontalba and Grandee of Spain (1868–1937)

Estanislao de Urquijo y Landaluce, I Marquess of Urquijo (1817-1889)

Estanislao de Urquijo y Ussía, III Marquess of Urquijo (1872-1948)

Isabel de Maltrana y de Novales, I Marquise de Maltrana (d. 1919)

Luis de Pedroso y Madan, V Count of San Esteban de Cañongo (1876-1952)

María Dolores de Pedroso y Sturdza, VI Countess of San Esteban de Cañongo

Margarita de Pedroso y Sturdza, VII Countess of San Esteban de Cañongo (1911-1989)

Cardinal Ángel Suquía Goicoechea (1916–2006)

Fernando Rielo Pardal (1923–2004)

Alfonso Peña Boeuf (1888–1966)

Enrique María Repullés (1845–1922)

 

Madrid is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and its monocentric metropolitan area is the second-largest in the EU. The municipality covers 604.3 km2 (233.3 sq mi) geographical area. Madrid lies on the River Manzanares in the central part of the Iberian Peninsula at about 650 meters above mean sea level. The capital city of both Spain and the surrounding autonomous community of Madrid (since 1983), it is also the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country. The climate of Madrid features hot summers and cool winters.

 

The Madrid urban agglomeration has the second-largest GDP in the European Union and its influence in politics, education, entertainment, environment, media, fashion, science, culture, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities. Due to its economic output, high standard of living, and market size, Madrid is considered the major financial centre and the leading economic hub of the Iberian Peninsula and of Southern Europe. The metropolitan area hosts major Spanish companies such as Telefónica, Iberia, BBVA and FCC. It concentrates the bulk of banking operations in the country and it is the Spanish-speaking city generating the largest amount of webpages. For innovation, Madrid is ranked 19th in the world and 7th in Europe from 500 cities, in the 2022–2023 annual analysts Innovation Cities Index, published by 2ThinkNow.

 

Madrid houses the headquarters of the UN's World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), and the Public Interest Oversight Board (PIOB). It also hosts major international regulators and promoters of the Spanish language: the Standing Committee of the Association of Spanish Language Academies, headquarters of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), the Instituto Cervantes and the Foundation of Urgent Spanish (FundéuRAE). Madrid organises fairs such as FITUR, ARCO, SIMO TCI and the Madrid Fashion Week. Madrid is home to two world-famous football clubs, Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid.

 

While Madrid possesses modern infrastructure, it has preserved the look and feel of many of its historic neighbourhoods and streets. Its landmarks include the Plaza Mayor, the Royal Palace of Madrid; the Royal Theatre with its restored 1850 Opera House; the Buen Retiro Park, founded in 1631; the 19th-century National Library building (founded in 1712) containing some of Spain's historical archives; many national museums, and the Golden Triangle of Art, located along the Paseo del Prado and comprising three art museums: Prado Museum, the Reina Sofía Museum, a museum of modern art, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, which complements the holdings of the other two museums. Cibeles Palace and Fountain has become one of the monument symbols of the city. The mayor is José Luis Martínez-Almeida from the People's Party.

 

The documented history of Madrid dates to the 9th century, even though the area has been inhabited since the Stone Age. The primitive nucleus of Madrid, a walled military outpost in the left bank of the Manzanares, dates back to the second half of the 9th century, during the rule of the Emirate of Córdoba. Conquered by Christians in 1083 or 1085, Madrid consolidated in the Late Middle Ages as a middle to upper-middle rank town of the Crown of Castile. The development of Madrid as administrative centre began when the court of the Hispanic Monarchy was settled in the town in 1561.

 

The primitive urban nucleus of Madrid (Majriṭ) was founded in the late 9th century (from 852 to 886) as a citadel erected on behalf of Muhammad I, the Cordobese emir, on the relatively steep left bank of the Manzanares. Originally it was largely a military outpost for the quartering of troops. Similarly to other fortresses north of the Tagus, Madrid made it difficult to muster reinforcements from the Asturian kingdom to the unruly inhabitants of Toledo, prone to rebellion against the Umayyad rule. Extending across roughly 8 ha, Muslim Madrid consisted of the alcázar and the wider walled citadel (al-Mudayna) with the addition of some housing outside the walls. By the late 10th century, Majriṭ was an important borderland military stronghold territory with great strategic value, owing to its proximity to Toledo. The most generous estimates for the 10th century tentatively and intuitively put the number of inhabitants of the 9 ha settlement at 2,000. The model of repopulation is likely to have been by the Limitanei, characteristic of the borderlands.

 

The settlement is mentioned in the work of the 10th-century Cordobese chronicler Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Razi, with the latter locating the Castle of Madrid within the district of Guadalajara. After the Christian conquest, in the first half of the 12th century Al-Idrisi described Madrid as a "small city and solid fortress, well populated. In the age of Islam, it had a small mosque where the khuṭbah was always delivered," and placed it in the province of the sierra, "al-Sārrāt". It was ascribed by most post-Christian conquest Muslim commentators, including Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi, to Toledo. This may tentatively suggest that the settlement, part of the cora of Guadalajara according to al-Razi, could have been transferred to Toledo following the Fitna of al-Andalus.

 

The city passed to Christian control in the context of the conquest of Toledo; historiography debates whether if the event took place in 1083, before the conquest of Toledo, in the wake of negotiations between Alfonso VI and al-Qadir, or afterwards, as a direct consequence of the seizure of Toledo in 1085.

 

The mosque was reconsecrated as the church of the Virgin of Almudena (almudin, the garrison's granary). The society in the 11th and 12th centuries was structured around knight-villeins as a leading class in the local public, social and economic life. The town had a Muslim and mozarabic preexisting population (a number of the former would remain in the town after the conquest while the later community would remain very large throughout the high middle ages before merging with the new settlers). The town was further repopulated by settlers with a dominant Castilian-Leonese extraction. Frank settlers were a minority but influential community. The Jewish community was probably smaller in number than the mudéjar one, standing out as physicians up until their expulsion. By the end of the middle ages, the best-positioned members of the mudéjar community were the alarifes ('master builders'), who were tasked with public works (including the management of the viajes de agua), and had a leading role in the urbanism of the town in the 15th century.

 

Since the mid-13th century and up to the late 14th century, the concejo of Madrid vied for the control of the Real de Manzanares territory against the concejo of Segovia, a powerful town north of the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range, characterised by its repopulating prowess and its husbandry-based economy, contrasted by the agricultural and less competent in repopulation town of Madrid. After the decline of Sepúlveda, another concejo north of the mountain range, Segovia had become a major actor south of the Guadarrama mountains, expanding across the Lozoya and Manzanares rivers to the north of Madrid and along the Guadarrama river course to its west.

 

The society of Madrid before the 15th century was an agriculture-based one (prevailing over livestock), featuring a noteworthy number of irrigated crops.[16] Two important industries were those of the manufacturing of building materials and leather.

 

John I of Castile gifted Leo V of Armenia the lordship of Madrid together with those of Villa Real and Andújar in 1383. The Madrilenian concejo made sure that the privilege of lordship did not become hereditary, also presumably receiving a non-sale privilege guaranteeing never again to be handed over by the Crown to a lord.

 

Later, Henry III of Castile (1379–1406) rebuilt the town after it was destroyed by fire, and he founded El Pardo just outside its walls.

 

During the 15th century, the town became one of the preferred locations of the monarchs of the Trastámara dynasty, namely John II of Castile and Henry IV of Castile (Madrid was the town in which the latter spent more time and eventually died). Among the appeals the town offered, aside from the abundant game in the surroundings, the strategic location and the closed link between the existing religious sites and the monarchy, the imposing alcázar frequently provided a safe for the Royal Treasure. The town briefly hosted a medieval mint, manufacturing coins from 1467 to 1471. Madrid would also become a frequent seat of the court during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, spending reportedly more than 1000 days in the town, including a 8-month long uninterrupted spell.

 

By the end of the Middle Ages, Madrid was placed as middle to upper-middle rank town of the Castilian urban network in terms of population. The town also enjoyed a vote at the Cortes of Castile (one out of 18) and housed many hermitages and hospitals.

 

Facing the 1492 decree of expulsion, few local Jews opted for leaving, with most preferring to convert instead, remaining as a non-fully assimilated converso community, subject to rejection by Old Christians. Likewise, adoption of Christianism by the mudéjar community facing the 1502 pragmatic law of forced conversion was also widespread. Seeking to protect its economic interests, the council actively promoted assimilation in the latter case by awarding tax and economic benefits, and gifts.

 

The 1520–21 Revolt of the Comuneros succeeded in Madrid, as, following contacts with the neighbouring city of Toledo, the comunero rebels deposed the corregidor, named Antonio de Astudillo, by 17 June 1520. Juan Zapata and Pedro de Montemayor found themselves among the most uncompromising supporters of the comunero cause in Madrid, with the former becoming the captain of the local militias while the later was captured by royalists and executed by late 1520. The end of revolt came through a negotiation, though, and another two of the leading figures of the uprising (the Bachelor Castillo and Juan Negrete) went unpunished.

 

Philip II (1527–1598), moved the court to Madrid in 1561. Although he made no official declaration, the seat of the court became the de facto capital. Unlikely to have more than 20,000 inhabitants by the time, the city grew approaching the 100,000 mark by the end of the 16th century. The population plummeted (reportedly reduced to a half) during the 5-year period the capital was set in Valladolid (1601–1606), with estimations of roughly 50–60,000 people leaving the city. The move (often framed in modern usage as a case of real estate speculation) was promoted by the valido of Philip III, Duke of Lerma, who had previously acquired many properties in Valladolid. Madrid undertook a mammoth cultural and economic crisis and the decimation of the price of housing ensued. Lerma acquired then cheap real estate in Madrid, and suggested the King to move back the capital to Madrid. The king finally accepted the additional 250,000 ducats offered by the town of Madrid in order to help financing the move of the royal court back to Madrid.

 

During the 17th century, Madrid had a estate-based society. The nobility, a quantitatively large group, swarmed around the royal court. The ecclesial hierarchy, featuring a nobiliary extraction, shared with the nobility the echelon of the Madrilenian society. The lower clergy, featuring a humble extraction, usually had a rural background, although clerics regular often required certifications of limpieza de sangre if not hidalguía. There were plenty of civil servants, who enjoyed considerable social prestige. There was a comparatively small number of craftsmen, traders and goldsmiths. Domestic staff was also common with servants such as pages, squires, butlers and also slaves (owned as symbol of social status). And lastly at the lowest end, there were homeless people, unemployed immigrants, and discharged soldiers and deserters.

 

During the 17th century, Madrid grew rapidly. The royal court attracted many of Spain's leading artists and writers to Madrid, including Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Velázquez during the so-called cultural Siglo de Oro.

 

By the end of the Ancient Regime, Madrid hosted a slave population, tentatively estimated to range from 6,000 to 15,000 out of total population larger than 150,000. Unlike the case of other Spanish cities, during the 18th century the slave population in Madrid was unbalanced in favour of males over females.

 

In 1739 Philip V began constructing new palaces, including the Palacio Real de Madrid. Under Charles III (1716–1788) that Madrid became a truly modern city. Charles III, who cleaned up the city and its government, became one of the most popular kings to rule Madrid, and the saying "the best mayor, the king" became widespread. Besides completing the Palacio Real, Charles III is responsible for many of Madrid's finest buildings and monuments, including the Prado and the Puerta de Alcalá.

 

Amid one of the worst subsistence crises of the Bourbon monarchy, the installation of news lanterns for the developing street lighting system—part of the new modernization policies of the Marquis of Esquilache, the new Sicilian minister—led to an increase on oil prices. This added to an increasing tax burden imposed on a populace already at the brink of famine.[42] In this context, following the enforcing of a ban of the traditional Spanish dress (long cape and a wide-brimmed hat) in order to facilitate the identification of criminal suspects, massive riots erupted in March 1766 in Madrid, the so-called "Mutiny of Esquilache".

 

During the second half of the 18th century, the increasing number of carriages brought a collateral increment of pedestrian accidents, forcing the authorities to take measures against traffic, limiting the number of animals per carriage (in order to reduce speed) and eventually decreeing the full ban of carriages in the city (1787).

 

On 27 October 1807, Charles IV and Napoleon signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau, which allowed French troops passage through Spanish territory to join Spanish troops and invade Portugal, which had refused to obey the order for an international blockade against England. In February 1808, Napoleon used the excuse that the blockade against England was not being respected at Portuguese ports to send a powerful army under his brother-in-law, General Joachim Murat. Contrary to the treaty, French troops entered via Catalonia, occupying the plazas along the way. Thus, throughout February and March 1808, cities such as Barcelona and Pamplona remained under French rule.

 

While all this was happening, the Mutiny of Aranjuez (17 March 1808) took place, led by Charles IV's own son, crown prince Ferdinand, and directed against him. Charles IV resigned and Ferdinand took his place as King Ferdinand VII. In May 1808, Napoleon's troops entered the city. On 2 May 1808 (Spanish: Dos de Mayo), the Madrileños revolted against the French forces, whose brutal behavior would have a lasting impact on French rule in Spain and France's image in Europe in general. Thus, Ferdinand VII returned to a city that had been occupied by Murat.

 

Both the king and his father became virtual prisoners of the French army. Napoleon, taking advantage of the weakness of the Bourbons, forced both, first the father and then the son, to meet him at Bayonne, where Ferdinand VII arrived on 20 April. Here Napoleon forced both kings to abdicate on 5 May, handing the throne to his brother Joseph Bonaparte.

 

On 2 May, the crowd began to concentrate at the Palacio Real and watched as the French soldiers removed the royal family members from the palace. On seeing the infante Francisco de Paula struggling with his captor, the crowd launched an assault on the carriages, shouting ¡Que se lo llevan! (They're taking him away from us!). French soldiers fired into the crowd. The fighting lasted for hours and is reflected in Goya's painting, The Second of May 1808, also known as The Charge of the Mamelukes.

 

Meanwhile, the Spanish military remained garrisoned and passive. Only the artillery barracks at Monteleón under Captain Luis Daoíz y Torres, manned by four officers, three NCOs and ten men, resisted. They were later reinforced by a further 33 men and two officers led by Pedro Velarde y Santillán, and distributed weapons to the civilian population. After repelling a first attack under French General Lefranc, both Spanish commanders died fighting heroically against reinforcements sent by Murat. Gradually, the pockets of resistance fell. Hundreds of Spanish men and women and French soldiers were killed in this skirmish.

 

On 12 August 1812, following the defeat of the French forces at Salamanca, English and Portuguese troops entered Madrid and surrounded the fortified area occupied by the French in the district of Retiro. Following two days of Siege warfare, the 1,700 French surrendered and a large store of arms, 20,000 muskets and 180 cannon, together with many other supplies were captured, along with two French Imperial Eagles.

 

"In the early years of this century, Madrid was a very ugly town, with few architectural monuments, with horrible housing."

 

Antonio Alcalá Galiano. Recuerdos de un anciano.

 

On 29 October, Hill received Wellington's positive order to abandon Madrid and march to join him. After a clash with Soult's advance guard at Perales de Tajuña on the 30th, Hill broke contact and withdrew in the direction of Alba de Tormes. Joseph re-entered his capital on 2 November.

 

After the war of independence Ferdinand VII returned to the throne (1814). The projects of reform by Joseph Bonaparte were abandoned; during the Fernandine period, despite the proposal of several architectural projects for the city, the lack of ability to finance those led to works often being postponed or halted.

 

After a liberal military revolution, Colonel Riego made the king swear to respect the Constitution. Liberal and conservative government thereafter alternated, ending with the enthronement of Isabella II.

 

At the time the reign of Isabella II started, the city was still enclosed behind its walls, featuring a relatively slow demographic growth as well as very high population density. After the 1833 administrative reforms for the country devised by Javier de Burgos (including the configuration of the current province of Madrid), Madrid was to become the capital of the new liberal state.

 

Madrid experienced substantial changes during the 1830s. The corregimiento and the corregidor (institutions from the Ancien Regime) were ended for good, giving rise to the constitutional alcalde in the context of the liberal transformations. Purged off from Carlist elements, the civil office and the military and palatial milieus recognised legitimacy to the dynastic rights of Isabella II.

 

The reforms enacted by Finance Minister Juan Álvarez Mendizábal in 1835–1836 led to the confiscation of ecclesiastical properties and the subsequent demolition of churches, convents and adjacent orchards in the city (similarly to other Spanish cities); the widening of streets and squares ensued.

 

In 1854, amid economic and political crisis, following the pronunciamiento of group of high officers commanded by Leopoldo O'Donnell garrisoned in the nearby town of Vicálvaro in June 1854 (the so-called "Vicalvarada"), the 7 July Manifesto of Manzanares, calling for popular rebellion, and the ousting of Luis José Sartorius from the premiership on 17 July, popular mutiny broke out in Madrid, asking for a real change of system, in what it was to be known as the Revolution of 1854. With the uprising in Madrid reaching its pinnacle on 17, 18 and 19 July, the rebels, who erected barricades in the streets, were bluntly crushed by the new government.

 

1858 was a marked year for the city with the arrival of the waters from the Lozoya. The Canal de Isabel II was inaugurated on 24 June 1858. A ceremony took place soon after in Calle Ancha de San Bernardo to celebrate it, unveiling a 30-metre-high water source in the middle of the street.

 

The plan for the Ensanche de Madrid ('widening of Madrid') by Carlos María de Castro was passed through a royal decree issued on 19 July 1860. The plan for urban expansion by Castro, a staunch Conservative, delivered a segregation of the well-off class, the middle class and the artisanate into different zones. The southern part of the Ensanche was at a disadvantage with respect to the rest of the Ensanche, insofar, located on the way to the river and at a lower altitude, it was a place of passage for the sewage runoff, thereby being described as a "space of urban degradation and misery". Beyond the Ensanches, slums and underclass neighborhoods were built in suburbs such as Tetuán, Prosperidad or Vallecas.

 

Student unrest took place in 1865 following the ministerial decree against the expression of ideas against the monarchy and the church and the forced removal of the rector of the Universidad Central, unwilling to submit. In a crescendo of protests, the night of 10 April 2,000 protesters clashed against the civil guard. The unrest was crudely quashed, leaving 14 deaths, 74 wounded students and 114 arrests (in what became known as the "Night of Saint Daniel"), becoming the precursor of more serious revolutionary attempts.

 

The Glorious Revolution resulting in the deposition of Queen Isabella II started with a pronunciamiento in the bay of Cádiz in September 1868. The success of the uprising in Madrid on 29 September prompted the French exile of the queen, who was on holiday in San Sebastián and was unable to reach the capital by train. General Juan Prim, the leader of the liberal progressives, was received by the Madrilenian people at his arrival to the city in early October in a festive mood. He pronounced his famous speech of the "three nevers" directed against the Bourbons, and delivered a highly symbolical hug to General Serrano, leader of the revolutionary forces triumphant in the 28 September battle of Alcolea, in the Puerta del Sol.

 

On 27 December 1870 the car in which General Prim, the prime minister, was travelling, was shot by unknown hit-men in the Turk Street, nearby the Congress of Deputies. Prim, wounded in the attack, died three days later, with the elected monarch Amadeus, Duke of Aosta, yet to swear the constitution.

 

The creation of the Salamanca–Sol–Pozas tram service in Madrid in 1871 meant the introduction of the first collective system of transportation in the city, predating the omnibus.

 

The economy of the city further modernized during the second half of the 19th century, consolidating its status as a service and financial centre. New industries were mostly focused in book publishing, construction and low-tech sectors. The introduction of railway transport greatly helped Madrid's economic prowess, and led to changes in consumption patterns (such as the substitution of salted fish for fresh fish from the Spanish coasts) as well as further strengthening the city's role as a logistics node in the country's distribution network.

 

The late 19th century saw the introduction of the electric power distribution. As by law, the city council could not concede an industrial monopoly to any company, the city experienced a huge competition among the companies in the electricity sector. The absence of a monopoly led to an overlapping of distribution networks, to the point that in the centre of Madrid 5 different networks could travel through the same street. Electric lighting in the streets was introduced in the 1890s.

 

By the end of the 19th century, the city featured access to water, a central status in the rail network, a cheap workforce and access to financial capital. With the onset of the new century, the Ensanche Sur (in the current day district of Arganzuela) started to grow to become the main industrial area of the municipality along the first half of the 20th century.

 

In the early 20th century Madrid undertook a major urban intervention in its city centre with the creation of the Gran Vía, a monumental thoroughfare (then divided in three segments with different names) whose construction slit the city from top to bottom with the demolition of multitude of housing and small streets. Anticipated in earlier projects, and following the signature of the contract, the works formally started in April 1910 with a ceremony led by King Alfonso XIII.

 

Also with the turn of the century, Madrid had become the cultural capital of Spain as centre of top knowledge institutions (the Central University, the Royal Academies, the Institución Libre de Enseñanza or the Ateneo de Madrid), also concentrating the most publishing houses and big daily newspapers, amounting for the bulk of the intellectual production in the country.

 

In 1919 the Madrid Metro (known as the Ferrocarril Metropolitano by that time) inaugurated its first service, which went from Sol to the Cuatro Caminos area.

 

In the 1919–1920 biennium Madrid witnessed the biggest wave of protests seen in the city up to that date, being the centre of innumerable strikes; despite being still surpassed by Barcelona's, the industrial city par excellence in that time, this cycle decisively set the foundations for the social unrest that took place in the 1930s in the city.

 

The situation the monarchy had left Madrid in 1931 was catastrophic, with tens of thousands of kids receiving no education and a huge rate of unemployment.

 

After the proclamation of the Second Republic on 14 April 1931 the citizens of Madrid understood the free access to the Casa de Campo (until then an enclosed property with exclusive access for the royalty), was a consequence of the fall of the monarchy, and informally occupied the area on 15 April. After the signing of a decree on 20 April which granted the area to the Madrilenian citizens in order to become a "park for recreation and instruction", the transfer was formally sealed on 6 May when Minister Indalecio Prieto formally delivered the Casa de Campo to Mayor Pedro Rico. The Spanish Constitution of 1931 was the first legislating on the state capital, setting it explicitly in Madrid. During the 1930s, Madrid enjoyed "great vitality"; it was demographically young, but also young in the sense of its relation with the modernity. During this time the prolongation of the Paseo de la Castellana towards the north was projected. The proclamation of the Republic slowed down the building of new housing. The tertiary sector gave thrust to the economy. Illiteracy rates were down to below 20%, and the city's cultural life grew notably during the so-called Silver Age of Spanish culture; the sales of newspaper also increased. Anti-clericalism and Catholicism lived side by side in Madrid; the burning of convents initiated after riots in the city in May 1931 worsened the political environment. The 1934 insurrection largely failed in Madrid.

 

In order to deal with the unemployment, the new Republican city council hired many jobless people as gardeners and street cleaners.

 

Prieto, who sought to turn the city into the "Great Madrid", capital of the Republic, charged Secundino Zuazo with the project for the opening of a south–north axis in the city through the northward enlargement of the Paseo de la Castellana and the construction of the Nuevos Ministerios administrative complex in the area (halted by the Civil War, works in the Nuevos Ministerios would finish in 1942). Works on the Ciudad Universitaria, already started during the monarchy in 1929, also resumed.

 

The military uprising of July 1936 was defeated in Madrid by a combination of loyal forces and workers' militias. On 20 July armed workers and loyal troops stormed the single focus of resistance, the Cuartel de La Montaña, defended by a contingent of 2,000 rebel soldiers accompanied by 500 falangists under the command of General Fanjul, killing over one hundred of rebels after their surrender. Aside from the Cuartel de la Montaña episode, the wider scheme for the coup in the capital largely failed both due to disastrous rebel planning and due to the Government delivering weapons to the people wanting to defend the Republic, with the city becoming a symbol of popular resistance, "the people in arms".

 

After the quelling of the coup d'état, from 1936–1939, Madrid remained under the control of forces loyal to the Republic. Following the seemingly unstoppable advance towards Madrid of rebel land troops, the first air bombings on Madrid also started. Immediately after the bombing of the nearing airports of Getafe and Cuatro Vientos, Madrid proper was bombed for the first time in the night of the 27–28 August 1936 by a Luftwaffe's Junkers Ju 52 that threw several bombs on the Ministry of War and the Station of the North. Madrid "was to become the first big European city to be bombed by aviation".

 

Rebel General Francisco Franco, recently given the supreme military command over his faction, took a detour in late September to "liberate" the besieged Alcázar de Toledo. Meanwhile, this operation gave time to the republicans in Madrid to build defenses and start receiving some foreign support.

 

The summer and autumn of 1936 saw the Republican Madrid witness of heavy-handed repression by communist and socialist groups, symbolised by the murder of prisoners in checas and sacas directed mostly against military personnel and leading politicians linked to the rebels, which, culminated by the horrific Paracuellos massacres in the context of a simultaneous major rebel offensive against the city, were halted by early December. Madrid, besieged from October 1936, saw a major offensive in its western suburbs in November of that year.

 

In the last weeks of the war, the collapse of the republic was speeded by Colonel Segismundo Casado, who, endorsed by some political figures such as Anarchist Cipriano Mera and Julián Besteiro, a PSOE leader who had held talks with the Falangist fifth column in the city, threw a military coup against the legitimate government under the pretext of excessive communist preponderance, propelling a mini-civil war in Madrid that, won by the casadistas, left roughly 2,000 casualties between 5–10 March 1939.

 

The city fell to the nationalists on 28 March 1939.

 

Following the onset of the Francoist dictatorship in the city, the absence of personal and associative freedoms and the heavy-hand repression of people linked to a republican past greatly deprived the city from social mobilization, trade unionism and intellectual life. This added to a climate of general shortage, with ration coupons rampant and a lingering autarchic economy lasting until the mid 1950s. Meat and fish consumption was scarce in Post-War Madrid, and starvation and lack of proteins were a cause of high mortality.

 

With the country ruined after the war, the Falange command had nonetheless high plans for the city and professionals sympathetic to the regime dreamed (based on an organicist conception) about the notion of building a body for the "Spanish greatness" placing a great emphasis in Madrid, what they thought to be the imperial capital of the New State. In this sense, urban planners sought to highlight and symbolically put in value the façade the city offered to the Manzanares River, the "Imperial Cornice", bringing projects to accompany the Royal Palace such as the finishing of the unfinished cathedral (with the start of works postponed to 1950 and ultimately finished in the late 20th century), a never-built "house of the Party" and many others. Nonetheless these delusions of grandeur caught up with reality and the scarcity during the Post-War and most of the projects ended up either filed, unfinished or mutilated, with the single clear success being the Gutiérrez Soto's Cuartel del Ejército del Aire.

 

The intense demographic growth experienced by the city via mass immigration from the rural areas of the country led to the construction of plenty of housing in the peripheral areas of the city to absorb the new population (reinforcing the processes of social polarization of the city), initially comprising substandard housing (with as many as 50,000 shacks scattered around the city by 1956). A transitional planning intended to temporarily replace the shanty towns were the poblados de absorción, introduced since the mid-1950s in locations such as Canillas, San Fermín, Caño Roto, Villaverde, Pan Bendito [es], Zofío and Fuencarral, aiming to work as a sort of "high-end" shacks (with the destinataries participating in the construction of their own housing) but under the aegis of a wider coordinated urban planning.

 

Together with the likes of Cairo, Santiago de Chile, Rome, Buenos Aires or Lisbon, Francoist Madrid became an important transnational hub of the global Neofascist network that facilitated the survival and resumption of (neo)fascist activities after 1945.

 

In the 1948–1954 period the municipality greatly increased in size through the annexation of 13 surrounding municipalities, as its total area went up from 68,42 km2 to 607,09 km2. The annexed municipalities were Chamartín de la Rosa (5 June 1948), Carabanchel Alto (29 April 1948), Carabanchel Bajo (29 April 1948), Canillas (30 March 1950), Canillejas (30 March 1950), Hortaleza (31 March 1950), Barajas (31 March 1950), Vallecas (22 December 1950), El Pardo (27 March 1951), Vicálvaro (20 October 1951), Fuencarral (20 October 1951) Aravaca (20 October 1951) and Villaverde (31 July 1954).

 

The population of the city peaked in 1975 at 3,228,057 inhabitants.

 

Benefiting from prosperity in the 1980s, Spain's capital city has consolidated its position as the leading economic, cultural, industrial, educational and technological center of the Iberian peninsula. The relative decline in population since 1975 reverted in the 1990s, with the city recovering a population of roughly 3 million inhabitants by the end of the 20th century.

 

Since the late 1970s and through the 1980s Madrid became the center of the cultural movement known as la Movida. Conversely, just like in the rest of the country, a heroin crisis took a toll in the poor neighborhoods of Madrid in the 1980s.

 

On 11 March 2004, three days before Spain's general elections and exactly 2 years and 6 months after the September 11 attacks in the US, Madrid was hit by a terrorist attack when Islamic terrorists belonging to an al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist cell placed a series of bombs on several trains during the morning rush hour, killing 191 people and injuring 1,800.

 

The administrations that followed Álvarez del Manzano's, also conservative, led by Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón and Ana Botella, launched three unsuccessful bids for the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympics. Madrid was a centre of the anti-austerity protests that erupted in Spain in 2011. As consequence of the spillover of the 2008 financial and mortgage crisis, Madrid has been affected by the increasing number of second-hand homes held by banks and house evictions. The mandate of left-wing Mayor Manuela Carmena (2015–2019) delivered the renaturalization of the course of the Manzanares across the city.

 

Since the late 2010s, the challenges the city faces include the increasingly unaffordable rental prices (often in parallel with the gentrification and the spike of tourist apartments in the city centre) and the profusion of betting shops in working-class areas, equalled to an "epidemics" among the young people.

Exactly a year ago, ending 20 years of struggle for a location and design, this monument to Germany's dark past was finally unveiled right next to the Reichstag in Berlin. 25,000 of the then 40,000 German Sinti and Roma are believed to have been killed by the Nazis.

Today, there is a strong influx of impoverished Roma from the crisis-stricken countries of southern Europe, namely Romania and Bulgaria to Germany.

The locals find it hard to accept the gypsy newcomers and their lifestyles. Illiteracy is a problem, begging women and children in the streets are not a pretty sight.

Compared to embracing immigrants, it is so much easier to keep the monument spick and span - leaves are removed on a daily basis...

 

Classic old bus seen in Sliema, Malta. These buses were built by Maltese bus-builders during the 1950s to the 1970s and came in different colours, to overcome illiteracy - red, purple, blue...depending on the locality they served. This tradition persisted until eventually bus numbers came into place.

María de la Encarnación Gertrudis Jacoba Aragoneses y de Urquijo (1886 – 1952) was a Spanish author of children's literature who wrote under the pen name Elena Fortún. She became famous for Celia, lo que dice ("What Celia Says") the first in the series of children's novels which were a collection of short stories first published in magazines in 1929. The series were both popular and successful during the time of their publications and are today considered classics of Spanish literature.

 

Although a member of the Lyceum Women's Club, Encarna Aragoneses was not engaged in any political activity, however she believed that the Second Spanish Republic would end illiteracy and bring equality into women's lives. At the start of the Spanish Civil War she stayed in Madrid with her husband who was loyal to the Republic. In Celia en la revolución (1987), an accurate portrayal of Republican Spain during the siege of Madrid, the author wonders who is right and expresses her own thoughts and sufferings of the war through Celia who is horrified at the uncompromising positions of both sides.[3] In 1938 she became a member of the Comisión del Teatro de los Niños and in July her play Moñitos (Baubles) was staged.

 

In 1957, a few years after her death, María Martos de Baeza and playwright Matilde Ras sponsored a fund raising effort to erect a monument in her honor in the Parque del Oeste in Madrid. The relief which shows Elena Fortún between two children was designed by the Murcian sculptor José Planes.

Politician, writer, notary and intellectual, Blas Infante Pérez (Casares, July 5, 1885-Seville, August 11, 1936) was the precursor of the collective impulse that made possible the achievement of self-government that today represents the Statute of Autonomy for Andalusia. .

 

Its role was decisive in the configuration of the Andalusian identity and endowed the community with its own symbology through the creation of our flag, shield and anthem.

 

Infante promoted and defended our political autonomy with a regenerationist, inclusive and supportive discourse with the rest of the peoples of Spain.

 

Faced with hatred, antagonism or resentment, Blas Infante defended cooperation between individuals and peoples, and miscegenation and cosmopolitanism as identity values ​​of the Andalusian community.

 

In the time that he lived, in the context of a marginalized Andalusia, weighed down by inequality, illiteracy, unemployment or emigration, Infante was a firm promoter and defender of a universal Andalusia destined to play a leading role in the Spanish state.

 

A source of inspiration and an example of union for the Andalusian people, Blas Infante was recognized as Father of the Andalusian Homeland in an act of historic justice by the Parliament of Andalusia in April 1983 and named honorary president of the Junta de Andalucía in May of 2010.

India is the seventh largest and second most populous country in the world. With acceleration in economic growth, India has become one of the fastest growing developing countries. This has created a huge difference between poor and rich.

The conditions of women in India has, in many ways, worsened. Despite constitutional protection and assurances,in woman, their status is found to be lower than not only that of women in the general population but is also lower than the Scheduled Caste women. It is characterized by over-work, invasion of sexually exploitative market forces in society, illiteracy, sub-human physical living conditions, high fertility, high malnutrition. specially in rural women.

Shot it at puskar,Bihar,India...

For more photos like this one.click MY SITE subirbasak.orgfree.com.....

United Nations agencies and programmes are helping to eradicate illiteracy by supporting projects which seek to expand and improve educational structures in line with the economic, social and cultural realities of a country.

 

Outdoor class runs by the local community for the children of squatters in Negril, Jamaica.

 

01 January 1986

 

Negril, Jamaica

 

Photo # 161799

 

Credit: UN Photo/Milton Grant

Ravi,this small boy does not go to school and helps his chithappa(uncle) in managing this balloon stall at the Marina beach,Chennai.

 

In today's world,so many kids still remain uneducated. Hoping the situation changes soon atleast within this decade.Shot during my recent India trip.

 

A Definite View On Black Background

Por favor, no use esta imagen en su web, blogs u otros medios sin mi permiso explícito. © Todos los derechos reservados.

© Alejandro Cárdaba Rubio/2015

 

HUNUKÚ

La localidad de Hunukú está situado en el Municipio de Temozón (en el Estado de Yucatán). Tiene 2659 habitantes. Hunukú está a 33 metros de altitud.

En la localidad hay 1335 hombres y 1324 mujeres. La relación mujeres/hombres es de 0.992. El ratio de fecundidad de la población femenina es de 3.22 hijos por mujer. El porcentaje de analfabetismo entre los adultos es del 13.84% (11.16% en los hombres y 16.54% en las mujeres) y el grado de escolaridad es de 4.80 (5.37 en hombres y 4.25 en mujeres).

En Hunukú el 86.99% de los adultos habla alguna lengua indígena. En la localidad se encuentran 538 viviendas, de las cuales el 0.11% disponen de una computadora.

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Hunukú

The town of Hunukú is located in the town of Temozon (in the State of Yucatan). It has 2659 inhabitants. Hunukú is 33 meters.

In the resort there are 1335 men and 1324 women. The female / male ratio is 0.992. The fertility rate of the female population is 3.22 children per woman. The illiteracy rate among adults is 13.84% (11.16% for men and 16.54% women) and the level of education is 4.80 (5.37 in men and 4.25 in women).

In Hunukú the 86.99% of the adults speak an indigenous language. In the resort are 538 housing units, of which 0.11% have a computer.

 

Más Información / More Information: mexico.pueblosamerica.com/i/hunuku/

‘Gargouille’ is an old French word, meaning throat. The English words gargle, gurgle and gargoyle are derived from gargouille.

 

Legend has it, that a fierce dragon named La Gargouille described as having a long, reptilian neck, a slender snout and membranous wings lived in a cave near the river Seine. The dragon caused much fear and destruction with its fiery breath, spouting water and the devouring of ships and men. Each year, the residents of Rouen would placate Gargouille with an offering of a victim, usually a criminal, though it was said the dragon preferred maidens. Around 600, the village was saved by St. Romanus, who promised to deal with the dragon if the townspeople agreed to be baptized and to build a church. Romanus subdued the dragon by making the sign of the cross and then led the now docile beast back to town on a leash made from his priest's robe. La Gargouille was then burned at the stake, it is said that his head and neck were so well tempered by the heat of his fiery breath, that they would not burn. These remnants were then mounted on the town wall and became the model for gargoyles for centuries to come.

Gargoyles crafted during Medieval times were soon referred to as “chimeras” because of their representations of creatures that were not of this world - half man, and half bird or beast. These new incarnations were either depicted sitting on their haunches or poised to take flight. They also possessed over exaggerated muzzles or beaks and other odd appendages. They were positioned on a cornice molding so they projected forward and away from the building for a number of feet. In this way the gargoyle was able to spew water far from the building.

Although the demons and monsters so prevalent in cathedral sculpture may seem almost quaint to modern eyes, the men of the Middle Ages did not find them so. In a time when illiteracy was almost a universal condition and belief in a literal, waiting Inferno prevailed, the purpose of most cathedral sculpture was not decorative but instructional. It was intended, to scare the hell out of its beholders, and there is every reason to believe it did a creditable job, presenting the horrors of damnation in living color (of which only faint traces remain today ).

( from northstargallery.com/gargoyles/aboutgargoyles.htm )

The gargoyles of the Holy Chapel in Vincennes are among the most striking exemples of this function.

 

were more educated and intelligent than college professors :-) Maya Angelou

HFF!!

prunus mume, 'Tama', j c raulston arboretum, ncsu, raleigh, north carolina

Fresh from completing her master's degree in poetry, Sophia returns to the retail world, but not without the company of her friends, the poets.

JAAGO Foundation is a charitable organization dedicated to the betterment of underprivileged and poverty-stricken children of Bangladesh. Founded in April 2007 by Korvi Rakshand, a Bangladeshi National, it focuses mainly on battling illiteracy and malnutrition in children and on rehabilitating them to better environments and social conditions. JAAGO is currently directed to conducting activities to provide long-term and sustainable benefits to children who are living below the poverty line.

 

Every year, JAAGO Foundation gathers the youth of Bangladesh to celebrate UCD in a unique way. Volunteers stand in the shoes of the street children for a day. They sell flowers and ask for money at main signal points in Dhaka City. For each volunteer who participates, one street child gets to reclaim a day of his or her childhood. The children play in a theme park all day, receive two full meals and are repaid the money that would have been their daily salary.

 

And this year..., TTL (through the lens) was a part of the program by volunteering taking pictures of the activities of JAAGO members on each point of Dhaka city including the theme park.

 

I was assigned for the Asad gate signal point to take pictures of JAAGO activities. What i should say that is....,the effort from the JAAGO members was so remarkable that i really didn't expect this much. A great event it was.....

and I'm proud to be a part of it..

 

Is education system helpful to these kids who learn ABC without an understanding of what it is? .... these migrant workers mostly from impoverished parts of north India find a decent livelihood in the jhuggies of Kukkatpalli with each and everyone making Ganapatis for the festival and then Diyas for Diwali and some pop statues during other time. Education does not touch the door of these places probably the family does not see value add to it.

 

We can say that this child needs to be in school... I agree but also wonder is our education system in its present shape an use for people of this strata or a more creative and productive kind of education one which is useful for them!!

 

This child ironically is named Bharat , who is street smart has probably learned more being on the street than in school........

 

By the way this boy is not employed as child labour but helps his family eek out a living in his family business of making ganapatis

 

Whats your take folks?

View Large to Enter Trance

 

Obama's surrounded himself with old war hawks, backward neoliberal deregulating economists, other second rate cabinet members & now, this - a virulently anti-gay, vulgarly Christian fellow that one may surmise is a con man.

----------------------------------------

 

EXCERPT: On Wednesday, the transition team announced that Rick Warren, pastor of the powerful Saddleback Church, would give the invocation on January 20th. The selection may not have been incredibly surprising. Obama and Warren are reportedly close -- Obama praised the Megachurch leader in his second book "The Audacity of Hope." Warren, meanwhile, hosted a values forum between Obama and McCain during the general election. Nevertheless, the announcement is being greeted with deep skepticism in progressive religious and political circles.

 

www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/17/rick-warren-obama-invoc...

 

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Here are 2 examples of Rick Warren at his finest:

 

• 1) SOURCE: ThinkProgress.org

 

Bush to receive first-ever International Medal of Peace

 

To mark World AIDS Day, Saddelback Pastor Rick Warren is hosting a Civil Forum on Global Health at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Warren will present President Bush with the first “International Medal of PEACE” from the Global PEACE Coalition in recognition of his unprecedented contribution to the fight against HIV/AIDS and other diseases. The “International Medal of PEACE” is given for outstanding contribution toward alleviating the five global giants recognized by the Coalition, including pandemic diseases, extreme poverty, illiteracy, self-centered leadership and spiritual emptiness. The Bush administration reports that its AIDS initiative helped treat two million people this year living with HIV/AIDS.

 

Continue to full text: thinkprogress.org/2008/12/01/bush-peace/

 

• 2) SOURCE: Newsweek

 

The God Debate

 

The latest NEWSWEEK poll shows that 91 percent of American adults surveyed believe in God—and nearly half reject the theory of evolution.

 

NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE

Updated: 5:55 PM ET Aug 21, 2007

 

Rick Warren is as big as a bear, with a booming voice and easygoing charm. Sam Harris is compact, reserved and, despite the polemical tone of his books, friendly and mild. Warren, one of the best-known pastors in the world, started Saddleback in 1980; now 25,000 people attend the church each Sunday. Harris is softer-spoken; paragraphs pour out of him, complex and fact-filled—as befits a Ph.D. student in neuroscience. At NEWSWEEK's invitation, they met in Warren's office recently and chatted, mostly amiably, for four hours. Jon Meacham moderated. Excerpts follow.

 

JON MEACHAM: Rick, since you're the home team, we'll start with Sam. Sam, is there a God in the sense that most Americans think of him?

 

SAM HARRIS: There's no evidence for such a God, and it's instructive to notice that we're all atheists with respect to Zeus and the thousands of other dead gods whom now nobody worships.

 

Rick, what is the evidence of the existence of the God of Abraham?

 

RICK WARREN: I see the fingerprints of God everywhere. I see them in culture. I see them in law. I see them in literature. I see them in nature. I see them in my own life. Trying to understand where God came from is like an ant trying to understand the Internet. Even the most brilliant scientist would agree that we only know a fraction of a percent of the knowledge of the universe.

 

HARRIS: Any scientist must concede that we don't fully understand the universe. But neither the Bible nor the Qur'an represents our best understanding of the universe. That is exquisitely clear.

 

WARREN: To you.

 

HARRIS: There is so much about us that is not in the Bible. Every specific science from cosmology to psychology to economics has surpassed and superseded what the Bible tells us is true about our world.

 

Sam, does the Christian you address in your books have to believe that God wrote the Bible and that it is literally true?

 

HARRIS: Well, there's clearly a spectrum of confidence in the text. I mean, there's the "This is literally true, nothing even gets figuratively interpreted," and then there's the "This is just the best book we have, written by the smartest people who have ever lived, and it's still legitimate to organize our lives around it to the exclusion of other books." Anywhere on that spectrum I have a problem, because in my mind the Bible and the Qur'an are just books, written by human beings. There are sections of the Bible that I think are absolutely brilliant and poetically unrivaled, and there are sections of the Bible which are the sheerest barbarism, yet profess to prescribe a divinely mandated morality—where do I start? Books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy and Exodus and First and Second Kings and Second Samuel—half of the kings and prophets of Israel would be taken to The Hague and prosecuted for crimes against humanity if these events took place in our own time.

 

[To Warren] Is the Bible inerrant?

 

WARREN: I believe it's inerrant in what it claims to be. The Bible does not claim to be a scientific book in many areas.

 

Do you believe Creation happened in the way Genesis describes it?

 

WARREN: If you're asking me do I believe in evolution, the answer is no, I don't. I believe that God, at a moment, created man. I do believe Genesis is literal, but I do also know metaphorical terms are used. Did God come down and blow in man's nose? If you believe in God, you don't have a problem accepting miracles. So if God wants to do it that way, it's fine with me.

 

HARRIS: I'm doing my Ph.D. in neuroscience; I'm very close to the literature on evolutionary biology. And the basic point is that evolution by natural selection is random genetic mutation over millions of years in the context of environmental pressure that selects for fitness.

 

WARREN: Who's doing the selecting?

 

HARRIS: The environment. You don't have to invoke an intelligent designer to explain the complexity we see.

 

WARREN: Sam makes all kinds of assertions based on his presuppositions. I'm willing to admit my presuppositions: there are clues to God. I talk to God every day. He talks to me....

 

Click link to continue to full text: www.newsweek.com/id/35784/page/1

 

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Education in Morocco is free and compulsory through primary school (age 12). Nevertheless, many children – particularly girls in rural areas – still do not attend school. The country's illiteracy rate has been stuck at around 50% for some years, but reaches as high as 90% among girls in rural regions.

 

Aït-Ben-Haddou, Morocco

India used to be a colony of the Dutch, Danish, French, Portuguese, and of course the British (for over 300 years: 1613-1947). It is argued that the British legacy in India is the belief in unity, democracy, the rule of law, and a certain equality beyond caste and creed. [11] The British left behind roads, canals, and rail tracks; they also trained Indians to maintain them and build more. The Indian Administrative Service was created based on British bureaucratic institutions and, apparently, while slow and unwieldy, it is to this day what holds India together. Vaccines were introduced, and doctors were trained as well. The British banned slavery [13] as well as sati (widow burning) and thuggee (ritual robbery and murder) [1, p. 19], which I will describe later. They created foundations for a good education system, if only for those well-off. And they gave India the English language.

On the other hand, the British rule ruined the Indian economy, as all the changes implemented in India were designed to benefit Britain. They took over land and resources. India was turned into an agrarian country, and people were driven from cities back to the countryside. [12] Indian products were purchased at low prices, and taxes were high, leading the country to poverty. Illiteracy rates increased. Finally, millions of people died of famines that could have been prevented.

But perhaps most importantly, the British became the common enemy, allowing Indian people to feel like one nation, and unite. [27]

Nine alphabets can create one magical word as “EDUCATION” is just like an Aldines Lamp.

Adams & Eves of this planet are like Aldines if they are blessed by Education.

Whenever He or She rubs this lamp, a series of miracle will be start.

“Jinni” will appear like a “Saviour” who is bound to do the bidding of the person holding the Lamp.

Specially removes the darkness of ignorance, superstition, curse of poverty, illiteracy and so on….

So, This magical word is the only way of our way out, nothing else.

 

(Boys and Girls in a primary school are busy with taking extra nursing for their preparation of upcoming J.S.C exam though electricity never lays his warm hands upon this “Aila” affected locality )

The Quran (English pronunciation: /kɔrˈɑːn/ kor-AHN , Arabic: القرآن‎ al-qur'ān, IPA: [qurˈʔaːn], literally meaning "the recitation", also romanised Qur'an or Koran) is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be a revelation from God (Arabic: الله‎, Allah). Its scriptural status among a world-spanning religious community, and its major place within world literature generally, has led to a great deal of secondary literature on the Quran. Quranic chapters are called suras and verses are called ayahs.

 

Muslims believe that the Quran was verbally revealed by God to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel (Jibril), gradually over a period of approximately 23 years, beginning on 22 December 609 CE, when Muhammad was 40, and concluding in 632 CE, the year of his death. Muslims regard the Quran as the most important miracle of Muhammad, a proof of his prophethood, and the culmination of a series of divine messages that started with the messages revealed to Adam and ended with Muhammad. They consider the Quran to be the only revealed book that has been protected by God from distortion or corruption.

 

According to the traditional narrative, several companions of Muhammad served as scribes and were responsible for writing down the revelations. Shortly after Muhammad's death, the Quran was compiled by his companions who wrote down and memorized parts of it. These codices had differences that motivated the Caliph Uthman to establish a standard version now known as Uthman's codex, which is generally considered the archetype of the Quran we have today. However, the existence of variant readings, with mostly minor and some significant variations, and the early unvocalized Arabic script mean the relationship between Uthman's codex to both the text of today's Quran and to the revelations of Muhammad's time is still unclear.

 

The Quran assumes familiarity with major narratives recounted in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. It summarizes some, dwells at length on others and, in some cases, presents alternative accounts and interpretations of events. The Quran describes itself as a book of guidance. It sometimes offers detailed accounts of specific historical events, and it often emphasizes the moral significance of an event over its narrative sequence. The Quran is used along with the hadith to interpret sharia law. During prayers, the Quran is recited only in Arabic.

 

Someone who has memorized the entire Quran is called a hafiz. Some Muslims read Quranic ayahs (verses) with elocution, which is often called tajwīd. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims typically complete the recitation of the whole Quran during tarawih prayers. In order to extrapolate the meaning of a particular Quranic verse, most Muslims rely on the tafsir.

 

ETYMOLOGY & MEANING

The word qurʼān appears about 70 times in the Quran itself, assuming various meanings. It is a verbal noun (maṣdar) of the Arabic verb qaraʼa (قرأ), meaning "he read" or "he recited". The Syriac equivalent is (ܩܪܝܢܐ) qeryānā, which refers to "scripture reading" or "lesson". While some Western scholars consider the word to be derived from the Syriac, the majority of Muslim authorities hold the origin of the word is qaraʼa itself. Regardless, it had become an Arabic term by Muhammad's lifetime. An important meaning of the word is the "act of reciting", as reflected in an early Quranic passage: "It is for Us to collect it and to recite it (qurʼānahu)."

 

In other verses, the word refers to "an individual passage recited [by Muhammad]". Its liturgical context is seen in a number of passages, for example: "So when al-qurʼān is recited, listen to it and keep silent." The word may also assume the meaning of a codified scripture when mentioned with other scriptures such as the Torah and Gospel.

 

The term also has closely related synonyms that are employed throughout the Quran. Each synonym possesses its own distinct meaning, but its use may converge with that of qurʼān in certain contexts. Such terms include kitāb (book); āyah (sign); and sūrah (scripture). The latter two terms also denote units of revelation. In the large majority of contexts, usually with a definite article (al-), the word is referred to as the "revelation" (waḥy), that which has been "sent down" (tanzīl) at intervals. Other related words are: dhikr (remembrance), used to refer to the Quran in the sense of a reminder and warning, and ḥikmah (wisdom), sometimes referring to the revelation or part of it.

 

The Quran describes itself as "the discernment or the criterion between truth and falsehood" (al-furqān), "the mother book" (umm al-kitāb), "the guide" (huda), "the wisdom" (hikmah), "the remembrance" (dhikr) and "the revelation" (tanzīl; something sent down, signifying the descent of an object from a higher place to lower place). Another term is al-kitāb (the book), though it is also used in the Arabic language for other scriptures, such as the Torah and the Gospels. The adjective of "Quran" has multiple transliterations including "quranic," "koranic" and "qur'anic," or capitalised as "Qur'anic," "Koranic" and "Quranic." The term muṣḥaf ('written work') is often used to refer to particular Quranic manuscripts but is also used in the Quran to identify earlier revealed books. Other transliterations of "Quran" include "al-Coran", "Coran", "Kuran" and "al-Qurʼan".

 

HISTORY

PROPHETIC ERA

Islamic tradition relates that Muhammad received his first revelation in the Cave of Hira during one of his isolated retreats to the mountains. Thereafter, he received revelations over a period of 23 years. According to hadith and Muslim history, after Muhammad emigrated to Medina and formed an independent Muslim community, he ordered many of his companions to recite the Quran and to learn and teach the laws, which were revealed daily. It is related that some of the Quraish who were taken prisoners at the battle of Badr regained their freedom after they had taught some of the Muslims the simple writing of the time. Thus a group of Muslims gradually became literate. As it was initially spoken, the Quran was recorded on tablets, bones, and the wide, flat ends of date palm fronds. Most suras were in use amongst early Muslims since they are mentioned in numerous sayings by both Sunni and Shia sources, relating Muhammad's use of the Quran as a call to Islam, the making of prayer and the manner of recitation. However, the Quran did not exist in book form at the time of Muhammad's death in 632 CE. There is agreement among scholars that Muhammad himself did not write down the revelation.

 

Sahih al-Bukhari narrates Muhammad describing the revelations as, "Sometimes it is (revealed) like the ringing of a bell" and Aisha reported, "I saw the Prophet being inspired Divinely on a very cold day and noticed the sweat dropping from his forehead (as the Inspiration was over)." Muhammad's first revelation, according to the Quran, was accompanied with a vision. The agent of revelation is mentioned as the "one mighty in power", the one who "grew clear to view when he was on the uppermost horizon. Then he drew nigh and came down till he was (distant) two bows' length or even nearer." The Islamic studies scholar Welch states in the Encyclopaedia of Islam that he believes the graphic descriptions of Muhammad's condition at these moments may be regarded as genuine, because he was severely disturbed after these revelations. According to Welch, these seizures would have been seen by those around him as convincing evidence for the superhuman origin of Muhammad's inspirations. However, Muhammad's critics accused him of being a possessed man, a soothsayer or a magician since his experiences were similar to those claimed by such figures well known in ancient Arabia. Welch additionally states that it remains uncertain whether these experiences occurred before or after Muhammad's initial claim of prophethood. The Quran describes Muhammad as "ummi", which is traditionally interpreted as "illiterate," but the meaning is rather more complex. The medieval commentators such as Al-Tabari maintained that the term induced two meanings: first, the inability to read or write in general; second, the inexperience or ignorance of the previous books or scriptures (but they gave priority to the first meaning). Besides, Muhammad's illiteracy was taken as a sign of the genuineness of his prophethood. For example, according to Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, if Muhammad had mastered writing and reading he possibly would have been suspected of having studied the books of the ancestors. Some scholars such as Watt prefer the second meaning.

 

COMPILATION

Based on earlier transmitted reports, in the year 632 CE, after Muhammad died and a number of his companions who knew the Quran by heart were killed in a battle by Musaylimah, the first caliph Abu Bakr (d. 634CE) decided to collect the book in one volume so that it could be preserved. Zayd ibn Thabit (d. 655CE) was the person to collect the Quran since "he used to write the Divine Inspiration for Allah's Apostle". Thus, a group of scribes, most importantly Zayd, collected the verses and produced a hand-written manuscript of the complete book. The manuscript according to Zayd remained with Abu Bakr until he died. Zayd's reaction to the task and the difficulties in collecting the Quranic material from parchments, palm-leaf stalks, thin stones and from men who knew it by heart is recorded in earlier narratives. After Abu Bakr, Hafsa bint Umar, Muhammad's widow, was entrusted with the manuscript. In about 650 CE, the third Caliph Uthman ibn Affan (d. 656CE) began noticing slight differences in pronunciation of the Quran as Islam expanded beyond the Arabian peninsula into Persia, the Levant, and North Africa. In order to preserve the sanctity of the text, he ordered a committee headed by Zayd to use Abu Bakr's copy and prepare a standard copy of the Quran. Thus, within 20 years of Muhammad's death, the Quran was committed to written form. That text became the model from which copies were made and promulgated throughout the urban centers of the Muslim world, and other versions are believed to have been destroyed. The present form of the Quran text is accepted by Muslim scholars to be the original version compiled by Abu Bakr.

 

According to Shia and some Sunni scholars, Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661CE) compiled a complete version of the Quran shortly after Muhammad's death. The order of this text differed from that gathered later during Uthman's era in that this version had been collected in chronological order. Despite this, he made no objection against the standardized Quran and accepted the Quran in circulation. Other personal copies of the Quran might have existed including Ibn Mas'ud's and Ubayy ibn Kab's codex, none of which exist today.

 

The Quran most likely existed in scattered written form during Muhammad's lifetime. Several sources indicate that during Muhammad's lifetime a large number of his companions had memorized the revelations. Early commentaries and Islamic historical sources support the above-mentioned understanding of the Quran's early development. The Quran in its present form is generally considered by academic scholars to record the words spoken by Muhammad because the search for variants has not yielded any differences of great significance. Although most variant readings of the text of the Quran have ceased to be transmitted, some still are. There has been no critical text produced on which a scholarly reconstruction of the Quranic text could be based. Historically, controversy over the Quran's content has rarely become an issue, although debates continue on the subject.

 

In 1972, in a mosque in the city of Sana'a, Yemen, manuscripts were discovered that were later proved to be the most ancient Quranic text known to exist. The Sana'a manuscripts contain palimpsests, a manuscript page from which the text has been washed off to make the parchment reusable again - a practice which was common in ancient times due to scarcity of writing material. However, the faint washed-off underlying text (scriptio inferior) is still barely visible and believed to be "pre-Uthmanic" Quranic content, while the text written on top (scriptio superior) is believed to belong to Uthmanic time. Studies using radiocarbon dating indicate that the parchments are dated to the period before 671 AD with a 99 percent probability.

 

SIGNIFICANCE IN ISLAM

WORSHIP

Muslims believe the Quran to be the book of divine guidance revealed from God to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel over a period of 23 years and view the Quran as God's final revelation to humanity. They also believe that the Quran has solutions to all the problems of humanity irrespective of how complex they may be and in what age they occur.

 

Revelation in Islamic and Quranic concept means the act of God addressing an individual, conveying a message for a greater number of recipients. The process by which the divine message comes to the heart of a messenger of God is tanzil (to send down) or nuzūl (to come down). As the Quran says, "With the truth we (God) have sent it down and with the truth it has come down."

 

The Quran frequently asserts in its text that it is divinely ordained. Some verses in the Quran seem to imply that even those who do not speak Arabic would understand the Quran if it were recited to them. The Quran refers to a written pre-text, "the preserved tablet", that records God's speech even before it was sent down.

 

The issue of whether the Quran is eternal or created became a theological debate (Quran's createdness) in the ninth century. Mu'tazilas, an Islamic school of theology based on reason and rational thought, held that the Quran was created while the most widespread varieties of Muslim theologians considered the Quran to be co-eternal with God and therefore uncreated. Sufi philosophers view the question as artificial or wrongly framed.

 

Muslims believe that the present wording of the Quran corresponds to that revealed to Muhammad, and according to their interpretation of Quran 15:9, it is protected from corruption ("Indeed, it is We who sent down the Quran and indeed, We will be its guardian."). Muslims consider the Quran to be a guide, a sign of the prophethood of Muhammad and the truth of the religion. They argue it is not possible for a human to produce a book like the Quran, as the Quran itself maintains.

 

Muslims commemorate annually the beginning of Quran's revelation on the Night of Destiny (Laylat al-Qadr), during the last 10 days of Ramadan, the month during which they fast from sunrise until sunset.

 

The first sura of the Quran is repeated in daily prayers and in other occasions. This sura, which consists of seven verses, is the most often recited sura of the Quran:

 

"All praise belongs to God, Lord of the Universe, the Beneficent, the Merciful and Master of the Day of Judgment, You alone We do worship and from You alone we do seek assistance, guide us to the right path, the path of those to whom You have granted blessings, those who are neither subject to Your anger nor have gone astray."

 

Respect for the written text of the Quran is an important element of religious faith by many Muslims, and the Quran is treated with reverence. Based on tradition and a literal interpretation of Quran 56:79 ("none shall touch but those who are clean"), some Muslims believe that they must perform a ritual cleansing with water before touching a copy of the Quran, although this view is not universal. Worn-out copies of the Quran are wrapped in a cloth and stored indefinitely in a safe place, buried in a mosque or a Muslim cemetery, or burned and the ashes buried or scattered over water.

 

In Islam, most intellectual disciplines, including Islamic theology, philosophy, mysticism and Jurisprudence, have been concerned with the Quran or have their foundation in its teachings. Muslims believe that the preaching or reading of the Quran is rewarded with divine rewards variously called ajr, thawab or hasanat.

 

IN ISLAMIC ART

The Quran also inspired Islamic arts and specifically the so-called Quranic arts of calligraphy and illumination.[1] The Quran is never decorated with figurative images, but many Qurans have been highly decorated with decorative patterns in the margins of the page, or between the lines or at the start of suras. Islamic verses appear in many other media, on buildings and on objects of all sizes, such as mosque lamps, metal work, pottery and single pages of calligraphy for muraqqas or albums.

 

INIMITABILITY

Inimitability of the Quran (or "I'jaz") is the belief that no human speech can match the Quran in its content and form. The Quran is considered an inimitable miracle by Muslims, effective until the Day of Resurrection - and, thereby, the central proof granted to Muhammad in authentication of his prophetic status. The concept of inimitability originates in the Quran where in five different verses opponents are challenged to produce something like the Quran: "If men and sprites banded together to produce the like of this Quran they would never produce its like not though they backed one another."[61] So the suggestion is that if there are doubts concerning the divine authorship of the Quran, come forward and create something like it. From the ninth century, numerous works appeared which studied the Quran and examined its style and content. Medieval Muslim scholars including al-Jurjani (d. 1078CE) and al-Baqillani (d. 1013CE) have written treatises on the subject, discussed its various aspects, and used linguistic approaches to study the Quran. Others argue that the Quran contains noble ideas, has inner meanings, maintained its freshness through the ages and has caused great transformations in individual level and in the history. Some scholars state that the Quran contains scientific information that agrees with modern science. The doctrine of miraculousness of the Quran is further emphasized by Muhammad's illiteracy since the unlettered prophet could not have been suspected of composing the Quran.

 

TEXT & ARRANGEMENT

The Quran consists of 114 chapters of varying lengths, each known as a sura. Suras are classified as Meccan or Medinan, depending on whether the verses were revealed before or after the migration of Muhammad to the city of Medina. However, a sura classified as Medinan may contain Meccan verses in it and vice versa. Sura titles are derived from a name or quality discussed in the text, or from the first letters or words of the surah. Suras are arranged roughly in order of decreasing size. The sura arrangement is thus not connected to the sequence of revelation. Each sura except the ninth starts with the Bismillah (بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم) an Arabic phrase meaning 'In the name of God.' There are, however, still 114 occurrences of the Bismillah in the Quran, due to its presence in Quran 27:30 as the opening of Solomon's letter to the Queen of Sheba.

 

Each sura consists of several verses, known as ayat, which originally means a 'sign' or 'evidence' sent by God. The number of verses differs from sura to sura. An individual verse may be just a few letters or several lines. The total number of verses in the Quran is 6236, however, the number varies if the bismillahs are counted separately.

 

In addition to and independent of the division into suras, there are various ways of dividing the Quran into parts of approximately equal length for convenience in reading. The 30 juz' (plural ajzāʼ) can be used to read through the entire Quran in a month. Some of these parts are known by names - which are the first few words by which the juzʼ starts. A juz' is sometimes further divided into two ḥizb (plural aḥzāb), and each hizb subdivided into four rubʻ al-ahzab. The Quran is also divided into seven approximately equal parts, manzil (plural manāzil), for it to be recited in a week.

 

Muqatta'at, or the Quranic initials, are 14 different letter combinations of 14 Arabic letters that appear in the beginning of 29 suras of the Quran. The meanings of these initials remain unclear.

 

According to one estimate the Quran consists of 77,430 words, 18,994 unique words, 12,183 stems, 3,382 lemmas and 1,685 roots.

 

CONTENTS

The Quranic content is concerned with the basic beliefs of Islam which include the existence of God and the resurrection. Narratives of the early prophets, ethical and legal subjects, historical events of Muhammad's time, charity and prayer also appear in the Quran. The Quranic verses contain general exhortations regarding right and wrong and the historical events are related to outline general moral lessons. Verses pertaining to natural phenomena have been interpreted by Muslims as an indication of the authenticity of the Quranic message.

 

MONOTHEISM

The central theme of the Quran is monotheism. God is depicted as living, eternal, omniscient and omnipotent (see, e.g., Quran 2:20, 2:29, 2:255). God's omnipotence appears above all in his power to create. He is the creator of everything, of the heavens and the earth and what is between them (see, e.g., Quran 13:16, 50:38, etc.). All human beings are equal in their utter dependence upon God, and their well-being depends upon their acknowledging that fact and living accordingly.

 

The Quran uses cosmological and contingency arguments in various verses without referring to the terms to prove the existence of God. Therefore, the universe is originated and needs an originator, and whatever exists must have a sufficient cause for its existence. Besides, the design of the universe, is frequently referred to as a point of contemplation: "It is He who has created seven heavens in harmony. You cannot see any fault in God's creation; then look again: Can you see any flaw?"

 

ESCHATOLOGY

The doctrine of the last day and eschatology (the final fate of the universe) may be reckoned as the second great doctrine of the Quran. It is estimated that around a full one-third of the Quran is eschatological, dealing with the afterlife in the next world and with the day of judgment at the end of time. There is a reference of the afterlife on most pages of the Quran and the belief in the afterlife is often referred to in conjunction with belief in God as in the common expression: "Believe in God and the last day". A number of suras such as 44, 56, 75, 78, 81 and 101 are directly related to the afterlife and its preparations. Some of the suras indicate the closeness of the event and warn people to be prepared for the imminent day. For instance, the first verses of Sura 22, which deal with the mighty earthquake and the situations of people on that day, represent this style of divine address: "O People! Be respectful to your Lord. The earthquake of the Hour is a mighty thing."

 

The Quran is often vivid in its depiction of what will happen at the end time. Watt describes the Quranic view of End Time:

 

"The climax of history, when the present world comes to an end, is referred to in various ways. It is 'the Day of Judgment,' 'the Last Day,' 'the Day of Resurrection,' or simply 'the Hour.' Less frequently it is 'the Day of Distinction' (when the good are separated from the evil), 'the Day of the Gathering' (of men to the presence of God) or 'the Day of the Meeting' (of men with God). The Hour comes suddenly. It is heralded by a shout, by a thunderclap, or by the blast of a trumpet. A cosmic upheaval then takes place. The mountains dissolve into dust, the seas boil up, the sun is darkened, the stars fall and the sky is rolled up. God appears as Judge, but his presence is hinted at rather than described. [...] The central interest, of course, is in the gathering of all mankind before the Judge. Human beings of all ages, restored to life, join the throng. To the scoffing objection of the unbelievers that former generations had been dead a long time and were now dust and mouldering bones, the reply is that God is nevertheless able to restore them to life."

 

The Quran does not assert a natural immortality of the human soul, since man's existence is dependent on the will of God: when he wills, he causes man to die; and when he wills, he raises him to life again in a bodily resurrection.[68]

 

PROPHETS

According to the Quran, God communicated with man and made his will known through signs and revelations. Prophets, or 'Messengers of God', received revelations and delivered them to humanity. The message has been identical and for all humankind. "Nothing is said to you that was not said to the messengers before you, that your lord has at his Command forgiveness as well as a most Grievous Penalty." The revelation does not come directly from God to the prophets. Angels acting as God's messengers deliver the divine revelation to them. This comes out in Quran 42:51, in which it is stated: "It is not for any mortal that God should speak to them, except by revelation, or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger to reveal by his permission whatsoever He will."

 

ETHICO-RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS

Belief is the center of the sphere of positive moral properties in the Quran. A number of scholars have tried to determine the semantic contents of the words meaning 'belief' and 'believer' in the Quran [70] The Ethico-legal concepts and exhortations dealing with righteous conduct are linked to a profound awareness of God, thereby emphasizing the importance of faith, accountability and the belief in each human's ultimate encounter with God. People are invited to perform acts of charity, especially for the needy. Believers who "spend of their wealth by night and by day, in secret and in public" are promised that they "shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve" It also affirms family life by legislating on matters of marriage, divorce and inheritance. A number of practices such as usury and gambling are prohibited. The Quran is one of the fundamental sources of the Islamic law, or sharia. Some formal religious practices receive significant attention in the Quran including the formal prayers and fasting in the month of Ramadan. As for the manner in which the prayer is to be conducted, the Quran refers to prostration. The term used for charity, Zakat, actually means purification. Charity, according to the Quran, is a means of self-purification.

 

LITERARY STYLE

The Quran's message is conveyed with various literary structures and devices. In the original Arabic, the suras and verses employ phonetic and thematic structures that assist the audience's efforts to recall the message of the text. Muslims[who?] assert (according to the Quran itself) that the Quranic content and style is inimitable.

 

The language of the Quran has been described as "rhymed prose" as it partakes of both poetry and prose, however, this description runs the risk of compromising the rhythmic quality of Quranic language, which is certainly more poetic in some parts and more prose-like in others. Rhyme, while found throughout the Quran, is conspicuous in many of the earlier Meccan suras, in which relatively short verses throw the rhyming words into prominence. The effectiveness of such a form is evident for instance in Sura 81, and there can be no doubt that these passages impressed the conscience of the hearers. Frequently a change of rhyme from one set of verses to another signals a change in the subject of discussion. Later sections also preserve this form but the style is more expository.

 

The Quranic text seems to have no beginning, middle, or end, its nonlinear structure being akin to a web or net. The textual arrangement is sometimes considered to have lack of continuity, absence of any chronological or thematic order and presence of repetition. Michael Sells, citing the work of the critic Norman O. Brown, acknowledges Brown's observation that the seeming disorganization of Quranic literary expression – its scattered or fragmented mode of composition in Sells's phrase – is in fact a literary device capable of delivering profound effects as if the intensity of the prophetic message were shattering the vehicle of human language in which it was being communicated. Sells also addresses the much-discussed repetitiveness of the Quran, seeing this, too, as a literary device.

 

A text is self-referential when it speaks about itself and makes reference to itself. According to Stefan Wild the Quran demonstrates this meta-textuality by explaining, classifying, interpreting and justifying the words to be transmitted. Self-referentiality is evident in those passages when the Quran refers to itself as revelation (tanzil), remembrance (dhikr), news (naba'), criterion (furqan) in a self-designating manner (explicitly asserting its Divinity, "And this is a blessed Remembrance that We have sent down; so are you now denying it?"), or in the frequent appearance of the 'Say' tags, when Muhammad is commanded to speak (e.g. "Say: 'God's guidance is the true guidance' ", "Say: 'Would you then dispute with us concerning God?' "). According to Wild the Quran is highly self-referential. The feature is more evident in early Meccan suras.

 

INTERPRETATION

The Quran has sparked a huge body of commentary and explication (tafsīr), aimed at explaining the "meanings of the Quranic verses, clarifying their import and finding out their significance".

 

Tafsir is one of the earliest academic activities of Muslims. According to the Quran, Muhammad was the first person who described the meanings of verses for early Muslims. Other early exegetes included a few Companions of Muhammad, like ʻAli ibn Abi Talib, ʻAbdullah ibn Abbas, ʻAbdullah ibn Umar and Ubayy ibn Kaʻb. Exegesis in those days was confined to the explanation of literary aspects of the verse, the background of its revelation and, occasionally, interpretation of one verse with the help of the other. If the verse was about a historical event, then sometimes a few traditions (hadith) of Muhammad were narrated to make its meaning clear.

 

Because the Quran is spoken in classical Arabic, many of the later converts to Islam (mostly non-Arabs) did not always understand the Quranic Arabic, they did not catch allusions that were clear to early Muslims fluent in Arabic and they were concerned with reconciling apparent conflict of themes in the Quran. Commentators erudite in Arabic explained the allusions, and perhaps most importantly, explained which Quranic verses had been revealed early in Muhammad's prophetic career, as being appropriate to the very earliest Muslim community, and which had been revealed later, canceling out or "abrogating" (nāsikh) the earlier text (mansūkh). Other scholars, however, maintain that no abrogation has taken place in the Quran. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has published a 10-volume Urdu commentary on the Quran, with the name Tafseer e Kabir.

 

ESOTERIC INTERPRETATION

Esoteric or Sufi interpretation attempts to unveil the inner meanings of the Quran. Sufism moves beyond the apparent (zahir) point of the verses and instead relates Quranic verses to the inner or esoteric (batin) and metaphysical dimensions of consciousness and existence. According to Sands, esoteric interpretations are more suggestive than declarative, they are 'allusions' (isharat) rather than explanations (tafsir). They indicate possibilities as much as they demonstrate the insights of each writer.

 

Sufi interpretation, according to Annabel Keeler, also exemplifies the use of the theme of love, as for instance can seen in Qushayri's interpretation of the Quran. Quran 7:143 says:

 

"when Moses came at the time we appointed, and his Lord spoke to him, he said, 'My Lord, show yourself to me! Let me see you!' He said, 'you shall not see me but look at that mountain, if it remains standing firm you will see me.' When his Lord revealed Himself to the mountain, He made it crumble. Moses fell down unconscious. When he recovered, he said, 'Glory be to you! I repent to you! I am the first to believe!'"

 

Moses, in 7:143, comes the way of those who are in love, he asks for a vision but his desire is denied, he is made to suffer by being commanded to look at other than the Beloved while the mountain is able to see God. The mountain crumbles and Moses faints at the sight of God's manifestation upon the mountain. In Qushayri's words, Moses came like thousands of men who traveled great distances, and there was nothing left to Moses of Moses. In that state of annihilation from himself, Moses was granted the unveiling of the realities. From the Sufi point of view, God is the always the beloved and the wayfarer's longing and suffering lead to realization of the truths.[90]

 

Muhammad Husayn Tabatabaei says that according to the popular explanation among the later exegetes, ta'wil indicates the particular meaning a verse is directed towards. The meaning of revelation (tanzil), as opposed to ta'wil, is clear in its accordance to the obvious meaning of the words as they were revealed. But this explanation has become so widespread that, at present, it has become the primary meaning of ta'wil, which originally meant "to return" or "the returning place". In Tabatabaei's view, what has been rightly called ta'wil, or hermeneutic interpretation of the Quran, is not concerned simply with the denotation of words. Rather, it is concerned with certain truths and realities that transcend the comprehension of the common run of men; yet it is from these truths and realities that the principles of doctrine and the practical injunctions of the Quran issue forth. Interpretation is not the meaning of the verse - rather it transpires through that meaning, in a special sort of transpiration. There is a spiritual reality - which is the main objective of ordaining a law, or the basic aim in describing a divine attribute - and then there is an actual significance that a Quranic story refers to.

 

According to Shia beliefs, those who are firmly rooted in knowledge like Muhammad and the imams know the secrets of the Quran. According to Tabatabaei, the statement "none knows its interpretation except God" remains valid, without any opposing or qualifying clause. Therefore, so far as this verse is concerned, the knowledge of the Quran's interpretation is reserved for God. But Tabatabaei uses other verses and concludes that those who are purified by God know the interpretation of the Quran to a certain extent.

 

According to Tabatabaei, there are acceptable and unacceptable esoteric interpretations. Acceptable ta'wil refers to the meaning of a verse beyond its literal meaning; rather the implicit meaning, which ultimately is known only to God and can't be comprehended directly through human thought alone. The verses in question here refer to the human qualities of coming, going, sitting, satisfaction, anger and sorrow, which are apparently attributed to God. Unacceptable ta'wil is where one "transfers" the apparent meaning of a verse to a different meaning by means of a proof; this method is not without obvious inconsistencies. Although this unacceptable ta'wil has gained considerable acceptance, it is incorrect and cannot be applied to the Quranic verses. The correct interpretation is that reality a verse refers to. It is found in all verses, the decisive and the ambiguous alike; it is not a sort of a meaning of the word; it is a fact that is too sublime for words. God has dressed them with words to bring them a bit nearer to our minds; in this respect they are like proverbs that are used to create a picture in the mind, and thus help the hearer to clearly grasp the intended idea.

 

HISTORY OF SUFI COMMENTARIES

One of the notable authors of esoteric interpretation prior to the 12th century is Sulami (d. 1021 CE) without whose work the majority of very early Sufi commentaries would not have been preserved. Sulami's major commentary is a book named haqaiq al-tafsir ("Truths of Exegesis") which is a compilation of commentaries of earlier Sufis. From the 11th century onwards several other works appear, including commentaries by Qushayri (d. 1074), Daylami (d. 1193), Shirazi (d. 1209) and Suhrawardi (d. 1234). These works include material from Sulami's books plus the author's contributions. Many works are written in Persian such as the works of Maybudi (d. 1135) kash al-asrar ("the unveiling of the secrets"). Rumi (d. 1273) wrote a vast amount of mystical poetry in his book Mathnawi. Rumi makes heavy use of the Quran in his poetry, a feature that is sometimes omitted in translations of Rumi's work. A large number of Quranic passages can be found in Mathnawi, which some consider a kind of Sufi interpretation of the Quran. Rumi's book is not exceptional for containing citations from and elaboration on the Quran, however, Rumi does mention Quran more frequently. Simnani (d. 1336) wrote two influential works of esoteric exegesis on the Quran. He reconciled notions of God's manifestation through and in the physical world with the sentiments of Sunni Islam. Comprehensive Sufi commentaries appears in the 18th century such as the work of Ismail Hakki Bursevi (d. 1725). His work ruh al-Bayan (the Spirit of Elucidation) is a voluminous exegesis. Written in Arabic, it combines the author's own ideas with those of his predecessors (notably Ibn Arabi and Ghazali), all woven together in Hafiz, a Persian poetry form.

 

LEVELS OF MEANING

Unlike the Salafis and Zahiri, Shias and Sufis as well as some other Muslim philosophers believe the meaning of the Quran is not restricted to the literal aspect. For them, it is an essential idea that the Quran also has inward aspects. Henry Corbin narrates a hadith that goes back to Muhammad:

 

"The Quran possesses an external appearance and a hidden depth, an exoteric meaning and an esoteric meaning. This esoteric meaning in turn conceals an esoteric meaning (this depth possesses a depth, after the image of the celestial Spheres, which are enclosed within each other). So it goes on for seven esoteric meanings (seven depths of hidden depth)."

 

According to this view, it has also become evident that the inner meaning of the Quran does not eradicate or invalidate its outward meaning. Rather, it is like the soul, which gives life to the body. Corbin considers the Quran to play a part in Islamic philosophy, because gnosiology itself goes hand in hand with prophetology.

 

Commentaries dealing with the zahir (outward aspects) of the text are called tafsir, and hermeneutic and esoteric commentaries dealing with the batin are called ta'wil ("interpretation" or "explanation"), which involves taking the text back to its beginning. Commentators with an esoteric slant believe that the ultimate meaning of the Quran is known only to God. In contrast, Quranic literalism, followed by Salafis and Zahiris, is the belief that the Quran should only be taken at its apparent meaning.

 

TRANSLATIONS

Translation of the Quran has always been a problematic and difficult issue. Many argue that the Quranic text cannot be reproduced in another language or form. Furthermore, an Arabic word may have a range of meanings depending on the context, making an accurate translation even more difficult.

 

Nevertheless, the Quran has been translated into most African, Asian and European languages. The first translator of the Quran was Salman the Persian, who translated surat al-Fatiha into Persian during the seventh century. Another translation of the Quran was completed in 884 CE in Alwar (Sindh, India now Pakistan) by the orders of Abdullah bin Umar bin Abdul Aziz on the request of the Hindu Raja Mehruk.

 

The first fully attested complete translations of the Quran were done between the 10th and 12th centuries in Persian language. The Samanid king, Mansur I (961-976), ordered a group of scholars from Khorasan to translate the Tafsir al-Tabari, originally in Arabic, into Persian. Later in the 11th century, one of the students of Abu Mansur Abdullah al-Ansari wrote a complete tafsir of the Quran in Persian. In the 12th century, Najm al-Din Abu Hafs al-Nasafi translated the Quran into Persian. The manuscripts of all three books have survived and have been published several times.

 

Islamic tradition also holds that translations were made for Emperor Negus of Abyssinia and Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, as both received letters by Muhammad containing verses from the Quran. In early centuries, the permissibility of translations was not an issue, but whether one could use translations in prayer.

 

In 1936, translations in 102 languages were known. In 2010, the Hürriyet Daily News and Economic Review reported that the Quran was presented in 112 languages at the 18th International Quran Exhibition in Tehran.

   

Violence against women and girls is everyone's problem. It brings down an entire society. We are ALL touched by femicide in India. Census data shows that poverty and illiteracy are not key factors in India’s female genocide as many assume. The survival of girls is determined by a patriarchal politics of wealth control.

Save the Girl, Educate the Girl.

 

An interactive data game that lets you explore the progress and pitfalls of girls’ and women’s education around the world. “learn more”.

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Photo: Firoz Ahmad

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Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov[b] (22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until his death in 1924, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia, and later the Soviet Union, became a one-party socialist state governed by the Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Leninism.

 

Born to a schoolteacher's family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brother's 1887 execution. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Tsarist government, he devoted the following years to a law degree. He relocated to Saint Petersburg in 1893 where he became a senior Marxist activist. In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye in Siberia for three years, where he married Nadezhda Krupskaya. After his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent theorist in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In 1903, he took a key role in the RSDLP ideological split, leading the Bolshevik faction against Julius Martov's Mensheviks. Following Russia's failed Revolution of 1905, he initially campaigned for the First World War to be transformed into a Europe-wide proletarian revolution, which, as a Marxist, he believed would cause the overthrow of capitalism and the rise of socialism. After the 1917 February Revolution ousted the Tsar and established a Provisional Government, he returned to Russia and played a leading role in the October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the new government.

 

Lenin's Bolshevik government initially shared power with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, elected soviets, and a multi-party Constituent Assembly, although by 1918 it had centralised power in the new Communist Party. Lenin's administration redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalised banks and large-scale industry. It withdrew from the First World War by signing a treaty conceding territory to the Central Powers, and promoted world revolution through the Communist International. Opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror, a violent campaign administered by the state security services; tens of thousands were killed or interned in concentration camps. His administration defeated right and left-wing anti-Bolshevik armies in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922 and oversaw the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921. Responding to wartime devastation, famine, and popular uprisings, in 1921 Lenin encouraged economic growth through the New Economic Policy. Several non-Russian nations had secured independence from Russia after 1917, but five were forcibly re-united into the new Soviet Union in 1922, while others repelled Soviet invasions. His health failing, Lenin died in Gorki, with Joseph Stalin succeeding him as the pre-eminent figure in the Soviet government.

 

Widely considered one of the most significant and influential figures of the 20th century, Lenin was the posthumous subject of a pervasive personality cult within the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991. He became an ideological figurehead behind Marxism–Leninism and a prominent influence over the international communist movement. A controversial and highly divisive historical figure, Lenin is viewed by his supporters as a champion of socialism, communism, anti-imperialism and the working class, while his critics accuse him of establishing a totalitarian dictatorship that oversaw mass killings and political repression of dissidents.

 

University and political radicalisation: 1887–1893

Upon entering Kazan University in August 1887, Lenin moved into a nearby flat. There, he joined a zemlyachestvo, a form of university society that represented the men of a particular region. This group elected him as its representative to the university's zemlyachestvo council, and he took part in a December demonstration against government restrictions that banned student societies. The police arrested Lenin and accused him of being a ringleader in the demonstration; he was expelled from the university, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs exiled him to his family's Kokushkino estate. There, he read voraciously, becoming enamoured with Nikolay Chernyshevsky's 1863 pro-revolutionary novel What Is to Be Done?

 

Lenin's mother was concerned by her son's radicalisation, and was instrumental in convincing the Interior Ministry to allow him to return to the city of Kazan, but not the university. On his return, he joined Nikolai Fedoseev's revolutionary circle, through which he discovered Karl Marx's 1867 book Capital. This sparked his interest in Marxism, a socio-political theory that argued that society developed in stages, that this development resulted from class struggle, and that capitalist society would ultimately give way to socialist society and then communist society. Wary of his political views, Lenin's mother bought a country estate in Alakaevka village, Samara Oblast, in the hope that her son would turn his attention to agriculture. He had little interest in farm management, and his mother soon sold the land, keeping the house as a summer home.

 

In September 1889, the Ulyanov family moved to the city of Samara, where Lenin joined Alexei Sklyarenko's socialist discussion circle. There, Lenin fully embraced Marxism and produced a Russian language translation of Marx and Friedrich Engels's 1848 political pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto. He began to read the works of the Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov, agreeing with Plekhanov's argument that Russia was moving from feudalism to capitalism and so socialism would be implemented by the proletariat, or urban working class, rather than the peasantry. This Marxist perspective contrasted with the view of the agrarian-socialist Narodnik movement, which held that the peasantry could establish socialism in Russia by forming peasant communes, thereby bypassing capitalism. This Narodnik view developed in the 1860s with the People's Freedom Party and was then dominant within the Russian revolutionary movement. Lenin rejected the premise of the agrarian-socialist argument but was influenced by agrarian-socialists like Pyotr Tkachev and Sergei Nechaev and befriended several Narodniks.

 

In May 1890, Maria, who retained societal influence as the widow of a nobleman, persuaded the authorities to allow Lenin to take his exams externally at the University of St Petersburg, where he obtained the equivalent of a first-class degree with honours. The graduation celebrations were marred when his sister Olga died of typhoid. Lenin remained in Samara for several years, working first as a legal assistant for a regional court and then for a local lawyer. He devoted much time to radical politics, remaining active in Sklyarenko's group and formulating ideas about how Marxism applied to Russia. Inspired by Plekhanov's work, Lenin collected data on Russian society, using it to support a Marxist interpretation of societal development and counter the claims of the Narodniks. He wrote a paper on peasant economics; it was rejected by the liberal journal Russian Thought.

 

Revolutionary activity

Early activism and imprisonment: 1893–1900

In late 1893, Lenin moved to Saint Petersburg. There, he worked as a barrister's assistant and rose to a senior position in a Marxist revolutionary cell that called itself the Social-Democrats after the Marxist Social Democratic Party of Germany. Championing Marxism within the socialist movement, he encouraged the founding of revolutionary cells in Russia's industrial centres. By late 1894, he was leading a Marxist workers' circle, and meticulously covered his tracks to evade police spies. He began a romantic relationship with Nadezhda "Nadya" Krupskaya, a Marxist schoolteacher. He also authored a political tract criticising the Narodnik agrarian-socialists, What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats; around 200 copies were illegally printed in 1894.

 

Hoping to cement connections between his Social-Democrats and Emancipation of Labour, a group of Russian Marxists based in Switzerland, Lenin visited the country to meet group members Plekhanov and Pavel Axelrod. He proceeded to Paris to meet Marx's son-in-law Paul Lafargue and to research the Paris Commune of 1871, which he considered an early prototype for a proletarian government. Financed by his mother, he stayed in a Swiss health spa before travelling to Berlin, where he studied for six weeks at the Staatsbibliothek and met the Marxist Wilhelm Liebknecht. Returning to Russia with a stash of illegal revolutionary publications, he travelled to various cities distributing literature to striking workers. While involved in producing a news sheet, Rabochee delo (Workers' Cause), he was among 40 activists arrested in St. Petersburg and charged with sedition.

 

Refused legal representation or bail, Lenin denied all charges against him but remained imprisoned for a year before sentencing. He spent this time theorising and writing. In this work he noted that the rise of industrial capitalism in Russia had caused large numbers of peasants to move to the cities, where they formed a proletariat. From his Marxist perspective, Lenin argued that this Russian proletariat would develop class consciousness, which would in turn lead them to violently overthrow tsarism, the aristocracy, and the bourgeoisie and to establish a proletariat state that would move toward socialism.

 

In February 1897, Lenin was sentenced without trial to three years' exile in eastern Siberia. He was granted a few days in Saint Petersburg to put his affairs in order and used this time to meet with the Social-Democrats, who had renamed themselves the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. His journey to eastern Siberia took 11 weeks, for much of which he was accompanied by his mother and sisters. Deemed only a minor threat to the government, he was exiled to Shushenskoye, Minusinsky District, where he was kept under police surveillance; he was nevertheless able to correspond with other revolutionaries, many of whom visited him, and permitted to go on trips to swim in the Yenisei River and to hunt duck and snipe.

 

In May 1898, Nadya joined him in exile, having been arrested in August 1896 for organising a strike. She was initially posted to Ufa, but persuaded the authorities to move her to Shushenskoye, where she and Lenin married on 10 July 1898. Settling into a family life with Nadya's mother Elizaveta Vasilyevna, in Shushenskoye the couple translated English socialist literature into Russian. There, Lenin wrote A Protest by Russian Social-Democrats to criticise German Marxist revisionists like Eduard Bernstein who advocated a peaceful, electoral path to socialism. He also finished The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899), his longest book to date, which criticised the agrarian-socialists and promoted a Marxist analysis of Russian economic development. Published under the pseudonym of Vladimir Ilin, upon publication it received predominantly poor reviews.

 

Munich, London, and Geneva: 1900–1905

After his exile, Lenin settled in Pskov in early 1900. There, he began raising funds for a newspaper, Iskra (Spark), a new organ of the Russian Marxist party, now calling itself the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In July 1900, Lenin left Russia for Western Europe; in Switzerland he met other Russian Marxists, and at a Corsier conference they agreed to launch the paper from Munich, where Lenin relocated in September. Containing contributions from prominent European Marxists, Iskra was smuggled into Russia, becoming the country's most successful underground publication for 50 years. He first adopted the pseudonym Lenin in December 1901, possibly based on the Siberian River Lena; he often used the fuller pseudonym of N. Lenin, and while the N did not stand for anything, a popular misconception later arose that it represented Nikolai. Under this pseudonym, in 1902 he published his most influential publication to date, the pamphlet What Is to Be Done?, which outlined his thoughts on the need for a vanguard party to lead the proletariat to revolution.

 

Nadya joined Lenin in Munich and became his secretary. They continued their political agitation, as Lenin wrote for Iskra and drafted the RSDLP programme, attacking ideological dissenters and external critics, particularly the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR),[ a Narodnik agrarian-socialist group founded in 1901. Despite remaining a Marxist, he accepted the Narodnik view on the revolutionary power of the Russian peasantry, accordingly, penning the 1903 pamphlet To the Village Poor. To evade Bavarian police, Lenin moved to London with Iskra in April 1902, where he befriended fellow Russian-Ukrainian Marxist Leon Trotsky. Lenin fell ill with erysipelas and was unable to take such a leading role on the Iskra editorial board; in his absence, the board moved its base of operations to Geneva.

 

The second RSDLP Congress was held in London in July 1903. At the conference, a schism emerged between Lenin's supporters and those of Julius Martov. Martov argued that party members should be able to express themselves independently of the party leadership; Lenin disagreed, emphasising the need for a strong leadership with complete control over the party. Lenin's supporters were in the majority, and he termed them the "majoritarians" (bol'sheviki in Russian; Bolsheviks); in response, Martov termed his followers the "minoritarians" (men'sheviki in Russian; Mensheviks). Arguments between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks continued after the conference; the Bolsheviks accused their rivals of being opportunists and reformists who lacked discipline, while the Mensheviks accused Lenin of being a despot and autocrat. Enraged at the Mensheviks, Lenin resigned from the Iskra editorial board and in May 1904 published the anti-Menshevik tract One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. The stress made Lenin ill, and to recuperate he holidayed in Switzerland. The Bolshevik faction grew in strength; by spring 1905, the whole RSDLP Central Committee was Bolshevik, and in December they founded the newspaper Vperyod (Forward).

 

Revolution of 1905 and its aftermath: 1905–1914

In January 1905, the Bloody Sunday massacre of protesters in St. Petersburg sparked a spate of civil unrest in the Russian Empire known as the Revolution of 1905. Lenin urged Bolsheviks to take a greater role in the events, encouraging violent insurrection. In doing so, he adopted SR slogans regarding "armed insurrection", "mass terror", and "the expropriation of gentry land", resulting in Menshevik accusations that he had deviated from orthodox Marxism. In turn, he insisted that the Bolsheviks split completely with the Mensheviks; many Bolsheviks refused, and both groups attended the Third RSDLP Congress, held in London in April 1905. Lenin presented many of his ideas in the pamphlet Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, published in August 1905. Here, he predicted that Russia's liberal bourgeoisie would be sated by a transition to constitutional monarchy and thus betray the revolution; instead, he argued that the proletariat would have to build an alliance with the peasantry to overthrow the Tsarist regime and establish the "provisional revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry."

 

The uprising has begun. Force against Force. Street fighting is raging, barricades are being thrown up, rifles are cracking, guns are booming. Rivers of blood are flowing, the civil war for freedom is blazing up. Moscow and the South, the Caucasus and Poland are ready to join the proletariat of St. Petersburg. The slogan of the workers has become: Death or Freedom!

 

In response to the revolution of 1905, which had failed to overthrow the government, Tsar Nicholas II accepted a series of liberal reforms in his October Manifesto. In this climate, Lenin felt it safe to return to St. Petersburg. Joining the editorial board of Novaya Zhizn (New Life), a radical legal newspaper run by Maria Andreyeva, he used it to discuss issues facing the RSDLP. He encouraged the party to seek out a much wider membership, and advocated the continual escalation of violent confrontation, believing both to be necessary for a successful revolution. Recognising that membership fees and donations from a few wealthy sympathisers were insufficient to finance the Bolsheviks' activities, Lenin endorsed the idea of robbing post offices, railway stations, trains, and banks. Under the lead of Leonid Krasin, a group of Bolsheviks began carrying out such criminal actions, the best-known taking place in June 1907, when a group of Bolsheviks acting under the leadership of Joseph Stalin committed an armed robbery of the State Bank in Tiflis, Georgia.

 

Although he briefly supported the idea of reconciliation between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, Lenin's advocacy of violence and robbery was condemned by the Mensheviks at the Fourth RSDLP Congress, held in Stockholm in April 1906. Lenin was involved in setting up a Bolshevik Centre in Kuokkala, Grand Duchy of Finland, which was at the time an autonomous state within the Russian Empire, before the Bolsheviks regained dominance of the RSDLP at its Fifth Congress, held in London in May 1907. As the Tsarist government cracked down on opposition, both by disbanding Russia's legislative assembly, the Second Duma, and by ordering its secret police, the Okhrana, to arrest revolutionaries, Lenin fled Finland for Switzerland. There, he tried to exchange those banknotes stolen in Tiflis that had identifiable serial numbers on them.

 

Alexander Bogdanov and other prominent Bolsheviks decided to relocate the Bolshevik Centre to Paris; although Lenin disagreed, he moved to the city in December 1908. Lenin disliked Paris, lambasting it as "a foul hole", and while there he sued a motorist who knocked him off his bike. Lenin became very critical of Bogdanov's view that Russia's proletariat had to develop a socialist culture in order to become a successful revolutionary vehicle. Instead, Lenin favoured a vanguard of socialist intelligentsia who would lead the working-classes in revolution. Furthermore, Bogdanov, influenced by Ernest Mach, believed that all concepts of the world were relative, whereas Lenin stuck to the orthodox Marxist view that there was an objective reality independent of human observation. Bogdanov and Lenin holidayed together at Maxim Gorky's villa in Capri in April 1908 on returning to Paris, Lenin encouraged a split within the Bolshevik faction between his and Bogdanov's followers, accusing the latter of deviating from Marxism.

 

In May 1908, Lenin lived briefly in London, where he used the British Museum Reading Room to write Materialism and Empirio-criticism, an attack on what he described as the "bourgeois-reactionary falsehood" of Bogdanov's relativism. Lenin's factionalism began to alienate increasing numbers of Bolsheviks, including his former close supporters Alexei Rykov and Lev Kamenev. The Okhrana exploited his factionalist attitude by sending a spy, Roman Malinovsky, to act as a vocal Lenin supporter within the party. Various Bolsheviks expressed their suspicions about Malinovsky to Lenin, although it is unclear if the latter was aware of the spy's duplicity; it is possible that he used Malinovsky to feed false information to the Okhrana.

 

In August 1910, Lenin attended the Eighth Congress of the Second International, an international meeting of socialists, in Copenhagen as the RSDLP's representative, following this with a holiday in Stockholm with his mother. With his wife and sisters, he then moved to France, settling first in Bombon and then Paris. Here, he became a close friend to the French Bolshevik Inessa Armand; some biographers suggest that they had an extra-marital affair from 1910 to 1912. Meanwhile, at a Paris meeting in June 1911, the RSDLP Central Committee decided to move their focus of operations back to Russia, ordering the closure of the Bolshevik Centre and its newspaper, Proletari. Seeking to rebuild his influence in the party, Lenin arranged for a party conference to be held in Prague in January 1912, and although 16 of the 18 attendants were Bolsheviks, he was heavily criticised for his factionalist tendencies and failed to boost his status within the party.

 

Moving to Kraków in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, a culturally Polish part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he used Jagiellonian University's library to conduct research. He stayed in close contact with the RSDLP, which was operating in the Russian Empire, convincing the Duma's Bolshevik members to split from their parliamentary alliance with the Mensheviks. In January 1913, Stalin, whom Lenin referred to as the "wonderful Georgian", visited him, and they discussed the future of non-Russian ethnic groups in the Empire. Due to the ailing health of both Lenin and his wife, they moved to the rural town of Biały Dunajec, before heading to Bern for Nadya to have surgery on her goitre.

 

First World War: 1914–1917

The [First World] war is being waged for the division of colonies and the robbery of foreign territory; thieves have fallen out–and to refer to the defeats at a given moment of one of the thieves in order to identify the interests of all thieves with the interests of the nation or the fatherland is an unconscionable bourgeois lie.

 

Lenin was in Galicia when the First World War broke out. The war pitted the Russian Empire against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and due to his Russian citizenship, Lenin was arrested and briefly imprisoned until his anti-Tsarist credentials were explained. Lenin and his wife returned to Bern, before relocating to Zürich in February 1916. Lenin was angry that the German Social-Democratic Party was supporting the German war effort, which was a direct contravention of the Second International's Stuttgart resolution that socialist parties would oppose the conflict and saw the Second International as defunct. He attended the Zimmerwald Conference in September 1915 and the Kienthal Conference in April 1916, urging socialists across the continent to convert the "imperialist war" into a continent-wide "civil war" with the proletariat pitted against the bourgeoisie and aristocracy. In July 1916, Lenin's mother died, but he was unable to attend her funeral. Her death deeply affected him, and he became depressed, fearing that he too would die before seeing the proletarian revolution.

 

In September 1917, Lenin published Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, which argued that imperialism was a product of monopoly capitalism, as capitalists sought to increase their profits by extending into new territories where wages were lower and raw materials cheaper. He believed that competition and conflict would increase and that war between the imperialist powers would continue until they were overthrown by proletariat revolution and socialism established. He spent much of this time reading the works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Aristotle, all of whom had been key influences on Marx. This changed Lenin's interpretation of Marxism; whereas he once believed that policies could be developed based on predetermined scientific principles, he concluded that the only test of whether a policy was correct was its practice. He still perceived himself as an orthodox Marxist, but he began to diverge from some of Marx's predictions about societal development; whereas Marx had believed that a "bourgeoisie-democratic revolution" of the middle-classes had to take place before a "socialist revolution" of the proletariat, Lenin believed that in Russia the proletariat could overthrow the Tsarist regime without an intermediate revolution.

 

February Revolution and the July Days: 1917

In February 1917, the February Revolution broke out in St. Petersburg, renamed Petrograd at the beginning of the First World War, as industrial workers went on strike over food shortages and deteriorating factory conditions. The unrest spread to other parts of Russia, and fearing that he would be violently overthrown, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated. The State Duma took over control of the country, establishing the Russian Provisional Government and converting the Empire into a new Russian Republic. When Lenin learned of this from his base in Switzerland, he celebrated with other dissidents. He decided to return to Russia to take charge of the Bolsheviks but found that most passages into the country were blocked due to the ongoing conflict. He organised a plan with other dissidents to negotiate a passage for them through Germany, with which Russia was then at war. Recognising that these dissidents could cause problems for their Russian enemies, the German government agreed to permit 32 Russian citizens to travel by train through their territory, among them Lenin and his wife. For political reasons, Lenin and the Germans agreed to a cover story that Lenin had travelled by sealed train carriage through German territory, but in fact the train was not truly sealed, and the passengers were allowed to disembark to, for example, spend the night in Frankfurt. The group travelled by train from Zürich to Sassnitz, proceeding by ferry to Trelleborg, Sweden, and from there to the Haparanda–Tornio border crossing and then to Helsinki before taking the final train to Petrograd in disguise.

 

Arriving at Petrograd's Finland Station in April, Lenin gave a speech to Bolshevik supporters condemning the Provisional Government and again calling for a continent-wide European proletarian revolution. Over the following days, he spoke at Bolshevik meetings, lambasting those who wanted reconciliation with the Mensheviks and revealing his "April Theses", an outline of his plans for the Bolsheviks, which he had written on the journey from Switzerland. He publicly condemned both the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries, who dominated the influential Petrograd Soviet, for supporting the Provisional Government, denouncing them as traitors to socialism. Considering the government to be just as imperialist as the Tsarist regime, he advocated immediate peace with Germany and Austria-Hungary, rule by soviets, the nationalisation of industry and banks, and the state expropriation of land, all with the intention of establishing a proletariat government and pushing toward a socialist society. By contrast, the Mensheviks believed that Russia was insufficiently developed to transition to socialism and accused Lenin of trying to plunge the new Republic into civil war. Over the coming months Lenin campaigned for his policies, attending the meetings of the Bolshevik Central Committee, prolifically writing for the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda, and giving public speeches in Petrograd aimed at converting workers, soldiers, sailors, and peasants to his cause.

 

Sensing growing frustration among Bolshevik supporters, Lenin suggested an armed political demonstration in Petrograd to test the government's response. Amid deteriorating health, he left the city to recuperate in the Finnish village of Neivola. The Bolsheviks' armed demonstration, the July Days, took place while Lenin was away, but upon learning that demonstrators had violently clashed with government forces, he returned to Petrograd and called for calm. Responding to the violence, the government ordered the arrest of Lenin and other prominent Bolsheviks, raiding their offices, and publicly alleging that he was a German agent provocateur. Evading arrest, Lenin hid in a series of Petrograd safe houses. Fearing that he would be killed, Lenin and fellow senior Bolshevik Grigory Zinoviev escaped Petrograd in disguise, relocating to Razliv. There, Lenin began work on the book that became The State and Revolution, an exposition on how he believed the socialist state would develop after the proletariat revolution, and how from then on the state would gradually wither away, leaving a pure communist society. He began arguing for a Bolshevik-led armed insurrection to topple the government, but at a clandestine meeting of the party's central committee this idea was rejected. Lenin then headed by train and by foot to Finland, arriving at Helsinki on 10 August, where he hid away in safe houses belonging to Bolshevik sympathisers.

 

October Revolution: 1917

In August 1917, while Lenin was in Finland, General Lavr Kornilov, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, sent troops to Petrograd in what appeared to be a military coup attempt against the Provisional Government. Premier Alexander Kerensky turned to the Petrograd Soviet, including its Bolshevik members, for help, allowing the revolutionaries to organise workers as Red Guards to defend the city. The coup petered out before it reached Petrograd, but the events had allowed the Bolsheviks to return to the open political arena. Fearing a counter-revolution from right-wing forces hostile to socialism, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who dominated the Petrograd Soviet had been instrumental in pressuring the government to normalise relations with the Bolsheviks. Both the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries had lost much popular support because of their affiliation with the Provisional Government and its unpopular continuation of the war. The Bolsheviks capitalised on this, and soon the pro-Bolshevik Marxist Trotsky was elected leader of the Petrograd Soviet. In September, the Bolsheviks gained a majority in the workers' sections of both the Moscow and Petrograd Soviets.

 

Recognising that the situation was safer for him, Lenin returned to Petrograd. There he attended a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee on 10 October, where he again argued that the party should lead an armed insurrection to topple the Provisional Government. This time the argument won with ten votes against two. Critics of the plan, Zinoviev and Kamenev, argued that Russian workers would not support a violent coup against the regime and that there was no clear evidence for Lenin's assertion that all of Europe was on the verge of proletarian revolution. The party began plans to organise the offensive, holding a final meeting at the Smolny Institute on 24 October. This was the base of the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), an armed militia largely loyal to the Bolsheviks that had been established by the Petrograd Soviet during Kornilov's alleged coup.

 

In October, the MRC was ordered to take control of Petrograd's key transport, communication, printing and utilities hubs, and did so without bloodshed. Bolsheviks besieged the government in the Winter Palace and overcame it and arrested its ministers after the cruiser Aurora, controlled by Bolshevik seamen, fired a blank shot to signal the start of the revolution. During the insurrection, Lenin gave a speech to the Petrograd Soviet announcing that the Provisional Government had been overthrown. The Bolsheviks declared the formation of a new government, the Council of People's Commissars, or Sovnarkom. Lenin initially turned down the leading position of Chairman, suggesting Trotsky for the job, but other Bolsheviks insisted and ultimately Lenin relented. Lenin and other Bolsheviks then attended the Second Congress of Soviets on 26 and 27 October and announced the creation of the new government. Menshevik attendees condemned the illegitimate seizure of power and the risk of civil war. In these early days of the new regime, Lenin avoided talking in Marxist and socialist terms so as not to alienate Russia's population, and instead spoke about having a country controlled by the workers. Lenin and many other Bolsheviks expected proletariat revolution to sweep across Europe in days or months.

 

Lenin's government

Organising the Soviet government: 1917–1918

The Provisional Government had planned for a Constituent Assembly to be elected in November 1917; against Lenin's objections, Sovnarkom agreed for the vote to take place as scheduled. In the constitutional election, the Bolsheviks gained approximately a quarter of the vote, being defeated by the agrarian-focused Socialist-Revolutionaries. Lenin argued that the election was not a fair reflection of the people's will, that the electorate had not had time to learn the Bolsheviks' political programme, and that the candidacy lists had been drawn up before the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries split from the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Nevertheless, the newly elected Russian Constituent Assembly convened in Petrograd in January 1918. Sovnarkom argued that it was counter-revolutionary because it sought to remove power from the soviets, but the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks denied this. The Bolsheviks presented the Assembly with a motion that would strip it of most of its legal powers; when the Assembly rejected the motion, Sovnarkom declared this as evidence of its counter-revolutionary nature and forcibly disbanded it.

 

Lenin rejected repeated calls, including from some Bolsheviks, to establish a coalition government with other socialist parties. Although refusing a coalition with the Mensheviks or Socialist-Revolutionaries, Sovnarkom partially relented; they allowed the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries five posts in the cabinet in December 1917. This coalition only lasted four months until March 1918, when the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries pulled out of the government over a disagreement about the Bolsheviks' approach to ending the First World War. At their 7th Congress in March 1918, the Bolsheviks changed their official name from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party to the Russian Communist Party, as Lenin wanted to both distance his group from the increasingly reformist German Social Democratic Party and to emphasise its ultimate goal, that of a communist society.

 

Although ultimate power officially rested with the country's government in the form of Sovnarkom and the Executive Committee (VTSIK) elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets (ARCS), the Communist Party was de facto in control in Russia, as acknowledged by its members at the time. By 1918, Sovnarkom began acting unilaterally, claiming a need for expediency, with the ARCS and VTSIK becoming increasingly marginalised, so the soviets no longer had a role in governing Russia. During 1918 and 1919, the government expelled Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries from the soviets. Russia had become a one-party state.

 

Within the party was established a Political Bureau (Politburo) and Organisation Bureau (Orgburo) to accompany the existing Central Committee; the decisions of these party bodies had to be adopted by Sovnarkom and the Council of Labour and Defence. Lenin was the most significant figure in this governance structure as well as being the Chairman of Sovnarkom and sitting on the Council of Labour and Defence, and on the Central Committee and Politburo of the Communist Party. The only individual to have anywhere near this influence was Lenin's right-hand man, Yakov Sverdlov, who died in March 1919 during a flu pandemic. In November 1917, Lenin and his wife took a two-room flat within the Smolny Institute; the following month they left for a brief holiday in Halila, Finland. In January 1918, he survived an assassination attempt in Petrograd; Fritz Platten, who was with Lenin at the time, shielded him and was injured by a bullet.

 

Concerned that the German Army posed a threat to Petrograd, in March 1918 Sovnarkom relocated to Moscow, initially as a temporary measure. There, Lenin, Trotsky, and other Bolshevik leaders moved into the Kremlin, where Lenin lived with his wife and sister Maria in a first-floor apartment adjacent to the room in which the Sovnarkom meetings were held. Lenin disliked Moscow, but rarely left the city centre during the rest of his life. He survived a second assassination attempt, in Moscow in August 1918; he was shot following a public speech and injured badly. A Socialist-Revolutionary, Fanny Kaplan, was arrested and executed. The attack was widely covered in the Russian press, generating much sympathy for Lenin and boosting his popularity. As a respite, he was driven in September 1918 to the luxurious Gorki estate, just outside Moscow, recently nationalized for him by the government.

 

Social, legal, and economic reform: 1917–1918

To All Workers, Soldiers and Peasants. The Soviet authority will at once propose a democratic peace to all nations and an immediate armistice on all fronts. It will safeguard the transfer without compensation of all land—landlord, imperial, and monastery—to the peasants' committees; it will defend the soldiers' rights, introducing a complete democratisation of the army; it will establish workers' control over industry; it will ensure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly on the date set; it will supply the cities with bread and the villages with articles of first necessity; and it will secure to all nationalities inhabiting Russia the right of self-determination ... Long live the revolution!

 

Upon taking power, Lenin's regime issued a series of decrees. The first was a Decree on Land, which declared that the landed estates of the aristocracy and the Orthodox Church should be nationalised and redistributed to peasants by local governments. This contrasted with Lenin's desire for agricultural collectivisation but provided governmental recognition of the widespread peasant land seizures that had already occurred. In November 1917, the government issued the Decree on the Press that closed many opposition media outlets deemed counter revolutionary. They claimed the measure would be temporary; the decree was widely criticised, including by many Bolsheviks, for compromising freedom of the press.

 

In November 1917, Lenin issued the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, which stated that non-Russian ethnic groups living inside the Republic had the right to secede from Russian authority and establish their own independent nation-states. Many nations declared independence (Finland and Lithuania in December 1917, Latvia and Ukraine in January 1918, Estonia in February 1918, Transcaucasia in April 1918, and Poland in November 1918). Soon, the Bolsheviks actively promoted communist parties in these independent nation-states, while at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of the Soviets in July 1918 a constitution was approved that reformed the Russian Republic into the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Seeking to modernise the country, the government officially converted Russia from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar used in Europe.

 

In November 1917, Sovnarkom issued a decree abolishing Russia's legal system, calling on the use of "revolutionary conscience" to replace the abolished laws. The courts were replaced by a two-tier system, namely the Revolutionary Tribunals to deal with counter-revolutionary crimes, and the People's Courts to deal with civil and other criminal offences. They were instructed to ignore pre-existing laws and base their rulings on the Sovnarkom decrees and a "socialist sense of justice." November also saw an overhaul of the armed forces; Sovnarkom implemented egalitarian measures, abolished previous ranks, titles, and medals, and called on soldiers to establish committees to elect their commanders.

 

Earth of Filth".

In October 1917, Lenin issued a decree limiting work for everyone in Russia to eight hours per day. He also issued the Decree on Popular Education that stipulated that the government would guarantee free, secular education for all children in Russia, and a decree establishing a system of state orphanages. To combat mass illiteracy, a literacy campaign was initiated; an estimated 5 million people enrolled in crash courses of basic literacy from 1920 to 1926. Embracing the equality of the sexes, laws were introduced that helped to emancipate women, by giving them economic autonomy from their husbands and removing restrictions on divorce. Zhenotdel, a Bolshevik women's organisation, was established to further these aims. Under Lenin, Russia became the first country to legalize abortion on demand in the first trimester. Militantly atheist, Lenin and the Communist Party wanted to demolish organised religion. In January 1918, the government decreed the separation of church and state, and prohibited religious instruction in schools.

 

In November 1917, Lenin issued the Decree on Workers' Control, which called on the workers of each enterprise to establish an elected committee to monitor their enterprise's management. That month they also issued an order requisitioning the country's gold, and nationalised the banks, which Lenin saw as a major step toward socialism. In December, Sovnarkom established a Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh), which had authority over industry, banking, agriculture, and trade. The factory committees were subordinate to the trade unions, which were subordinate to VSNKh; the state's centralised economic plan was prioritised over the workers' local economic interests. In early 1918, Sovnarkom cancelled all foreign debts and refused to pay interest owed on them. In April 1918, it nationalised foreign trade, establishing a state monopoly on imports and exports. In June 1918, it decreed nationalisation of public utilities, railways, engineering, textiles, metallurgy, and mining, although often these were state-owned in name only. Full-scale nationalisation did not take place until November 1920, when small-scale industrial enterprises were brought under state control.

 

A faction of the Bolsheviks known as the "Left Communists" criticised Sovnarkom's economic policy as too moderate; they wanted nationalisation of all industry, agriculture, trade, finance, transport, and communication. Lenin believed that this was impractical at that stage and that the government should only nationalise Russia's large-scale capitalist enterprises, such as the banks, railways, larger landed estates, and larger factories and mines, allowing smaller businesses to operate privately until they grew large enough to be successfully nationalised. Lenin also disagreed with the Left Communists about the economic organisation; in June 1918, he argued that centralised economic control of industry was needed, whereas Left Communists wanted each factory to be controlled by its workers, a syndicalist approach that Lenin considered detrimental to the cause of socialism.

 

Adopting a left-libertarian perspective, both the Left Communists and other factions in the Communist Party critiqued the decline of democratic institutions in Russia. Internationally, many socialists decried Lenin's regime and denied that he was establishing socialism; in particular, they highlighted the lack of widespread political participation, popular consultation, and industrial democracy. In late 1918, the Czech-Austrian Marxist Karl Kautsky authored an anti-Leninist pamphlet condemning the anti-democratic nature of Soviet Russia, to which Lenin published a vociferous reply, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky. German Marxist Rosa Luxemburg echoed Kautsky's views, while Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin described the Bolshevik seizure of power as "the burial of the Russian Revolution."

 

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: 1917–1918

[By prolonging the war] we unusually strengthen German imperialism, and the peace will have to be concluded anyway, but then the peace will be worse because it will be concluded by someone other than ourselves. No doubt the peace which we are now being forced to conclude is an indecent peace, but if war commences our government will be swept away and the peace will be concluded by another government.

 

Upon taking power, Lenin believed that a key policy of his government must be to withdraw from the First World War by establishing an armistice with the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. He believed that ongoing war would create resentment among war-weary Russian troops, to whom he had promised peace, and that these troops and the advancing German Army threatened both his own government and the cause of international socialism. By contrast, other Bolsheviks, in particular Nikolai Bukharin and the Left Communists, believed that peace with the Central Powers would be a betrayal of international socialism and that Russia should instead wage "a war of revolutionary defence" that would provoke an uprising of the German proletariat against their own government.

 

Lenin proposed a three-month armistice in his Decree on Peace of November 1917, which was approved by the Second Congress of Soviets and presented to the German and Austro-Hungarian governments. The Germans responded positively, viewing this as an opportunity to focus on the Western Front and stave off looming defeat. In November, armistice talks began at Brest-Litovsk, the headquarters of the German high command on the Eastern Front, with the Russian delegation being led by Trotsky and Adolph Joffe. Meanwhile, a ceasefire until January was agreed. During negotiations, the Germans insisted on keeping their wartime conquests, which included Poland, Lithuania, and Courland, whereas the Russians countered that this was a violation of these nations' rights to self-determination. Some Bolsheviks had expressed hopes of dragging out negotiations until proletarian revolution broke out throughout Europe. On 7 January 1918, Trotsky returned from Brest-Litovsk to St. Petersburg with an ultimatum from the Central Powers: either Russia accept Germany's territorial demands or the war would resume.

 

In January and again in February, Lenin urged the Bolsheviks to accept Germany's proposals. He argued that the territorial losses were acceptable if it ensured the survival of the Bolshevik-led government. The majority of Bolsheviks rejected his position, hoping to prolong the armistice and call Germany's bluff. On 18 February, the German Army launched Operation Faustschlag, advancing further into Russian-controlled territory and conquering Dvinsk within a day. At this point, Lenin finally convinced a small majority of the Bolshevik Central Committee to accept the Central Powers' demands. On 23 February, the Central Powers issued a new ultimatum: Russia had to recognise German control not only of Poland and the Baltic states but also of Ukraine or face a full-scale invasion.

 

On 3 March, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed. It resulted in massive territorial losses for Russia, with 26% of the former Empire's population, 37% of its agricultural harvest area, 28% of its industry, 26% of its railway tracks, and three-quarters of its coal and iron deposits being transferred to German control. Accordingly, the Treaty was deeply unpopular across Russia's political spectrum, and several Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries resigned from Sovnarkom in protest. After the Treaty, Sovnarkom focused on trying to foment proletarian revolution in Germany, issuing an array of anti-war and anti-government publications in the country; the German government retaliated by expelling Russia's diplomats. The Treaty nevertheless failed to stop the Central Powers' defeat; in November 1918, the German Emperor Wilhelm II abdicated and the country's new administration signed the Armistice with the Allies. As a result, Sovnarkom proclaimed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk void.

 

Anti-Kulak campaigns, Cheka, and Red Terror: 1918–1922

[The bourgeoisie] practised terror against the workers, soldiers and peasants in the interests of a small group of landowners and bankers, whereas the Soviet regime applies decisive measures against landowners, plunderers and their accomplices in the interests of the workers, soldiers and peasants.

 

By early 1918, many cities in western Russia faced famine as a result of chronic food shortages. Lenin blamed this on the kulaks, or wealthier peasants, who allegedly hoarded the grain that they had produced to increase its financial value. In May 1918, he issued a requisitioning order that established armed detachments to confiscate grain from kulaks for distribution in the cities, and in June called for the formation of Committees of Poor Peasants to aid in requisitioning. This policy resulted in vast social disorder and violence, as armed detachments often clashed with peasant groups, helping to set the stage for the civil war. A prominent example of Lenin's views was his August 1918 telegram to the Bolsheviks of Penza, which called upon them to suppress a peasant insurrection by publicly hanging at least 100 "known kulaks, rich men, [and] bloodsuckers."

 

The requisitions disincentivised peasants from producing more grain than they could personally consume, and thus production slumped. A booming black market supplemented the official state-sanctioned economy, and Lenin called on speculators, black marketeers and looters to be shot. Both the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries condemned the armed appropriations of grain at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets in July 1918. Realising that the Committees of the Poor Peasants were also persecuting peasants who were not kulaks and thus contributing to anti-government feeling among the peasantry, in December 1918 Lenin abolished them.

 

Lenin repeatedly emphasised the need for terror and violence in overthrowing the old order and ensuring the success of the revolution. Speaking to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets in November 1917, he declared that "the state is an institution built up for the sake of exercising violence. Previously, this violence was exercised by a handful of moneybags over the entire people; now we want [...] to organise violence in the interests of the people." He strongly opposed suggestions to abolish capital punishment. Fearing anti-Bolshevik forces would overthrow his administration, in December 1917 Lenin ordered the establishment of the Emergency Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, or Cheka, a political police force led by Felix Dzerzhinsky.

 

In September 1918, Sovnarkom passed a decree that inaugurated the Red Terror, a system of repression orchestrated by the Cheka secret police.[261] Although sometimes described as an attempt to eliminate the entire bourgeoisie, Lenin did not want to exterminate all members of this class, merely those who sought to reinstate their rule. The majority of the Terror's victims were well-to-do citizens or former members of the Tsarist administration; others were non-bourgeois anti-Bolsheviks and perceived social undesirables such as prostitutes. The Cheka claimed the right to both sentence and execute anyone whom it deemed to be an enemy of the government, without recourse to the Revolutionary Tribunals. Accordingly, throughout Soviet Russia the Cheka carried out killings, often in large numbers. For example, the Petrograd Cheka executed 512 people in a few days. There are no surviving records to provide an accurate figure of how many perished in the Red Terror; later estimates of historians have ranged between 10,000 and 15,000, and 50,000 to 140,000.

 

Lenin never witnessed this violence or participated in it first-hand, and publicly distanced himself from it. His published articles and speeches rarely called for executions, but he regularly did so in his coded telegrams and confidential notes. Many Bolsheviks expressed disapproval of the Cheka's mass executions and feared the organisation's apparent unaccountability. The Communist Party tried to restrain its activities in February 1919, stripping it of its powers of tribunal and execution in those areas not under official martial law, but the Cheka continued as before in swathes of the country. By 1920, the Cheka had become the most powerful institution in Soviet Russia, exerting influence over all other state apparatus.

 

A decree in April 1919 resulted in the establishment of concentration camps, which were entrusted to the Cheka, later administered by a new government agency, Gulag. By the end of 1920, 84 camps had been established across Soviet Russia, holding about 50,000 prisoners; by October 1923, this had grown to 315 camps and about 70,000 inmates. Those interned in the camps were used as slave labour. From July 1922, intellectuals deemed to be opposing the Bolshevik government were exiled to inhospitable regions or deported from Russia altogether; Lenin personally scrutinised the lists of those to be dealt with in this manner. In May 1922, Lenin issued a decree calling for the execution of anti-Bolshevik priests, causing between 14,000 and 20,000 deaths. The Russian Orthodox Church was worst affected; the government's anti-religious policies also harmed Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, Jewish synagogues, and Islamic mosques.

 

Civil War and the Polish–Soviet War: 1918–1920

The existence of the Soviet Republic alongside the imperialist states over the long run is unthinkable. In the end, either the one or the other will triumph. And until that end will have arrived, a series of the most terrible conflicts between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois governments is unavoidable. This means that the ruling class, the proletariat, if it only wishes to rule and is to rule, must demonstrate this also with its military organization.

 

Lenin expected Russia's aristocracy and bourgeoisie to oppose his government, but he believed that the numerical superiority of the lower classes, coupled with the Bolsheviks' ability to effectively organise them, guaranteed a swift victory in any conflict. In this, he failed to anticipate the intensity of the violent opposition to Bolshevik rule in Russia. A long and bloody Civil War ensued between the Bolshevik Reds and the anti-Bolshevik Whites, starting in 1917 and ending in 1923 with the Reds' victory. It also encompassed ethnic conflicts on Russia's borders, and anti-Bolshevik peasant and left-wing uprisings throughout the former Empire. Accordingly, various historians have seen the civil war as representing two distinct conflicts: one between the revolutionaries and the counterrevolutionaries, and the other between different revolutionary factions.

 

The White armies were established by former Tsarist military officers, and included Anton Denikin's Volunteer Army in South Russia, Alexander Kolchak's forces in Siberia, and Nikolai Yudenich's troops in the newly independent Baltic states. The Whites were bolstered when 35,000 members of the Czech Legion, who were prisoners of war from the conflict with the Central Powers, turned against Sovnarkom and allied with the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), an anti-Bolshevik government established in Samara. The Whites were also backed by Western governments who perceived the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as a betrayal of the Allied war effort and feared the Bolsheviks' calls for world revolution. In 1918, Great Britain, France, United States, Canada, Italy, and Serbia landed 10,000 troops in Murmansk, seizing Kandalaksha, while later that year British, American, and Japanese forces landed in Vladivostok. Western troops soon pulled out of the civil war, instead only supporting the Whites with officers, technicians and armaments, but Japan remained because they saw the conflict as an opportunity for territorial expansion.

 

Lenin tasked Trotsky with establishing a Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, and with his support, Trotsky organised a Revolutionary Military Council in September 1918, remaining its chairman until 1925. Recognising their valuable military experience, Lenin agreed that officers from the old Tsarist army could serve in the Red Army, although Trotsky established military councils to monitor their activities. The Reds held control of Russia's two largest cities, Moscow and Petrograd, as well as most of Great Russia, while the Whites were located largely on the former Empire's peripheries. The latter were therefore hindered by being both fragmented and geographically scattered, and because their ethnic Russian supremacism alienated the region's national minorities. Anti-Bolshevik armies carried out the White Terror, a campaign of violence against perceived Bolshevik supporters which was typically more spontaneous than the state-sanctioned Red Terror. Both White and Red Armies were responsible for attacks against Jewish communities, prompting Lenin to issue a condemnation of antisemitism, blaming prejudice against Jews on capitalist propaganda.

 

In July 1918, Sverdlov informed Sovnarkom that the Ural Regional Soviet had overseen the murder of the former Tsar and his immediate family in Yekaterinburg to prevent them from being rescued by advancing White troops. Although lacking proof, biographers and historians like Richard Pipes and Dmitri Volkogonov have expressed the view that the killing was probably sanctioned by Lenin; conversely, historian James Ryan cautioned that there was "no reason" to believe this. Whether Lenin sanctioned it or not, he still regarded it as necessary, highlighting the precedent set by the execution of Louis XVI in the French Revolution.

 

After the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries had abandoned the coalition and increasingly viewed the Bolsheviks as traitors to the revolution. In July 1918, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Yakov Blumkin assassinated the German ambassador to Russia, Wilhelm von Mirbach, hoping that the ensuing diplomatic incident would lead to a relaunched revolutionary war against Germany. The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries then launched a coup in Moscow, shelling the Kremlin and seizing the city's central post office before being stopped by Trotsky's forces. The party's leaders and many members were arrested and imprisoned but were treated more leniently than other opponents of the Bolsheviks.

 

By 1919, the White armies were in retreat and by the start of 1920 were defeated on all three fronts. Although Sovnarkom were victorious, the territorial extent of the Russian state had been reduced, for many non-Russian ethnic groups had used the disarray to push for national independence. In March 1921, during a related war against Poland, the Peace of Riga was signed, splitting disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia sought to re-conquer all newly independent nations of the former Empire, although their success was limited. Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania all repelled Soviet invasions, while Ukraine, Belarus (as a result of the Polish–Soviet War), Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia were occupied by the Red Army. By 1921, Soviet Russia had defeated the Ukrainian national movements and occupied the Caucasus, although anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Central Asia lasted until the late 1920s.

 

After the German Ober Ost garrisons were withdrawn from the Eastern Front following the Armistice, both Soviet Russian armies and Polish ones moved in to fill the vacuum. The newly independent Polish state and the Soviet government each sought territorial expansion in the region. Polish and Russian troops first clashed in February 1919, with the conflict developing into the Polish–Soviet War. Unlike the Soviets' previous conflicts, this had greater implications for the export of revolution and the future of Europe. Polish forces pushed into Ukraine and by May 1920 had taken Kiev from the Soviets. After forcing the Polish Army back, Lenin urged the Red Army to invade Poland itself, believing that the Polish proletariat would rise up to support the Russian troops and thus spark European revolution. Trotsky and other Bolsheviks were sceptical, but agreed to the invasion. The Polish proletariat did not rise, and the Red Army was defeated at the Battle of Warsaw. The Polish armies pushed the Red Army back into Russia, forcing Sovnarkom to sue for peace; the war culminated in the Peace of Riga, in which Russia ceded territory to Poland.

 

Death and funeral: 1923–1924

Lenin's funeral, as painted by Isaac Brodsky, 1925

In March 1923, Lenin had a third stroke and lost his ability to speak; that month, he experienced partial paralysis on his right side and began exhibiting sensory aphasia. By May, he appeared to be making a slow recovery, regaining some of his mobility, speech, and writing skills. In October, he made a final visit to the Kremlin. In his final weeks, Lenin was visited by Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Bukharin; the latter visited him at his Gorki mansion on the day of his death. On 21 January 1924, Lenin fell into a coma and died later that day at age 53. His official cause of death was recorded as an incurable disease of the blood vessels. "Good dog", are said to have been Lenin's last words, upon his dog having brought him a dead bird.

 

The Soviet government publicly announced Lenin's death the following day. On 23 January, mourners from the Communist Party, trade unions, and Soviets visited his Gorki home to inspect the body, which was carried aloft in a red coffin by leading Bolsheviks. Transported by train to Moscow, the coffin was taken to the House of Trade Unions, where the body lay in state. Over the next three days, around a million mourners came to see the body, many queuing for hours in the freezing conditions. On 26 January, the eleventh All-Union Congress of Soviets met to pay respects, with speeches by Kalinin, Zinoviev, and Stalin. Notably, Trotsky was absent; he had been convalescing in the Caucasus, and he later claimed that Stalin sent him a telegram with the incorrect date of the planned funeral, making it impossible for him to arrive in time. Lenin's funeral took place the following day, when his body was carried to Red Square, accompanied by martial music, where assembled crowds listened to a series of speeches before the corpse was placed into the vault of a specially erected mausoleum. Despite the freezing temperatures, tens of thousands attended.

 

Against Krupskaya's protestations, Lenin's body was embalmed to preserve it for long-term public display in the Red Square mausoleum. During this process, Lenin's brain was removed; in 1925 an institute was established to dissect it, revealing that Lenin had had severe sclerosis. In July 1929, the Politburo agreed to replace the temporary mausoleum with a permanent one in granite, which was finished in 1933. His sarcophagus was replaced in 1940 and again in 1970. For safety amid the Second World War, from 1941 to 1945 the body was temporarily moved to Tyumen. As of 2023, his body remains on public display in Lenin's Mausoleum on Red Square.

United Nations agencies and programmes are helping to eradicate illiteracy by supporting projects which seek to expand and improve educational structures in line with the economic, social and cultural realities of a country.

 

Child at an outdoor class runs by the local community for the children of squatters in Vere, Jamaica. 1986.

 

01 January 1986

 

Vere, Jamaica

 

Photo # 161797

 

Credit: UN Photo/Milton Grant

From right to left: Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo (1861-1945), Salman Bin Hussain Matar (1837-1944), Jacques-Théodule Alfred Cartier (1884-1941), Mugbil Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thukair (1844-1923), and Abdulrahman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Ibrahim (1875-1960) circa March 1912.

 

(Contrary to earlier conflicting accounts about the location of this famous photograph, local historians now believe it was taken during Jacques Cartier's introductory visit to Salman Bin Hussain Matar, the undisputed doyen of the Bahraini pearl industry for more than five decades, in his townhouse on the island of Muharraq, by one of Cartier's assistants, while seated outside on the columned portico (Iwan) of the main reception hall in the inner courtyard of the house, since the densely populated once-walled old Muharraq town, with its maze of narrow winding streets, was not only the largest urban centre on the small island, but also the capital of Bahrain and the seat of power for its Al Khalifa ruling dynasty from 1810 to 1923, in addition to being the then ultimate capital of pearling in the Arabian Gulf)

 

(The date of birth of Yusuf Kanoo of 1861 in the caption above is arguably the most accurate of all his purported birth dates, in particular when compared to the other two widely circulated unsubstantiated discretionary dates of 1874 and 1868, the first of which is found in the British national archives (India Office Records), vaguely based on Yusuf Kanoo's own account, casting doubt on the questionable veracity of some of the information-gathering methods of the British archival records, while the second is a more recent date, first appearing as the official birth date of Kanoo in the late 1990s, it is important to note that, with few exceptions here and there, prior to the gradual establishment of the modern bureaucratic centralised state system in Bahrain in the 1920s and the following decades, virtually every birth date in Bahrain and the rest of the basic protection social contract of Arab Gulf polities where the livelihoods and worldly possessions of the people were under the protection of a specific ruler in a loosely designated geographical area was usually determined by word-of-mouth discretionary supposition, collective consensus, and, in some rare cases, chronicled by momentous or calamitous events occurring at random during any given time in a certain year, such as warfare, lethal epidemics, or destructive natural disasters, typically identifying the year by a distinctive feature or characteristic attributed to the calamity itself by describing the person born in the year in question, irrespective of gender, routinely referred to as "being born in the year of so and so," and at best by adding the season of birth according to the seasonally unaligned Islamic Hijri Calendar, which would become over the course of time part of the collective and cultural orally transmitted from one generation to another folk memory of the Bahraini people and the Gulf region in general, at a time when a sizable portion of the indigenous local population was both illiterate and semiliterate before the spread of government-sponsored formal education in the early 1920s and 1930s in the newly formed Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf, for example when the devastating Spanish flu pandemic reached Arabia as a whole in the autumn of 1919, including Bahrain, resulting in the death of more than fifteen hundred inhabitants in Bahrain alone, the year of the outbreak was called "The Year of Mercy" due to the frequency of funerary prayers and supplications for mercy for the souls of so many victims who succumbed to the disease one after another, an Islamic religious nomenclature once commonly used in the Arabian Peninsula in relation to the catastrophic reoccurrences of virulent diseases that ravaged the Peninsula, as people in Arabia sauntered through a never-ending cycle of rampant epidemics, with very high mortality rates as one would expect under such conditions, not dissimilar to those in mediaeval Europe or even to those of their contemporaries relatively more advanced standards of the neighbouring fertile crescent, constantly girding themselves for the worst, in view of the practically complete lack of modern medical care facilities, preventive healthcare, quarantine measures, including immunisation, and public sanitation with the significantly effective though insufficient three modern healthcare facilities exceptions in the Gulf, operating in chronological order with the opening of each of them, starting with the commercial, for-profit enterprise medical services of the American Mission Hospital in 1903 in Manama, Bahrain, followed three years later by the semi-gratuitous medical services of the chronically underfunded Victoria Memorial Hospital, together with its small quarantine facility in 1906, located near the sea, directly across from the British political agency (now the British Embassy), further down the same long, meandering street as the American hospital, both facilities catered not only to the local Bahraini population but also to those from the eastern and central regions of present-day Saudi Arabia, and finally, the American Mission Hospital of Kuwait in 1914 served Kuwait and its urban and desert sedentary environs communities where there was practically a yearly infestation of at least one epidemic, most notably bubonic plague, cholera, malaria, and smallpox, causing numerous fatalities in a short space of time, particularly along the Arab polities of the western coast of the low-density populated and extensively penurious Arabian Gulf region and throughout the Arabian Peninsula in the first third of the twentieth century, before the life-changing discovery of oil in the 1930s and 1940s, and the subsequent development of an efficient free-of-charge governmental medical system funded by oil revenues, however, one of the most noteworthy calamities to leave an indelible mark on the collective consciousness of the people of the Gulf was an odd hurricane of cataclysmic proportions on the 1st of October 1925, dubbed "The Year of the Sinkage," inflicting variable damage to buildings and the surrounding environment, especially vulnerable mud huts with palm-frond thatched roofs (known as Barastis) in coastal aquicultural and fishing villages belonging to indigent toiling fishermen and indentured farmers, these huts were torn apart, interspersing their roofs across far-flung distances, and, needless to say, the pearl fishing industry during the final weeks of the four-month-long summer pearling season in anticipation of the onset of the dormant winter months for the industry and its ancillary essential sectors in the Gulf, the cornerstone of the regional fragile monocultural economy, which was hit hard, with thousands of boats sunk and, tragically, over five thousand lives, predominantly sailors, lost in a single thunderous foreboding night in the otherwise almost always placid waters of the Gulf; the calamity wrought havoc in its wake, leaving a path of devastation across a vast region, primarily in the central part of the Arabian Gulf, centring on the Bahrain archipelago and the eastern coastline of the Qatar peninsula, coupled with a number of islands and the sparsely populated coastal towns and villages along the present-day eastern coast of Saudi Arabia, including Dammam (now a metropolis) and Tarout Island, well-known back then for its small fishing and pearl diving communities, namely the famous pearl diving town of Darin, and also the nearby agricultural town of Qatif, where one hundred and fifty people died from falling date palm trees on their homes, in addition to Ras Tanura, and to a lesser extent Jubail in the north, thus the perfectly apt appellation, as these rudimentary speculative and dubious methods were the order of the day, rather than any accurate, bureaucratic official government or religious documentation specifying the exact date and year of birth, with the first large-scale issuance of birth registration certificates in Bahrain beginning in earnest in the 1950s, given the discovery of an officially notarised endowment trust fund transfer deed dated Thursday the 15th of Rabi' al-Thani 1295 in the Hijri Calendar, corresponding to the 18th of April 1878 in the Gregorian Calendar, undermining decidedly the credibility of the two earlier mentioned alleged dates of birth of Yusuf Kanoo, where respected foodstuff merchant Ahmed Mohamed Kanoo and his eldest son Yusuf were among the nine legally required consenting adults, competent witnesses to validate the strict transfer of wealth procedure, since both of the previously stated birth dates of Yusuf Kanoo pertinent to the timeline of the binding legal solemnity of such a document are incompatible with the required legal age of the witnesses, whereas Yusuf Kanoo was illogically either an undiscerning child of four or a child of ten, indicating that he was a minor under the legal age of majority of full legal responsibility in both instances to be allowed to appear before an Islamic Sharia Judge or any other judge of any civil or religious denomination for that matter, it should be clarified that, with the exception of Iran (historically known as Persia), which is still reliant on its own highly precise unique Solar Hijri Calendar designed by the renowned Muslim polymath, Omar Khayyam (1048-1131), time and age measurements, and the foundation for standard civic purposes of all aspects of mundane life, not just religious holidays, worshipping activities, and festivities, were calculated in the Arabian Gulf and much of the Islamic world then, per the purely lunar Islamic Hijri Calendar's dynamic but orderly unaligned seasons of the monthly cycles of the phases of the Moon, in contrast to the seasonally aligned, more dependable Gregorian, and less complex Solar Calendar, and all currently in use others, in a number of Asian nations, such as China, India, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan, are regulated by their indigenous hybrid Lunisolar Calendar's overlapping intercalations of both the positions of the Moon and the Sun, in compatibility with the Western globalised economic requirements and realities of modern life, in conclusion, as expounded earlier in the text, in the absence of a centralised efficient bureaucratic state system in the late modern period, from roughly the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century in Bahrain and the rest of the Gulf, it was a challenging task to determine the precise birth dates of the vast majority of the population, including those of the ruling and mercantile elites, with a few rare anomalous exceptions, mostly among the clergy, demonstrating beyond a shadow of a doubt that Yusuf Kanoo, as one of the signatories of the said revealing document, was of the irrefutable legal adult majority discerning age of eighteen lunar years, marking the adulthood threshold where individuals were recognised as legally responsible for their actions, according to the prevailing consensus since the late mediaeval period of the four principal Islamic Sunni orthodoxy schools of jurisprudence at the time, before the partial implementation of more secular western-influenced administrative reforms and legislations by the British colonial local authorities in the Gulf in the first third of the twentieth century, slowly but surely replacing the lunar Hijri Calendar in daily civic use by the Gregorian solar Calendar, among other modernising measures, as part of the British worldwide imperial colonial grafting process policy similar to that of the French, but in a less brutal, culturally imperialist, and bloodstained manner, by paternalistically integrating Britain more vigorously to its racially inferior and inherently less civilised colonies in varying degrees, while taking into account the distinct circumstances of each of the occupied territories according to British evaluation that constituted the British Empire through the self-designated various British classification of each territory (such as Colonies, Crown Colonies, Charter Colonies, Protectorates, Mandates, etc) via the subtle influence of cultural assimilation, thus securing the long-term economic interests of Britain whether through primarily peaceful persuasion or, when necessary, forceful means, as demonstrated in the implementation of the aforementioned administrative reforms starting in the field experiment of Bahrain in post-World War one, the smallest yet the most advanced Arab state on the western coast of the Gulf in all fields prior to the discovery of oil, namely the establishment of a modern, centralised, bureaucratic, Western-style state system, where both approaches of grafting were aggressively adopted, derived from the ancient and still in use horticultural technique of grafting, whereby different strains of plant tissues are united to create a strong, inseparable bond, ensuring the optimal growth of desirable traits, this practice mirrors some of the nuanced strategies of European colonial powers to secure future dominance over their colonies through the soft power of cultural hegemony)

 

(In light of the fact that Bahrain was the centre of the pearl trade in the Arabian Gulf, renowned worldwide for producing some of the finest natural pearls since antiquity, the small seafaring nation became the haunt for anyone seeking business success in the lucrative highly sought-after market for natural pearls in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, igniting what might have been an unprecedented pearl mania in recorded history to satisfy the ever-increasing international demand for pearl jewellery, especially among the upper echelons of Indian society, dominated by the British Raj vassal potentates of Hindu Maharajas and Muslim Nawab princes, feudal successors of the then defunct once-mighty Mughal Empire, the waning old European royalty, supremely represented by the doomed absolutist and fabulously extravagant Russian imperial house of Romanov, the vigorous burgeoning capitalist upwardly mobile Western bourgeoisie, and the extraordinarily wealthy urban-dwelling ostentatious nouveau riche American tycoons, primarily of New York, amidst the sweeping American Industrial Revolution, epitomising the opulence and excess of the era known as the "Gilded Age," as in the case of the young French jeweller Jacques-Théodule Alfred Cartier (1884-1941), who opted to bypass the exorbitant prices of the Parisian coterie of pearl dealers by sourcing pearls directly from local suppliers in the Arabian Gulf, depicting an example of the final connections between the international Western jewellery industry, where natural pearls were marketed as luxury finished products in the high-end jewellery shops of major Western capitals and cities such as London, Paris, and New York, and the intricate hierarchical network of interwoven business relationships within the once steeped in tradition centuries-old rich history of the Arabian Gulf pearl trade, personified by the four transnational Arab merchants, each of whom was associated with Bahrain to a varying degree due to its advantageous economic standing in comparison to its Arab Gulf neighbours in this iconic picture taken by one of Jacques Cartier's assistants and meticulously stored in the photo albums of the Cartier company archives in Paris, along with hundreds of other photographs taken during his several trips to the Gulf and India, as Cartier was keen on photographically documenting as much as he could of all the major events he had participated in during these trips, particularly those from his second extended visit to Bahrain in 1912, and also his handwritten, pedantically detailed travel journal containing vital information about the places he visited and the key people he met in his trips to the Orient and other parts of the world, but let us be clear, this picture for the most part is about the three noted pearl merchants he conducted business with: Al-Thukair, Bin Matar, and Al-Ibrahim, who more or less share similar backgrounds since they all hail directly from the Najd region of central Arabia, taking into account that Bahrain meant a different thing for each of them; for Mugbil Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thukair (1844-1923), it was a second home away from home after his beloved birthplace of Unaizah in Najd however, for the magnanimous and highly esteemed longest reigning doyen of the Bahraini business community for over half a century, the honourable staid and reticent Salman Bin Hussain Matar (1837-1944), it was his native birthplace, as his grandfather and namesake moved to Bahrain from Najd in 1825, making it his permanent home, and finally, for Abdurrahman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Ibrahim (1875-1960), Bahrain was a worthwhile frequent business destination halfway between his country of origin, Kuwait, on the northern tip of the Arabian Gulf, where his family moved in from Najd in the early 1700s, soon after the country was established as an independent sovereign political entity by the Al-Sabah dynasty of the Bani Utbah tribal confederation of Najd, and the bustling British-founded Indian entrepôt city of Bombay, now known as Mumbai, the financial capital and most populous city in India, and the abode of choice of Al-Ibrahim until the end of his life, apart from being his final resting place, the vibrant commercial hub on the Arabian Sea and the main gathering place for Arab traders and their families in the Indian subcontinent for nearly a century, and in many instances, the real head start for a slew of industrious young Arab merchants from the inhospitable, population-repelling, and, on the whole, economically deprived pre-oil Arabian Peninsula as for the apparent role of the fourth Arab in the picture as an Arabic-Hindi and English interpreter in this historically significant photograph, the shrewd and influential merchant Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo (1861-1945), whose ancestors originated from Najd, north of the present-day Saudi capital, Riyadh, emigrated more than a hundred years before his birth to the broadly Arab eastern coast of the Arabian Gulf; then after one or two generations in the early nineteenth century, the descendants of those ancestors decided once again to relocate to the pearl-rich island state of Bahrain off the western coast of Arabia near their ancestral homeland in the Najd plateau, central Arabia, following a temporary sojourn on what is now erroneously called the Persian coast, as scores of Arabs from the hinterlands of Arabia did in the past for one reason or another before the creation of nowadays artificial political borders when the Gulf was an Arabian lake for many centuries, needless to say, Kanoo's role was not just confined to language interpretation; therefore, it is first and foremost necessary to shed light on his business interests and activities prior to his fortuitous entry into the shipping agency business in 1911, when he was appointed as the Bahraini shipping agent for the ill-fated short-lived pioneering first fully Arab-owned shipping and passenger company "The Arab Steamers, Limited" by the majority of the principal shareholders of the budding company, most of whom were his friends, where he embraced wholeheartedly this unexpected business opportunity which came knocking at his door, as it would also play a pivotal role in shaping his future business career making him synonymous with the shipping liner and oil tanker industries in the last three decades of his life and posthumously, the eponymous company he founded up to the present, notwithstanding his involvement in significant business activities other than shipping, including the acquisition in 1913 of the highly profitable agency for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (now British Petroleum "BP"), in particular, before the discovery of oil in Bahrain in 1932 and the introduction of locally oil-refined byproducts with the completion and opening of the Bahrain refinery in 1936, the paramount byproduct of these in the Bahraini market in the first third of the twentieth century was Kerosene, also known as paraffin, when monthly shipments of thousands of barrels of the essential commodity imported from the Anglo-Persian Oil Company's refinery in Abadan in the northern Gulf used to arrive in Bahrain for local consumption, to be transported by dhow boats from a steamship anchored in deep water in the middle of the sea to the port of Manama (the current site of Bahrain Financial Harbour), a small shallow-water port incapable of receiving deep-draught large ships, then uploaded onto donkey-pulled carts to the warehouses of the nearby seaside landmark building belonging to Yusuf Kanoo in Manama, but after the building was sold, in 1934, the Kerosene shipments were stored in the warehouses of the Kanoo main office building inside the old Manama souk (the future office building of the Y.B.A. Kanoo group until 2016), for distribution to the local Kanoo subagents, as Kerosene oil was indispensable for domestic use as the primary fuel source for lighting lamps, portable lanterns and, to a smaller scale, cooking stoves, as the majority of Bahrainis used wood for cooking, while some low-income households used dried cow dung as an affordable, easy substitute for the more expensive wood prior to the gradual establishment of an electrical power grid in the 1930s and subsequent decades, other oil derivatives, especially petrol and diesel fuel, were insignificant products since the country only had two hundred motor vehicles by 1930, Yusuf Kanoo was also the first local merchant to import diesel-electric engines, ice making machines, and mechanical water pumps into Bahrain in post-World War One, in addition to becoming the refuelling and ground handling agent for Imperial Airways' long flights from London, landing in Bahrain en route to Karachi and Delhi in British India, and the Orient Express-like exorbitantly expensive luxurious nine-day flight to Sydney, Australia in 1929, the predecessor for "British Airways", for he was the only Bahraini supplier of petroleum products for almost twenty years, laying the groundwork for the highly lucrative Kanoo regional aviation ground handling business in the coming decades, specifically in Bahrain and across Saudi Arabia, his efficiency in managing plane refuelling resulted in his appointment as the travel agent for Imperial Airways in 1937, thus he become the owner of the first airline travel agency in Bahrain, which ten years later would become the first agency in the Gulf to be accredited by IATA (International Air Transport Association) in 1947, among the myriads of products and services he launched in Bahrain and the Gulf as a whole, inadvertently leading to the development of arguably the first genuinely local Western-style management-based modern business firm in the Arabian Gulf, with the contemporary state-of-the-art Y.B.A. Kanoo regional conglomerate still maintaining substantially a similar scope of the then nascent businesses of its forward-thinking founder Yusuf Kanoo in the early twentieth century, most significantly shipping, travel, machinery, and oil & gas, where the company has steadily risen to become a market leader in these sectors across all of its operational markets, achieving this in less than two decades after its founder passed away in 1945, this growth has been evident particularly since the impactful first oil boom in the mid-1970s in its three main regional markets by business size: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, as these new businesses and technologies were briefly touched upon above in the course of Yusuf Kanoo's fifty-five-year business career, in which he weathered numerous trials and tribulations through an almost unbroken chain of three major global crises: the First World War, the Great Depression, and the Second World War, as Yusuf was chiefly a banker and general trader during the first twenty years of his long business career, and as a British-influenced maverick cosmopolitan entrepreneur with a global perspective, branching out from the foodstuff business of his father, Ahmed Muhammad Kanoo (1835-1905), one of the major wholesale foodstuff merchants in Bahrain in the late nineteenth and early years of the twentieth century, and the owner of two large mixed-use elongated buildings in Manama built in the traditional Gulf architectural style, primely located close to each other, separated by the existing narrow Al Khalifa Avenue, flanked from the right side of the main building by an equally detached building of similar length but slightly broader width, formerly belonging to the brothers Abdullah & Salman Kamal, constituted the current smaller attached row of buildings consisting of shops, representing a miscellaneous collection of businesses and trades, mostly in the retail sector, owned by several different proprietors, are on the left side of the now covered pedestrian no-car strip of Souq Bab Al Bahrain Avenue, across from what were once customs bonded warehouses, the present-day site of Bab Al Bahrain shopping mall, whereas the left side of the Kanoo building is flanked by another building of the same length belonging to Sheikh Hamad, the 33-year-old crown prince of Bahrain and future ruler, and which remains in the possession of his descendants from the Bahraini royal family, as the main building is a nearly five-hundred-foot-long three-story building and fifty-five-foot width, one of the largest detached commercial buildings in Manama in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, while the smaller opposite one, the once seaside building is a two-story over two hundred feet long and also detached as its much larger sister, yet of identical width, with the first floor of the smaller building serving as a private residence for the only surviving male offspring of Ahmed Kanoo, Yusuf, whom he and his two nephews and soul heirs then sold several decades later in 1934 to the ruler of Bahrain Sheikh Hamad (1932-1942), coupled with other properties sold to others, the most important being Yusuf Kanoo's own constructed impressively huge two-story building on a plot of land reclaimed from the sea at the turn of the twentieth century, the largest mixed-use commercial and residential building in Bahrain and the whole Gulf back then, the present site of several prime location properties owned by the Bahraini royal family, consisting of the Unitag Group building and its car park, the Regency Intercontinental Hotel's auxiliary Plaza Spa and wellness building at the back, and the adjacent large building alongside it where a number of mostly financial firms and banks operate, covering the total three-hundred-foot right wing width of the old building, and at one point facing the old customs house, part of the one hundred and twenty thousand square feet plot of land encompassing the entire incomplete rectangular-shaped semi-bottom square bracket building, including the three-hundred-foot built-up two wings width across the two-hundred-foot length of the semi-courtyard partially unbuilt hollow-shaped space opposite the sea at the back of the property, serving as a docking area for the building, where in the mid-1970s, the Regency Intercontinental Hotel was erected on sea-reclaimed land in front of the docking area, which Yusuf Kanoo sold to prominent Kuwaiti pearl merchant Helal Bin Fajhan Al-Mutairi (1855-1938) in late 1934 for a quarter of a million British Raj rupees, the official currency used across the Gulf as the polities of the Gulf were under the jurisdiction of the British Indian Raj, in a desperate sale transaction to alleviate some of his massive debt incurred as a result of the global crisis of the Great Depression, as with a multitude of merchants across the Arabian Gulf, nevertheless, the present site of the smaller building is the Bab AL Bahrain Hotel, and all of the rented spaces on the four corners of the ground floor of the detached property, as the previous property is also owned by the royal family of Bahrain, located in close proximity to the Bab Al Bahrain archway (Gateway of Bahrain) historical landmark in Manama separated by just a thin aisle pedestrian passage between the two buildings, the upcoming exposition, is partly based on an amalgamation of varied documented materials spanning both local and foreign, including archival sources, notarised official documents, diaries, biographies, and so on, but above all based on the detailed descriptive notarised "deed of gift" of Ahmed Muhammad Kanoo, the father of Yusuf Kanoo, outlining in detail how he gifted specific holdings of his fixed and movable assets during his lifetime to his four adult heirs, these were his four adult offspring, his two sons Yusuf and Muhammed, and his two daughters Latifa and Hussa, where the aforementioned properties and their boundaries were clearly stated, among other heirlooms, leaving no room for ambiguity or obfuscation, dated 5th of Jumada al-Awwal 1323, in Hijri Islamic Calendar, corresponding to Saturday 8th of July 1905, in Gregorian Christian Calendar, penned shortly prior to the passing of Ahmed, stating that the two neighbouring buildings belonging to him in Manama were gifted to his sons Yusuf and Muhammed equally, whereas the large rear building served as the future headquarters offices of the titular firm of the eldest son of Ahmed, Yusuf, the posthumous Y.B.A. Kanoo regional conglomerate owned by the nephews and heirs of Yusuf, the sons of his deceased younger brother Muhammed, Jassim and Ali Kanoo, and their immediate eight male offspring and their legal heirs of both sexes' descendants, given that Muhammed died soon after his father Ahmed in 1905 of the plague during one of the requiring outbreaks of the deadly infectious disease at the turn of the twentieth century in Bahrain, since Yusuf did not have children of his own despite his three successive marriages, the building described above became symbiotically attached to the Y.B.A. Kanoo family business in the minds of many ordinary Bahrainis, especially dwellers of old Manama, for several generations from the death of Ahmad in 1905 to the death of his son Yusuf forty years later on the 21st of December 1945, and then operating continuously from the same premises for the next seven decades, albeit the old traditionally built structure was rebuilt in a Semi-Mediterranean commercial style using modern building materials in the late 1950s, until finally in 2016, when the company moved to a new steel and glass high-rise headquarters after more than a century in the same location, however, with respect to the smaller building, it became solely owned by Yusuf Kanoo, explaining why it was sold by him as thoroughly discussed earlier; in the meantime, the two said daughters of Ahmed received gold jewellery, in contrast to the commonly held inaccurately long perpetuated conception that Yusuf Kanoo started from humble origins and died practically bankrupt in 1945, as will be explained further in the text, it should be noted that when Yusuf established the first local bank in Bahrain and the entire Gulf, including Persia (Iran) in 1890, he was venturing into the risky uncharted territory of banking business in the Arabian Gulf at a time when banking was associated, at least in this deeply conservative puritanical region of the Arab world in the local Muslim collective consciousness, with unethical exploitative usury, as the Bank of Yusuf Kanoo remained the only bank in Bahrain for thirty years until the opening of the British-owned Oriental Bank in 1920 (The Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and China), the present-day Standard Chartered Bank, having been inspired by the successful banking firms of the British Raj in India, the Kanoo Bank was significantly different from regular commercial banks as it leaned more towards private banking, targeting Bahraini wealthy pearl merchants with sizeable monetary surpluses, some of whom were occasionally in need of significant cash flows for the thousands of indentured workers on their payroll throughout the four-month-long summer pearl diving season in a non-banking-based economic environment, particularly those of the island of Muharraq and its towns where Yusuf Kanoo was constantly courting their goodwill, as they were the real drivers of the fragile local monocultural economy, as with the rest of the region, Muharraq was the most active pearling town in the Arabian Gulf, thanks in large part to having the richest pearl oyster beds in the Gulf in its northern waters, and, as a matter of course, home to the highest number of pearl divers and the largest fleet of pearling vessels in the region, the former political capital of Bahrain and the seat of power of its Al Khalifa ruling dynasty for over a century, and the beating heart of the pearling industry of the tiny archipelago, the most salient of those Muharraq's merchants was the closest, steadfast, and trusted friend of Yusuf Kanoo and chief creditor, referred to earlier in the preface, one who cannot be commended highly enough or quantify his innumerable virtuous deeds, the celebrated, unassuming, and bonhomous legendary philanthropist Salman Bin Matar, who was widely recognised for donating large amounts of rice and dates to the poor in Bahrain during the dire economic conditions of the First and Second World Wars to alleviate the sudden shortages of imported foodstuffs, principally rice, the staple food for the vast majority of Bahraini people regardless of class, stemming from disruptions in international supply chains caused by military operations, and to make matters worse, the economic strife of the First World War was compounded by a virulent epidemic, as in the situation in Bahrain, where five thousand people died from an outbreak of plague in December 1914, as referred to by the British political agent in Bahrain, Captain Keyes, in his correspondence to his superior, Deputy Political Resident Major Trevor of the British Residency in Bushehr, Persia (Iran) on the 5th of December 1914 in the following excerpted letter passage: (Divers and coolies continued to leave Bahrain till the outbreak of plague in December when hundreds of Persians also left. Plague further reduced the population by some 5000. There was then a slight revival of trade and the profits in coffee and tea were so good that several merchants took advantage of the cheapness of the labour market to collect stones and build, thus, giving work to numbers of the most indigent. There was also a market for household articles, old clothes etc, and it was not till February that any people were entirely without resources. Two or three merchants, notably Salman Bin Matar, then made large donations of rice and dates, and work was found for some men by the Agency), in conjunction with his bountiful donations in times of economic crises, there was the daily sight of long queues of the less fortunate at his doorstep all year long, both at his winter and summer residences awaiting alms of the generous distribution of cooked meals made of lamb and rice, Salman Bin Matar, the wealthiest merchant in Bahrain, aside from being its most consequential pearl merchant for nearly fifty years from the 1890s until his greatly lamented death on the 10th of February 1944, the subsequent concise bracketed excerpt below originates from a declassified comprehensive report compiled by two British political agents, Captain N. N. E. Bray (1885-1962) and Major H. R. P. Dickson (1881-1959), who served consecutively though briefly in Bahrain, whereas the latter would significantly influence the modern history of Bahrain's northern neighbour Kuwait as a future political agent, this report offers a glimpse into the mindset of these colonial officers and the prevailing racist climate in the West, as reflected in this extremely subjective observational case study of the people of Bahrain from a British colonial perspective, verifying the typical racist European tropes and stereotypes of how none white people were widely viewed back then, including two opposing lists of influential Bahrainis who played central roles in shaping the socioeconomic and political landscape of the small state, either by aligning with Britain or opposing it, with Salman Bin Matar prominently placed at the top of the Whitelist, this list evidently refers to a group of the wealthiest and most powerful high-ranking Bahrainis considered allies of the British, conversely, the Blacklist represents a diverse group of individuals from all segments of Bahraini society, belonging to various social backgrounds, faiths, affiliations, and origins, unified by the suspicion and hostility they faced from the British colonial authorities in Bahrain, for reasons that were not exclusively political, Bin Matar was described in this special 1920 report by the British political agency in Bahrain as follows: quote (1. Salman Bin Matar. A wealthy pearl merchant, very friendly.) a simple yet emblematic description of a man who maintained a modest demeanour all his life despite his immense wealth, dedicating much of his long life to assisting the downtrodden and improving the quality of life of the Bahraini people in general in every way possible irrespective of their race, ethnicity, creed, or colour, in particular, through the introduction of modern formal government education, as he was one of the founders of the first formal school in Muharraq, the former capital of Bahrain in 1919, he was also a vital member of all the governmental councils and committees of the newly formed bureaucratically centralised, and chronically underfunded Bahraini state, where he unfailingly provided generous financial funding to these fledgling government bodies, both before and after the discovery of oil in 1932, and continued to do so until his death, as evidenced by a short though thoughtful obituary in the declassified British colonial annual archival report of 1944 on Bahrain, the following is the slightly edited bracketed obituary: (The death occurred during the year of Haj Salman Bin Matar, one of the leading pearl merchants of Muharraq, who was well known for his philanthropic deeds. For several years he provided food for large numbers of poor people who were daily fed at his doors. He sat on various councils and committees and was a valuable member of the community), he was also well-known for his significant contributions as the biggest and longest-standing depositor of the Kanoo Bank until its bankruptcy and permanent closure at the height of the Great Depression in the early 1930s; furthermore, he was accredited for waiving all of his large outstanding debts to his local and regional debtors during the decade-long debilitating depression crisis, followed by the conflagration of the Second World War, including, as expected, the debt of Yusuf Kanoo, his lifelong friend and confidant amounting to more than half a million Indian British Raj silver rupees without legal recourse, a considerable fortune in the pre-oil Arabian Gulf, in spite of the constant insistence of Yusuf Kanoo on offering his most prized possession, his mixed-use monumental building, which he then sold to Kuwaiti pearl merchant Helal Al-Mutairi, as previously mentioned, and additional properties comprising the building gifted to him and his late brother by their father, who he sold as above indicated to the ruler of Bahrain, Sheikh Hamad, and a medium-sized date palm orchard within the vicinity of Al Khamis village near Manama, to cover the stupendous debt of Salman Bin Matar, after all the last-ditch attempts of Kanoo, a trustworthy man of impeccable integrity in all of his business dealings, to offer the building among other assets to Bin Matar in exchange for the defaulted debt had failed, thus, upon the arrival of Al-Mutairi at dusk, a good friend of both eminent Bahraini merchants from Kuwait, to seal the critical sale deal of the building on an unspecified day in a cold late December evening of 1934, Yusuf Kanoo, accompanied by his prospective Kuwaiti buyer, walking in the unlit dark narrow alleys of Muharraq, aided by oil lanterns carried by assistants, went to the winter residence townhouse of Salman Bin Matar in the heart of the old town of Muharraq in a poignant final gesture of sincere goodwill to persuade him to accept the building as the least credible rightful legal settlement for the substantial outstanding debt; however, he resolutely declined, a clear attestation to the incomparable altruism and nobility of this exceptional gentleman, demonstrated by being deservedly afforded the appellation 'Father of Orphans and Protector of Widows' by the Bahraini people many a decade before these affairs, an honorific that remained synonymous with him throughout much of his long adult life and posthumously until the present, due in no small part to the cherished memories he represents for a lot of Bahrainis from all walks of life passed down through the generations, as he is unanimously recognised as the preeminent philanthropist Bahrain has produced in modern times, and also as its foremost pearl merchant of the golden age of the pearl trade, interestingly, the preceding debt case incident represents a compelling true moral story seldom seen in our fast-paced, materialistically driven, and consumer-oriented globalised village society in a world increasingly characterised by cynicism, moral apathy, and venal propensity, where meaningless vapid and insipid hypocritical rhetoric about human rights is routinely harangued tediously on the world media, serving as irrefutable proof of the remarkable mutual fidelity and devotion these two friends held for each other throughout their long friendship of over fifty years, lasting from the mid-1890s to their close deaths separated by just well over a year, prompting Yusuf Kanoo, a few months after this defining incident in 1935, to take the necessary precautions to ensure the continuity of his business enterprise for posterity by transferring ownership of his company and all of his remaining properties into the safe and capable hands of his nephews, Jassim and Ali, ten years before his passing in 1945, except for the dear to him 'Anglo-Persian Oil Company' (APOC) agency, now the multinational oil giant British Petroleum (BP), which remained under his ownership until his death, stipulating that the company will continue to bear his name after his death, thereby eliminating any future claims by creditors, and to limit the inheritance to the two brothers as the sole heirs of Yusuf Kanoo and their male progeny, ensuring the smooth transition of the family business in a traditional patriarchal society as a logical consequence, Yusuf died with virtually no inheritance left behind, debunking the notion that his heirs rebuilt his company from scratch, bearing in mind that the previously mentioned nephews at the time of Yusuf's death were middle-aged, well-established businessmen in their own right, owning business interests independently from the firm of their illustrious uncle, and married with grown-up children and even grandchildren, whose pioneering sons, Ahmed, the eldest son of Ali, and Muhammed, the eldest son of Jassim, and their diligent younger brothers, following steadily in the footsteps of their great uncle Yusuf Kanoo in the late 1940s, ably taking on the heavy mantle of his, expanding the resilient eponymous company he built almost sixty years prior across the Arabian Gulf, transforming it into the multinational regional conglomerate it is today, the following bracketed excerpt from the declassified 1945 colonial annual report of the British political agency in Bahrain on internal and external affairs of the country and the Arabian Gulf is an edited obituary of Yusuf Kanoo, explicitly confirming his high status both locally and regionally, as the unfounded and nebulous age of Kanoo, stated to have been born in 1874 in the said archival obituary, has been refuted conclusively in the comprehensive and detailed missive above on the different hypotheses about his age, delving concisely into the chaotic rudimentary birthdate documentation methods in Bahrain and the rest of the Arabian Peninsula before the establishment of modern centralised bureaucratic state systems in the region, which commenced in earnest after the end of World War One, (On the 21st December Haji Yusuf Ahmed Kanoo died at the age of 71, (most likely between 84 and 85). His association with His Majesty's Government started in 1898 in the time of the Agent Haji Ahmed bin Abdul Rasool (Al Safar). He continued to serve as Assistant until the arrival of Mr. Gaskin in 1902, and was associated with Major Prideaux and Captain Mackenzie until 1909. He received the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal II. Class in 1911, the title of KHAN SAHIB in 1917 and the M.B.E. in 1919. In 1924, a C.I.E. was bestowed upon him. In 1913, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company appointed him their agent in Bahrain. He received honours from the late King Hussain of the Hedjaz and, also, from His Highness the Amir (Abdullah) of Transjordan (now kingdom of Jordan), who granted him the title Pasha. The death of this well-known old Arab was marked in Bahrain by the closing of the bazaars for one day. The political Agent sent a message of condolence to the bereaved family.), at any rate, the collapse of the only Bahraini indigenous-owned bank during the Great Depression reflects the far-reaching cataclysmic effects of the first economic crisis of the modern economic realities of the ever-increasingly interconnected world of the twentieth century, turning it into a global phenomenon where plenty of financial institutions and businesses irrespective of size were falling prey to insolvency, engendering widespread economic hardship and turmoil; the momentous collapse of Kanoo Bank had a significant impact on the establishment of another indigenous bank in Bahrain, delaying the whole process for a quarter of a century until the establishment of the first commercial Bahraini-owned bank in the country, the National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) in 1957, in view of the modest oil revenues of the slowly gaining momentum new Bahraini oil economy in comparison to the exponentially oil-rich Arab Gulf neighbours of Bahrain, namely Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and to a lesser extent Qatar in the 1950s and early 1960s, before the arrival of the last two crucial newcomers on the oil-producing scene in the Arabian Gulf, the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the Sultanate of Oman, where the former would later become the dominant Emirate of the newest robust country in the Arabian Gulf, and its newly rebuilt capital city, Abu Dhabi, would be proclaimed the federal capital of the seven dynastic Emirates of the federal state of the UAE after independence from Britain in 1971, due to its geographical size and enormous hydrocarbon wealth, not to mention the British loosening of their monopolising grip on the Bahraini local banking sector in the aftermath of the brief but consequential Anglo-French debacle of the 1956 Suez crisis, which was up until then under complete control of the British, symbolised by only two British banks, the formerly alluded to Standard Chartered Bank and the British Bank of the Middle East (BBME), what is now the HSBC Bank Middle East, the second biggest Kanoo Bank depositor was leading pearl merchant Muhammad Bin Rashid Bin Hindi Al Mannai (1850-1934), also from the historic previously walled eponymous town of Muharraq, as Salman Bin Matar, the largest and most densely populated on the island, with an architectural landscape signalised by the few extant buildings of the once-forest of wind towers and sun-gleaming white facades of traditional ornate residential and commercial buildings constructed largely of coral stone and covered in white lime mortar, forming the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Pearling Path, standing as testament to the prosperous and storied past of the island, when Muharraq was the pearl capital of the entire Gulf, along with the respected merchants and cousins Sayyid Khalifa Bin Abdulghafoor Al Sadah (1839-1912) and Sayyid Abdullah Bin Ibrahim Al Sadah (1853-1932) of the historically seafaring sand spit town of Al Hidd on the southeastern extremity of the island, these key pearl merchants and other business leaders were the primary economic drivers of the local economy and the largest employers prior to the turning point discovery of oil and the following gradual formation of the modern centralised state bureaucratic apparatus system in the Arabian Gulf region; yet, it is a little-known fact that Yusuf Kanoo was also a sagacious and trusted pearl broker, both locally and regionally, acting as a sort of decorous middleman interpreter and poised interlocutor between visiting international pearl dealers and their local and regional counterparts as the socially savvy, energetic, and knowledgeable multilingual comprador Yusuf Kanoo would turn his hand to anything commercially favourable, oddly enough, the majority of those international pearl dealers were French Jews, such as Léonard Rosenthal (1874-1955), Jacques Bienenfeld (1875-1933), and Solomon Pack (Date of birth unknown), who forged not only strong business relations with their Arab counterparts, but also strong enduring friendships in the Gulf and throughout Arabia; two prime examples of these friendships stand out: the first is between Abdulrahman Bin Hassan Algosaibi (1880-1976), the famed transnational well-travelled pearl merchant based in Bahrain from the Najd region of central Arabia, and Albert Habib, the affable, fluent in Arabic Paris-based pearl merchant and nephew of Léonard Rosenthal, who, like many others during the 1930s, struggled with bankruptcy owing to the Great Depression, and for whom Algosaibi generously paid his medical bills following a post-crisis malaise brought about by the abrupt price plunge of natural pearls, causing him to lose most of his sizable fortune, demonstrating the loyalty and support of Algosaibi during hardship and adversity, the other notable friendship was between the international pearl dealer, the benevolent Muhammed-Ali Zainal Alireza (1884-1969) of Jeddah and David Bienenfeld (1893-19?), the younger brother of the Jacques mentioned above; Alireza earned the title "The King of Pearls" in the Arabian Gulf during the 1920s and later became known as "The King of Diamonds" in post-World War Two India, when the farsighted Alireza eschewed his pearl trade business altogether after the worldwide collapse of the pearl market in the mid-1930s, as a direct outcome of the Great Depression, impelling him to move aggressively into the diamond trade in India, where diamonds were first discovered thousands of years ago; this opportune move came after his permanent relocation from Paris to Bombay with his small family, just before the German blitzkrieg invasion of France in 1940; Bombay became his second home after his birthplace of Jeddah, where he lived until his death in 1969 and was laid to rest, it should be pointed out that in the interwar period, Alireza moderately dealt in cut diamonds and diamond jewellery alongside his main pearl business; this involvement gave him some familiarity with the more stable diamond trade, especially in comparison to the at times volatile and unpredictable pearl market, unlike some of his pearl merchant peers who emerged from the Depression unscathed or with minimal losses and opted for comfortable retirement, he chose not to rest on his past laurels in the pearl trade, but instead, in less than a decade of his highly successful business transition, he became the principal diamond merchant in India and one of the foremost in the world in the 1950s, as for Alireza's preceding friendship with David Bienenfeld, who was forsaken and shunned by most of his friends, particularly those from the bourgeoisie French elite, after he lost almost all of his wealth and that of his family due to the Great Depression of 1929, except for his noble Muslim Arab religiously conscientious business partner and close friend Alireza, who stood by him and his immediate family steadfastly until the end, Alireza was renowned in the Arabian Gulf for the earlier pearl-related sobriquet, for he was perceived as a bearer of good fortune by local pearling communities, as he, together with his other collaborative distinguished pearl merchants of French Jewish friends, typically the 'Rosenthal Freres' (Rosenthal brothers) operating from offices in the same building on Rue La Fayette in Paris, was responsible for purchasing nearly half of the per annum pearl produce of the entire Gulf spanning from Kuwait to Dubai in the 1920s, while the remainder was either bought by Indian merchants from the Banyan community, who frequently visited the Gulf many decades before their Western counterparts, or sold directly by Gulf merchants in Bombay, dispelling the recently propagated and deliberately Western media-manufactured myth of imagined animosity between the followers of the two Abrahamic faiths, aiming to give credence to the ongoing destructive colonial legacy of the Sykes-Picot agreement in the modern Middle East, and also in some fringe, largely unrecognised polemical academic Western circles of the intractable ancient discord between predominantly Arab Muslim majority in Muslim-governed polities on one side, and particularly followers of other monotheistic religions on the other, these are Jews and Christians, as Jews, Muslim Arabs, Arab Christians, non-Arab Muslims, non-Arab Christians, and, in some cases, Mandaeans and Zoroastrians, with a special dispensation for Hindus and Buddhists, coexisted peacefully under the collective term of "Dhimmīs" (protected people) status Islamic jurisdiction, derived from the singular dhimmi (Arabic: ذمي) meaning "protected person" this jurisdiction was initially intended according to the Qur'anic text for the people of the covenant or the monotheistic people of the book, specifically Jews, Christians, and Mandaeans, even though these scriptures are Islamically deemed interpolated or corrupted sacred texts before including other religious groups in the aftermath of the century-long Arab Islamic conquests following the death of prophet Muhammad in 632 AD, considering this jurisdiction pervaded throughout the mediaeval Islamic world's golden age, in the 8, 9, and 10th centuries, and subsequent centuries, and even during the two tumultuous bloody centuries of the Crusades, stretching from Muslim Iberia all the way to Central Asia and later centuries in the Ottoman Empire, where tens of thousands of Spanish Jews fled the torturous persecution of the dreadful inquisition court under Catholic Spain after the fall of the only remaining Muslim stronghold of Granada in 1492, the last bastion of tolerance, culture, learning, and diversity in the Iberian Peninsula to the safety of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, as for the so-called friction between Muslims and Jews, it is a newfound phenomenon that began to rear its ugly head when British imperial designs for the Near Eastern legacy of the Ottoman Empire converged with Zionism, a late nineteenth-century Jewish nationalist ideology strongly influenced by emerging nationalist movements in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, and concurrent European settler colonial experiences involving mass displacement and extermination of native populations in the Americas, Africa, and Australia, leading to the ominous Balfour Declaration of 1917 and culminating in the genocidal bloodstained establishment of the state of Israel thirty years later, in the years 1947 and 1948, forcibly displacing and ethnically cleansing the majority of the Palestinian Arab indigenous population and their rich deeply rooted and nuanced cultural heritage in its wake (known in the Arab world as "The Nakba," the catastrophe or calamity), with unwavering and unequivocal Anglo-French support at all levels and from the bulk of the Western bloc until the mid-1960s, when the steering helm of the Middle East was taken over by the new mighty American-led Western alliance thenceforth, creating an unduly artificial and ephemeral schism in the primordial cradle of civilisation and monotheism in the fertile crescent and Arabia amongst adherents of two of the three major Semitic monotheistic closely related Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam ever since, other than the significant foreign international pearl dealers previously described, there was one notable indigenous exception from the Arabian Peninsula and the only Arab of the lot during the heyday of pearls, embodied in the interwar period by the earlier mentioned, the venerable Hijazi (from the Hijaz region of western Arabia), cosmopolitan, and multilingual, intermittently residing in Paris with his second English wife Ruby Elsie Jackson (1919-1973?), the mother of his three daughters Aminah, Hafsa, and Mariam, pearl dealer Muhammad-Ali Zainal Alireza, a member of the prominent transnational Persianized Arab trading family Alireza of Jeddah, widely regarded for his extraordinary largesse and numerous philanthropic charitable works throughout the Arabian Peninsula and beyond, most notably, his invaluable progressive contributions to the eradication of pervasive illiteracy and ignorance in Arabia and other regions of the Muslim world through the proliferation of formal modern education for both genders, encompassing the entire twelve-year curriculum, constitute his most enduring legacy, where he established the first formal, comprehensive charitable school in Jeddah named "Alfalah" (Success) at the tender age of twenty-one in 1905, followed by a similar institution in the holy city of Mecca in 1911 and complemented by a network of akin charitable schools for both sexes by the same name in Bombay, India, Dubai, and Bahrain in the first three decades of the twentieth century, with the schools in existence now being the ones in Jeddah and Mecca, while the others were closed down in the 1950s after being superseded by government-funded formal school education, Alireza was also the only merchant from Arabia to own both a flat on the world-famous Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris and a house in the chic Cleveland Square in London in the 1920s, in addition to the aforementioned periodic visits of the Paris-based pearl tycoons, Bahrain was regularly visited by well-known international jewellers, such as the acclaimed French jewellers of the house of Cartier and their representatives, as well as representatives of other prestigious Western jewellery houses, including the American Tiffany & Co, who frequented the Gulf on pearl purchasing expeditions, with a special focus on Bahrain, the regional pearl trade centre, with its exceptionally well-stocked pearl oyster beds, the source of its unparalleled rare-hued coveted pearls, attributed by environmental experts to the unique undersea freshwater springs found in the shallow waters of Bahrain, a phenomenon exclusive to this archipelago on the western shores of the Arabian Gulf, giving it its then Gulf advanced economic position and international fame; however, it is worth noting that in the early twentieth century, natural pearls were priced internationally in French francs, as Paris was the undisputed international pearl trade centre during the golden age of pearls, when pearls were valued more than fourfold the price of diamonds in world markets owing to their rarity and natural shape, especially after the discovery of the South African diamond mines until the 1929 Wall Street stock exchange crash, precipitating a catastrophic, slow, remorseless onslaught of a global decade-long economic depression, coinciding with the introduction of the much cheaper Mikimoto Japanese cultured pearls and the discovery of oil in the Gulf, beginning with Bahrain in 1932, the Arabian Gulf centre of the pearl fishing industry, and followed in the next few years by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, supplanting the quasi-feudal industry of pearl fishing's gruelling, low-paying vicious circle of servitude indentured labour, and the time-consuming, with prolonged health risks such as blindness and deafness, particularly for pearl divers, who often had lower life expectancy than the rest of the crew members due to their primitive, sparsely clad protective diving gear, suggesting it gave little protection from the months-long detrimental exposure to the sea salinity and hazardous predatory marine creatures, followed immediately by the Second World War, delivering the final death blow to the already severely weakened reeling pearl industry by the protracted Great Depression, as if the timing of these calamitous events had conspired in a preordained twist of fate, resulting in a disastrous collapse in pearl prices from which it would not recover for several decades, effectively bringing an end to the seasonally highly organised and regimented centuries-old pearl fishing industry with its ancient rich cultural traditions of the in-part husbandry industry of dhow boat shipbuilding and its various supplementary traditional crafts and folklore, featuring boat crew folk dances and the soulful, melancholic sea shanty bard songs transmitted orally from one generation to another, performed by deep-voiced, highly skilled, mostly illiterate singers in the Gulf, this once colossal industry, employing at its zenith in the 1920s around a third to half of the able-bodied male workforce across the Arabian Gulf, has since the late 1990s transformed into an occasional immensely financially rewarding experience resembling a solitary treasure-hunting pastime, on top of being an equally rewarding tourist attraction for some fortunate scuba diving tourists)

 

The two excerpts below are from two different sources; the first is slightly edited, from an archival file of the British colonial Arabian Gulf Residency in Bushehr, Persia (Iran), covering the period from the 1st to the 31st of March 1912, pertaining to the timeline of the visit of Jacques Cartier to Bahrain, a tiny section of the stupendous detailed, file consisting of miscellaneous news reports received by the Gulf Residency (the 'Political Diary' of the Residency) relating to various areas of Persia (Iran) and the Arabian Gulf, for each month from November 1911 to December 1920. The reports were compiled by the Political Resident in the Arabian Gulf (Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Zachariah Cox) or, in his absence, by the Officiating Political Resident, the Deputy Political Resident, or the First Assistant Resident. (There are discrepancies between the diary of Jacques Cartier and the said report in terms of the exact dates of Cartier's arrival and departure and the unveiling of his unrealised intended final destination on his second extended Arabian Gulf trip) while the second excerpt is a citation from the book "Cartier: Jewellers Extraordinary", by Hans Nadelhoffer, which is part of the author's description of the Oriental trips of Jacques Cartier particularly those to the Arabian Gulf and his adoption of some of the local business customs and practices during those trips.

 

The following two brief paragraphs provide a first-hand British archival summary of Jacques Cartier and his travel companions' trip to the Arabian Gulf in March 1912.

 

A young Frenchman, Monsieur Jacques Cartier, arrived with two companions, Monsieur Maurice Richard, also a Frenchman, and Mr. J. S. Sethna, a Parsi Indian by the Arab Steamer "Tynesider" on March 13th. They came to the Agency to get an order of exemption for the quarantine at Kuwait. When they learned that this was impossible, they determined to stay in Bahrain until the "Tynesider" returned from Basra. They were put up by Haji Mugbil Al-Thukair to whom they brought recommendations from Bombay Arabs. They left for Bombay on the return of the ship on 1st April.

 

Monsieur Cartier represents the firm of Cartier of Paris and London (175 New Bond Street) and his visit was professional. He cultivated the acquaintance of the local Arab merchants and is said to have brought pearls to the value of Rs. 25,000. He informed the Political Agent that he might return to Bahrain for the pearl season of 1913. Others say that his companion, Mr. Sethna previously dealt in pearls on his own account and will be sent to work for the firm here.

 

The edited citation below is from the book "Cartier: Jewellers Extraordinary" by Hans Nadelhoffer.

 

Jacques Cartier was the firm's special expert on pearls, and it was he who accompanied the sales assistant Maurice Richard on various journeys to the Arabian Gulf and to India. In accordance with Oriental custom, he would sit cross-legged in his negotiations with local traders, and he learned the customs, languages, and habits of the various nations that he visited. Two of his journeys were recorded in the form of a diary and various other reports.

 

www.google.com.bh/books/edition/Cartier/xnKpjh1g&

I did a drive-by of the Church of Scientology, mission of Wichita, Kansas when I was in Wichita for other business. Beautiful place! I got a tour when I went there, and they had big plans for handling the illiteracy problem in Wichita.

Violence against women and girls is everyone's problem. It brings down an entire society. We are ALL touched by femicide in India. Census data shows that poverty and illiteracy are not key factors in India’s female genocide as many assume. The survival of girls is determined by a patriarchal politics of wealth control.

 

Save the Girl, Educate the Girl.

 

Photo: Firoz Ahmad

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The Cathedral of Saint Mary the Royal of the Almudena commonly known as the Almudena Cathedral for short, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Madrid, the capital city of Spain. It is the seat of the Archdiocese of Madrid. A fairly young cathedral by Spanish standards, its construction began in 1883 and finished over a century later, when it was consecrated by Pope John Paul II in 1993.

 

It is located opposite the Royal Palace and much of its final appearance was defined considering this regal surrounding.

 

When the capital of Spain was transferred from Toledo to Madrid in 1561, the seat of the Church in Spain remained in Toledo and the new capital had no cathedral. Plans for a cathedral in Madrid dedicated to the Virgin of Almudena were discussed as early as the 16th century but even though Spain built more than 40 cities overseas during that century, plenty of cathedrals and fortresses, the cost of expanding and keeping the Empire came first and the construction of Madrid's cathedral was postponed.

 

The building was designed by Francisco de Cubas. The original plan had been to create a parochial church. The foundation stone was laid in 1883, but when Pope Leo XIII granted a bull in 1885 for the creation of the Madrid-Alcalá bishopric, the plans for the church were changed to that of a Gothic revival cathedral.

 

The cathedral seems to have been built on the site of a medieval mosque that was destroyed in 1083 when Alfonso VI reconquered Madrid.

 

Construction was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War, and the site lay abandoned until 1950, when Fernando Chueca Goitia adapted the plans of de Cubas to a baroque exterior to match the grey and white façade of the Palacio Real that stands directly opposite.

 

The cathedral was completed in 1993, when it was consecrated by Pope John Paul II. Its patron saints are Santa María la Real de la Almudena and Saint Isidro Labrador.

 

On 22 May 2004, the marriage of King Felipe VI, then crown prince, to Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano took place at the cathedral.

 

The Neo-Gothic interior is uniquely modern, with chapels and statues of contemporary artists, in heterogeneous styles, from historical revivals to "pop-art" decor. The Blessed Sacrament Chapel features mosaics by Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik. The icons in the apse were painted by Kiko Argüello, artist and founder of the Neocatechumenal Way.

 

The Neo-Romanesque crypt houses a 16th-century image of the Virgen de la Almudena. Nearby along the Calle Mayor, excavations have unearthed remains of Moorish and medieval city walls.

 

People buried at Almudena Cathedral include:

Her Majesty Mercedes of Orléans, Queen of Spain (1860–1878)

His Highness Prince Ferdinand of Bavaria (1884–1958)

His Highness Jose Eugenio, Prince of Bavaria (1909–1966)

His Highness Luis Alfonso, Prince of Bavaria (1906–1983)

Her Highness Doña María de la Asunción Solange de Mesía y de Lesseps, Princess of Bavaria and Countess of Odiel (1911–2005)

Carmen Franco, 1st Duchess of Franco (1926–2017)

Cristóbal Martínez-Bordiú, 10th Marquess of Villaverde (1922–1998)

Francisco de Cubas, I Marquess of Cubas (1826–1899)

Francisco de Cubas y Erice, II Marquess of Cubas, II Marquess of Fontalba and Grandee of Spain (1868–1937)

Estanislao de Urquijo y Landaluce, I Marquess of Urquijo (1817-1889)

Estanislao de Urquijo y Ussía, III Marquess of Urquijo (1872-1948)

Isabel de Maltrana y de Novales, I Marquise de Maltrana (d. 1919)

Luis de Pedroso y Madan, V Count of San Esteban de Cañongo (1876-1952)

María Dolores de Pedroso y Sturdza, VI Countess of San Esteban de Cañongo

Margarita de Pedroso y Sturdza, VII Countess of San Esteban de Cañongo (1911-1989)

Cardinal Ángel Suquía Goicoechea (1916–2006)

Fernando Rielo Pardal (1923–2004)

Alfonso Peña Boeuf (1888–1966)

Enrique María Repullés (1845–1922)

 

Madrid is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and its monocentric metropolitan area is the second-largest in the EU. The municipality covers 604.3 km2 (233.3 sq mi) geographical area. Madrid lies on the River Manzanares in the central part of the Iberian Peninsula at about 650 meters above mean sea level. The capital city of both Spain and the surrounding autonomous community of Madrid (since 1983), it is also the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country. The climate of Madrid features hot summers and cool winters.

 

The Madrid urban agglomeration has the second-largest GDP in the European Union and its influence in politics, education, entertainment, environment, media, fashion, science, culture, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities. Due to its economic output, high standard of living, and market size, Madrid is considered the major financial centre and the leading economic hub of the Iberian Peninsula and of Southern Europe. The metropolitan area hosts major Spanish companies such as Telefónica, Iberia, BBVA and FCC. It concentrates the bulk of banking operations in the country and it is the Spanish-speaking city generating the largest amount of webpages. For innovation, Madrid is ranked 19th in the world and 7th in Europe from 500 cities, in the 2022–2023 annual analysts Innovation Cities Index, published by 2ThinkNow.

 

Madrid houses the headquarters of the UN's World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), and the Public Interest Oversight Board (PIOB). It also hosts major international regulators and promoters of the Spanish language: the Standing Committee of the Association of Spanish Language Academies, headquarters of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), the Instituto Cervantes and the Foundation of Urgent Spanish (FundéuRAE). Madrid organises fairs such as FITUR, ARCO, SIMO TCI and the Madrid Fashion Week. Madrid is home to two world-famous football clubs, Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid.

 

While Madrid possesses modern infrastructure, it has preserved the look and feel of many of its historic neighbourhoods and streets. Its landmarks include the Plaza Mayor, the Royal Palace of Madrid; the Royal Theatre with its restored 1850 Opera House; the Buen Retiro Park, founded in 1631; the 19th-century National Library building (founded in 1712) containing some of Spain's historical archives; many national museums, and the Golden Triangle of Art, located along the Paseo del Prado and comprising three art museums: Prado Museum, the Reina Sofía Museum, a museum of modern art, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, which complements the holdings of the other two museums. Cibeles Palace and Fountain has become one of the monument symbols of the city. The mayor is José Luis Martínez-Almeida from the People's Party.

 

The documented history of Madrid dates to the 9th century, even though the area has been inhabited since the Stone Age. The primitive nucleus of Madrid, a walled military outpost in the left bank of the Manzanares, dates back to the second half of the 9th century, during the rule of the Emirate of Córdoba. Conquered by Christians in 1083 or 1085, Madrid consolidated in the Late Middle Ages as a middle to upper-middle rank town of the Crown of Castile. The development of Madrid as administrative centre began when the court of the Hispanic Monarchy was settled in the town in 1561.

 

The primitive urban nucleus of Madrid (Majriṭ) was founded in the late 9th century (from 852 to 886) as a citadel erected on behalf of Muhammad I, the Cordobese emir, on the relatively steep left bank of the Manzanares. Originally it was largely a military outpost for the quartering of troops. Similarly to other fortresses north of the Tagus, Madrid made it difficult to muster reinforcements from the Asturian kingdom to the unruly inhabitants of Toledo, prone to rebellion against the Umayyad rule. Extending across roughly 8 ha, Muslim Madrid consisted of the alcázar and the wider walled citadel (al-Mudayna) with the addition of some housing outside the walls. By the late 10th century, Majriṭ was an important borderland military stronghold territory with great strategic value, owing to its proximity to Toledo. The most generous estimates for the 10th century tentatively and intuitively put the number of inhabitants of the 9 ha settlement at 2,000. The model of repopulation is likely to have been by the Limitanei, characteristic of the borderlands.

 

The settlement is mentioned in the work of the 10th-century Cordobese chronicler Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Razi, with the latter locating the Castle of Madrid within the district of Guadalajara. After the Christian conquest, in the first half of the 12th century Al-Idrisi described Madrid as a "small city and solid fortress, well populated. In the age of Islam, it had a small mosque where the khuṭbah was always delivered," and placed it in the province of the sierra, "al-Sārrāt". It was ascribed by most post-Christian conquest Muslim commentators, including Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi, to Toledo. This may tentatively suggest that the settlement, part of the cora of Guadalajara according to al-Razi, could have been transferred to Toledo following the Fitna of al-Andalus.

 

The city passed to Christian control in the context of the conquest of Toledo; historiography debates whether if the event took place in 1083, before the conquest of Toledo, in the wake of negotiations between Alfonso VI and al-Qadir, or afterwards, as a direct consequence of the seizure of Toledo in 1085.

 

The mosque was reconsecrated as the church of the Virgin of Almudena (almudin, the garrison's granary). The society in the 11th and 12th centuries was structured around knight-villeins as a leading class in the local public, social and economic life. The town had a Muslim and mozarabic preexisting population (a number of the former would remain in the town after the conquest while the later community would remain very large throughout the high middle ages before merging with the new settlers). The town was further repopulated by settlers with a dominant Castilian-Leonese extraction. Frank settlers were a minority but influential community. The Jewish community was probably smaller in number than the mudéjar one, standing out as physicians up until their expulsion. By the end of the middle ages, the best-positioned members of the mudéjar community were the alarifes ('master builders'), who were tasked with public works (including the management of the viajes de agua), and had a leading role in the urbanism of the town in the 15th century.

 

Since the mid-13th century and up to the late 14th century, the concejo of Madrid vied for the control of the Real de Manzanares territory against the concejo of Segovia, a powerful town north of the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range, characterised by its repopulating prowess and its husbandry-based economy, contrasted by the agricultural and less competent in repopulation town of Madrid. After the decline of Sepúlveda, another concejo north of the mountain range, Segovia had become a major actor south of the Guadarrama mountains, expanding across the Lozoya and Manzanares rivers to the north of Madrid and along the Guadarrama river course to its west.

 

The society of Madrid before the 15th century was an agriculture-based one (prevailing over livestock), featuring a noteworthy number of irrigated crops.[16] Two important industries were those of the manufacturing of building materials and leather.

 

John I of Castile gifted Leo V of Armenia the lordship of Madrid together with those of Villa Real and Andújar in 1383. The Madrilenian concejo made sure that the privilege of lordship did not become hereditary, also presumably receiving a non-sale privilege guaranteeing never again to be handed over by the Crown to a lord.

 

Later, Henry III of Castile (1379–1406) rebuilt the town after it was destroyed by fire, and he founded El Pardo just outside its walls.

 

During the 15th century, the town became one of the preferred locations of the monarchs of the Trastámara dynasty, namely John II of Castile and Henry IV of Castile (Madrid was the town in which the latter spent more time and eventually died). Among the appeals the town offered, aside from the abundant game in the surroundings, the strategic location and the closed link between the existing religious sites and the monarchy, the imposing alcázar frequently provided a safe for the Royal Treasure. The town briefly hosted a medieval mint, manufacturing coins from 1467 to 1471. Madrid would also become a frequent seat of the court during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, spending reportedly more than 1000 days in the town, including a 8-month long uninterrupted spell.

 

By the end of the Middle Ages, Madrid was placed as middle to upper-middle rank town of the Castilian urban network in terms of population. The town also enjoyed a vote at the Cortes of Castile (one out of 18) and housed many hermitages and hospitals.

 

Facing the 1492 decree of expulsion, few local Jews opted for leaving, with most preferring to convert instead, remaining as a non-fully assimilated converso community, subject to rejection by Old Christians. Likewise, adoption of Christianism by the mudéjar community facing the 1502 pragmatic law of forced conversion was also widespread. Seeking to protect its economic interests, the council actively promoted assimilation in the latter case by awarding tax and economic benefits, and gifts.

 

The 1520–21 Revolt of the Comuneros succeeded in Madrid, as, following contacts with the neighbouring city of Toledo, the comunero rebels deposed the corregidor, named Antonio de Astudillo, by 17 June 1520. Juan Zapata and Pedro de Montemayor found themselves among the most uncompromising supporters of the comunero cause in Madrid, with the former becoming the captain of the local militias while the later was captured by royalists and executed by late 1520. The end of revolt came through a negotiation, though, and another two of the leading figures of the uprising (the Bachelor Castillo and Juan Negrete) went unpunished.

 

Philip II (1527–1598), moved the court to Madrid in 1561. Although he made no official declaration, the seat of the court became the de facto capital. Unlikely to have more than 20,000 inhabitants by the time, the city grew approaching the 100,000 mark by the end of the 16th century. The population plummeted (reportedly reduced to a half) during the 5-year period the capital was set in Valladolid (1601–1606), with estimations of roughly 50–60,000 people leaving the city. The move (often framed in modern usage as a case of real estate speculation) was promoted by the valido of Philip III, Duke of Lerma, who had previously acquired many properties in Valladolid. Madrid undertook a mammoth cultural and economic crisis and the decimation of the price of housing ensued. Lerma acquired then cheap real estate in Madrid, and suggested the King to move back the capital to Madrid. The king finally accepted the additional 250,000 ducats offered by the town of Madrid in order to help financing the move of the royal court back to Madrid.

 

During the 17th century, Madrid had a estate-based society. The nobility, a quantitatively large group, swarmed around the royal court. The ecclesial hierarchy, featuring a nobiliary extraction, shared with the nobility the echelon of the Madrilenian society. The lower clergy, featuring a humble extraction, usually had a rural background, although clerics regular often required certifications of limpieza de sangre if not hidalguía. There were plenty of civil servants, who enjoyed considerable social prestige. There was a comparatively small number of craftsmen, traders and goldsmiths. Domestic staff was also common with servants such as pages, squires, butlers and also slaves (owned as symbol of social status). And lastly at the lowest end, there were homeless people, unemployed immigrants, and discharged soldiers and deserters.

 

During the 17th century, Madrid grew rapidly. The royal court attracted many of Spain's leading artists and writers to Madrid, including Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Velázquez during the so-called cultural Siglo de Oro.

 

By the end of the Ancient Regime, Madrid hosted a slave population, tentatively estimated to range from 6,000 to 15,000 out of total population larger than 150,000. Unlike the case of other Spanish cities, during the 18th century the slave population in Madrid was unbalanced in favour of males over females.

 

In 1739 Philip V began constructing new palaces, including the Palacio Real de Madrid. Under Charles III (1716–1788) that Madrid became a truly modern city. Charles III, who cleaned up the city and its government, became one of the most popular kings to rule Madrid, and the saying "the best mayor, the king" became widespread. Besides completing the Palacio Real, Charles III is responsible for many of Madrid's finest buildings and monuments, including the Prado and the Puerta de Alcalá.

 

Amid one of the worst subsistence crises of the Bourbon monarchy, the installation of news lanterns for the developing street lighting system—part of the new modernization policies of the Marquis of Esquilache, the new Sicilian minister—led to an increase on oil prices. This added to an increasing tax burden imposed on a populace already at the brink of famine.[42] In this context, following the enforcing of a ban of the traditional Spanish dress (long cape and a wide-brimmed hat) in order to facilitate the identification of criminal suspects, massive riots erupted in March 1766 in Madrid, the so-called "Mutiny of Esquilache".

 

During the second half of the 18th century, the increasing number of carriages brought a collateral increment of pedestrian accidents, forcing the authorities to take measures against traffic, limiting the number of animals per carriage (in order to reduce speed) and eventually decreeing the full ban of carriages in the city (1787).

 

On 27 October 1807, Charles IV and Napoleon signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau, which allowed French troops passage through Spanish territory to join Spanish troops and invade Portugal, which had refused to obey the order for an international blockade against England. In February 1808, Napoleon used the excuse that the blockade against England was not being respected at Portuguese ports to send a powerful army under his brother-in-law, General Joachim Murat. Contrary to the treaty, French troops entered via Catalonia, occupying the plazas along the way. Thus, throughout February and March 1808, cities such as Barcelona and Pamplona remained under French rule.

 

While all this was happening, the Mutiny of Aranjuez (17 March 1808) took place, led by Charles IV's own son, crown prince Ferdinand, and directed against him. Charles IV resigned and Ferdinand took his place as King Ferdinand VII. In May 1808, Napoleon's troops entered the city. On 2 May 1808 (Spanish: Dos de Mayo), the Madrileños revolted against the French forces, whose brutal behavior would have a lasting impact on French rule in Spain and France's image in Europe in general. Thus, Ferdinand VII returned to a city that had been occupied by Murat.

 

Both the king and his father became virtual prisoners of the French army. Napoleon, taking advantage of the weakness of the Bourbons, forced both, first the father and then the son, to meet him at Bayonne, where Ferdinand VII arrived on 20 April. Here Napoleon forced both kings to abdicate on 5 May, handing the throne to his brother Joseph Bonaparte.

 

On 2 May, the crowd began to concentrate at the Palacio Real and watched as the French soldiers removed the royal family members from the palace. On seeing the infante Francisco de Paula struggling with his captor, the crowd launched an assault on the carriages, shouting ¡Que se lo llevan! (They're taking him away from us!). French soldiers fired into the crowd. The fighting lasted for hours and is reflected in Goya's painting, The Second of May 1808, also known as The Charge of the Mamelukes.

 

Meanwhile, the Spanish military remained garrisoned and passive. Only the artillery barracks at Monteleón under Captain Luis Daoíz y Torres, manned by four officers, three NCOs and ten men, resisted. They were later reinforced by a further 33 men and two officers led by Pedro Velarde y Santillán, and distributed weapons to the civilian population. After repelling a first attack under French General Lefranc, both Spanish commanders died fighting heroically against reinforcements sent by Murat. Gradually, the pockets of resistance fell. Hundreds of Spanish men and women and French soldiers were killed in this skirmish.

 

On 12 August 1812, following the defeat of the French forces at Salamanca, English and Portuguese troops entered Madrid and surrounded the fortified area occupied by the French in the district of Retiro. Following two days of Siege warfare, the 1,700 French surrendered and a large store of arms, 20,000 muskets and 180 cannon, together with many other supplies were captured, along with two French Imperial Eagles.

 

"In the early years of this century, Madrid was a very ugly town, with few architectural monuments, with horrible housing."

 

Antonio Alcalá Galiano. Recuerdos de un anciano.

 

On 29 October, Hill received Wellington's positive order to abandon Madrid and march to join him. After a clash with Soult's advance guard at Perales de Tajuña on the 30th, Hill broke contact and withdrew in the direction of Alba de Tormes. Joseph re-entered his capital on 2 November.

 

After the war of independence Ferdinand VII returned to the throne (1814). The projects of reform by Joseph Bonaparte were abandoned; during the Fernandine period, despite the proposal of several architectural projects for the city, the lack of ability to finance those led to works often being postponed or halted.

 

After a liberal military revolution, Colonel Riego made the king swear to respect the Constitution. Liberal and conservative government thereafter alternated, ending with the enthronement of Isabella II.

 

At the time the reign of Isabella II started, the city was still enclosed behind its walls, featuring a relatively slow demographic growth as well as very high population density. After the 1833 administrative reforms for the country devised by Javier de Burgos (including the configuration of the current province of Madrid), Madrid was to become the capital of the new liberal state.

 

Madrid experienced substantial changes during the 1830s. The corregimiento and the corregidor (institutions from the Ancien Regime) were ended for good, giving rise to the constitutional alcalde in the context of the liberal transformations. Purged off from Carlist elements, the civil office and the military and palatial milieus recognised legitimacy to the dynastic rights of Isabella II.

 

The reforms enacted by Finance Minister Juan Álvarez Mendizábal in 1835–1836 led to the confiscation of ecclesiastical properties and the subsequent demolition of churches, convents and adjacent orchards in the city (similarly to other Spanish cities); the widening of streets and squares ensued.

 

In 1854, amid economic and political crisis, following the pronunciamiento of group of high officers commanded by Leopoldo O'Donnell garrisoned in the nearby town of Vicálvaro in June 1854 (the so-called "Vicalvarada"), the 7 July Manifesto of Manzanares, calling for popular rebellion, and the ousting of Luis José Sartorius from the premiership on 17 July, popular mutiny broke out in Madrid, asking for a real change of system, in what it was to be known as the Revolution of 1854. With the uprising in Madrid reaching its pinnacle on 17, 18 and 19 July, the rebels, who erected barricades in the streets, were bluntly crushed by the new government.

 

1858 was a marked year for the city with the arrival of the waters from the Lozoya. The Canal de Isabel II was inaugurated on 24 June 1858. A ceremony took place soon after in Calle Ancha de San Bernardo to celebrate it, unveiling a 30-metre-high water source in the middle of the street.

 

The plan for the Ensanche de Madrid ('widening of Madrid') by Carlos María de Castro was passed through a royal decree issued on 19 July 1860. The plan for urban expansion by Castro, a staunch Conservative, delivered a segregation of the well-off class, the middle class and the artisanate into different zones. The southern part of the Ensanche was at a disadvantage with respect to the rest of the Ensanche, insofar, located on the way to the river and at a lower altitude, it was a place of passage for the sewage runoff, thereby being described as a "space of urban degradation and misery". Beyond the Ensanches, slums and underclass neighborhoods were built in suburbs such as Tetuán, Prosperidad or Vallecas.

 

Student unrest took place in 1865 following the ministerial decree against the expression of ideas against the monarchy and the church and the forced removal of the rector of the Universidad Central, unwilling to submit. In a crescendo of protests, the night of 10 April 2,000 protesters clashed against the civil guard. The unrest was crudely quashed, leaving 14 deaths, 74 wounded students and 114 arrests (in what became known as the "Night of Saint Daniel"), becoming the precursor of more serious revolutionary attempts.

 

The Glorious Revolution resulting in the deposition of Queen Isabella II started with a pronunciamiento in the bay of Cádiz in September 1868. The success of the uprising in Madrid on 29 September prompted the French exile of the queen, who was on holiday in San Sebastián and was unable to reach the capital by train. General Juan Prim, the leader of the liberal progressives, was received by the Madrilenian people at his arrival to the city in early October in a festive mood. He pronounced his famous speech of the "three nevers" directed against the Bourbons, and delivered a highly symbolical hug to General Serrano, leader of the revolutionary forces triumphant in the 28 September battle of Alcolea, in the Puerta del Sol.

 

On 27 December 1870 the car in which General Prim, the prime minister, was travelling, was shot by unknown hit-men in the Turk Street, nearby the Congress of Deputies. Prim, wounded in the attack, died three days later, with the elected monarch Amadeus, Duke of Aosta, yet to swear the constitution.

 

The creation of the Salamanca–Sol–Pozas tram service in Madrid in 1871 meant the introduction of the first collective system of transportation in the city, predating the omnibus.

 

The economy of the city further modernized during the second half of the 19th century, consolidating its status as a service and financial centre. New industries were mostly focused in book publishing, construction and low-tech sectors. The introduction of railway transport greatly helped Madrid's economic prowess, and led to changes in consumption patterns (such as the substitution of salted fish for fresh fish from the Spanish coasts) as well as further strengthening the city's role as a logistics node in the country's distribution network.

 

The late 19th century saw the introduction of the electric power distribution. As by law, the city council could not concede an industrial monopoly to any company, the city experienced a huge competition among the companies in the electricity sector. The absence of a monopoly led to an overlapping of distribution networks, to the point that in the centre of Madrid 5 different networks could travel through the same street. Electric lighting in the streets was introduced in the 1890s.

 

By the end of the 19th century, the city featured access to water, a central status in the rail network, a cheap workforce and access to financial capital. With the onset of the new century, the Ensanche Sur (in the current day district of Arganzuela) started to grow to become the main industrial area of the municipality along the first half of the 20th century.

 

In the early 20th century Madrid undertook a major urban intervention in its city centre with the creation of the Gran Vía, a monumental thoroughfare (then divided in three segments with different names) whose construction slit the city from top to bottom with the demolition of multitude of housing and small streets. Anticipated in earlier projects, and following the signature of the contract, the works formally started in April 1910 with a ceremony led by King Alfonso XIII.

 

Also with the turn of the century, Madrid had become the cultural capital of Spain as centre of top knowledge institutions (the Central University, the Royal Academies, the Institución Libre de Enseñanza or the Ateneo de Madrid), also concentrating the most publishing houses and big daily newspapers, amounting for the bulk of the intellectual production in the country.

 

In 1919 the Madrid Metro (known as the Ferrocarril Metropolitano by that time) inaugurated its first service, which went from Sol to the Cuatro Caminos area.

 

In the 1919–1920 biennium Madrid witnessed the biggest wave of protests seen in the city up to that date, being the centre of innumerable strikes; despite being still surpassed by Barcelona's, the industrial city par excellence in that time, this cycle decisively set the foundations for the social unrest that took place in the 1930s in the city.

 

The situation the monarchy had left Madrid in 1931 was catastrophic, with tens of thousands of kids receiving no education and a huge rate of unemployment.

 

After the proclamation of the Second Republic on 14 April 1931 the citizens of Madrid understood the free access to the Casa de Campo (until then an enclosed property with exclusive access for the royalty), was a consequence of the fall of the monarchy, and informally occupied the area on 15 April. After the signing of a decree on 20 April which granted the area to the Madrilenian citizens in order to become a "park for recreation and instruction", the transfer was formally sealed on 6 May when Minister Indalecio Prieto formally delivered the Casa de Campo to Mayor Pedro Rico. The Spanish Constitution of 1931 was the first legislating on the state capital, setting it explicitly in Madrid. During the 1930s, Madrid enjoyed "great vitality"; it was demographically young, but also young in the sense of its relation with the modernity. During this time the prolongation of the Paseo de la Castellana towards the north was projected. The proclamation of the Republic slowed down the building of new housing. The tertiary sector gave thrust to the economy. Illiteracy rates were down to below 20%, and the city's cultural life grew notably during the so-called Silver Age of Spanish culture; the sales of newspaper also increased. Anti-clericalism and Catholicism lived side by side in Madrid; the burning of convents initiated after riots in the city in May 1931 worsened the political environment. The 1934 insurrection largely failed in Madrid.

 

In order to deal with the unemployment, the new Republican city council hired many jobless people as gardeners and street cleaners.

 

Prieto, who sought to turn the city into the "Great Madrid", capital of the Republic, charged Secundino Zuazo with the project for the opening of a south–north axis in the city through the northward enlargement of the Paseo de la Castellana and the construction of the Nuevos Ministerios administrative complex in the area (halted by the Civil War, works in the Nuevos Ministerios would finish in 1942). Works on the Ciudad Universitaria, already started during the monarchy in 1929, also resumed.

 

The military uprising of July 1936 was defeated in Madrid by a combination of loyal forces and workers' militias. On 20 July armed workers and loyal troops stormed the single focus of resistance, the Cuartel de La Montaña, defended by a contingent of 2,000 rebel soldiers accompanied by 500 falangists under the command of General Fanjul, killing over one hundred of rebels after their surrender. Aside from the Cuartel de la Montaña episode, the wider scheme for the coup in the capital largely failed both due to disastrous rebel planning and due to the Government delivering weapons to the people wanting to defend the Republic, with the city becoming a symbol of popular resistance, "the people in arms".

 

After the quelling of the coup d'état, from 1936–1939, Madrid remained under the control of forces loyal to the Republic. Following the seemingly unstoppable advance towards Madrid of rebel land troops, the first air bombings on Madrid also started. Immediately after the bombing of the nearing airports of Getafe and Cuatro Vientos, Madrid proper was bombed for the first time in the night of the 27–28 August 1936 by a Luftwaffe's Junkers Ju 52 that threw several bombs on the Ministry of War and the Station of the North. Madrid "was to become the first big European city to be bombed by aviation".

 

Rebel General Francisco Franco, recently given the supreme military command over his faction, took a detour in late September to "liberate" the besieged Alcázar de Toledo. Meanwhile, this operation gave time to the republicans in Madrid to build defenses and start receiving some foreign support.

 

The summer and autumn of 1936 saw the Republican Madrid witness of heavy-handed repression by communist and socialist groups, symbolised by the murder of prisoners in checas and sacas directed mostly against military personnel and leading politicians linked to the rebels, which, culminated by the horrific Paracuellos massacres in the context of a simultaneous major rebel offensive against the city, were halted by early December. Madrid, besieged from October 1936, saw a major offensive in its western suburbs in November of that year.

 

In the last weeks of the war, the collapse of the republic was speeded by Colonel Segismundo Casado, who, endorsed by some political figures such as Anarchist Cipriano Mera and Julián Besteiro, a PSOE leader who had held talks with the Falangist fifth column in the city, threw a military coup against the legitimate government under the pretext of excessive communist preponderance, propelling a mini-civil war in Madrid that, won by the casadistas, left roughly 2,000 casualties between 5–10 March 1939.

 

The city fell to the nationalists on 28 March 1939.

 

Following the onset of the Francoist dictatorship in the city, the absence of personal and associative freedoms and the heavy-hand repression of people linked to a republican past greatly deprived the city from social mobilization, trade unionism and intellectual life. This added to a climate of general shortage, with ration coupons rampant and a lingering autarchic economy lasting until the mid 1950s. Meat and fish consumption was scarce in Post-War Madrid, and starvation and lack of proteins were a cause of high mortality.

 

With the country ruined after the war, the Falange command had nonetheless high plans for the city and professionals sympathetic to the regime dreamed (based on an organicist conception) about the notion of building a body for the "Spanish greatness" placing a great emphasis in Madrid, what they thought to be the imperial capital of the New State. In this sense, urban planners sought to highlight and symbolically put in value the façade the city offered to the Manzanares River, the "Imperial Cornice", bringing projects to accompany the Royal Palace such as the finishing of the unfinished cathedral (with the start of works postponed to 1950 and ultimately finished in the late 20th century), a never-built "house of the Party" and many others. Nonetheless these delusions of grandeur caught up with reality and the scarcity during the Post-War and most of the projects ended up either filed, unfinished or mutilated, with the single clear success being the Gutiérrez Soto's Cuartel del Ejército del Aire.

 

The intense demographic growth experienced by the city via mass immigration from the rural areas of the country led to the construction of plenty of housing in the peripheral areas of the city to absorb the new population (reinforcing the processes of social polarization of the city), initially comprising substandard housing (with as many as 50,000 shacks scattered around the city by 1956). A transitional planning intended to temporarily replace the shanty towns were the poblados de absorción, introduced since the mid-1950s in locations such as Canillas, San Fermín, Caño Roto, Villaverde, Pan Bendito [es], Zofío and Fuencarral, aiming to work as a sort of "high-end" shacks (with the destinataries participating in the construction of their own housing) but under the aegis of a wider coordinated urban planning.

 

Together with the likes of Cairo, Santiago de Chile, Rome, Buenos Aires or Lisbon, Francoist Madrid became an important transnational hub of the global Neofascist network that facilitated the survival and resumption of (neo)fascist activities after 1945.

 

In the 1948–1954 period the municipality greatly increased in size through the annexation of 13 surrounding municipalities, as its total area went up from 68,42 km2 to 607,09 km2. The annexed municipalities were Chamartín de la Rosa (5 June 1948), Carabanchel Alto (29 April 1948), Carabanchel Bajo (29 April 1948), Canillas (30 March 1950), Canillejas (30 March 1950), Hortaleza (31 March 1950), Barajas (31 March 1950), Vallecas (22 December 1950), El Pardo (27 March 1951), Vicálvaro (20 October 1951), Fuencarral (20 October 1951) Aravaca (20 October 1951) and Villaverde (31 July 1954).

 

The population of the city peaked in 1975 at 3,228,057 inhabitants.

 

Benefiting from prosperity in the 1980s, Spain's capital city has consolidated its position as the leading economic, cultural, industrial, educational and technological center of the Iberian peninsula. The relative decline in population since 1975 reverted in the 1990s, with the city recovering a population of roughly 3 million inhabitants by the end of the 20th century.

 

Since the late 1970s and through the 1980s Madrid became the center of the cultural movement known as la Movida. Conversely, just like in the rest of the country, a heroin crisis took a toll in the poor neighborhoods of Madrid in the 1980s.

 

On 11 March 2004, three days before Spain's general elections and exactly 2 years and 6 months after the September 11 attacks in the US, Madrid was hit by a terrorist attack when Islamic terrorists belonging to an al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist cell placed a series of bombs on several trains during the morning rush hour, killing 191 people and injuring 1,800.

 

The administrations that followed Álvarez del Manzano's, also conservative, led by Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón and Ana Botella, launched three unsuccessful bids for the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympics. Madrid was a centre of the anti-austerity protests that erupted in Spain in 2011. As consequence of the spillover of the 2008 financial and mortgage crisis, Madrid has been affected by the increasing number of second-hand homes held by banks and house evictions. The mandate of left-wing Mayor Manuela Carmena (2015–2019) delivered the renaturalization of the course of the Manzanares across the city.

 

Since the late 2010s, the challenges the city faces include the increasingly unaffordable rental prices (often in parallel with the gentrification and the spike of tourist apartments in the city centre) and the profusion of betting shops in working-class areas, equalled to an "epidemics" among the young people.

Mama Neema stands at the entrance of her traditional boma (homestead) where she built three houses for her family in Kimokouwa village in Arusha, Tanzania.

 

Villages at the foothills of Mt. Longido, one hour north of Arusha, Tanzania, have been the home of the Maasai for generations. The Maasai are semi-nomadic ethnic group that live in northern Tanzania and have the highest rates of child marriage, female genital mutilation (FGM), illiteracy and poverty among women in the country. Most women are self-employed in the informal sector, and have seasonal sources of income.

 

Mama Neema Olenriya, 42, is the chairperson of the village council, speaks of her 20-year struggle to acquire land.

 

“For generations, only men were allowed to own and inherit land, so they question whether women are fit to be land owners,” says Mama Neema. “But I am also Maasai—I can also fight for my rights,” she adds.

 

Mama Neema received trainings on land and property rights, which gave her the confidence to demand village authorities for a plot of land that was rightfully hers.

 

“This is my land now; I can show you all the paperwork,” says Mama Neema as she points to her plot, where she has built three houses for her family of seven. She uses her knowledge from the trainings and personal experience to help other women acquire land, and is also working with a smaller group of women to set up a shop to sell vegetables, milk and ethnic jewelry at the local market.

 

Between 2011 and 2016, the UN Women-MWEDO partnership has empowered hundreds of Maasai women to acquire land, find additional employment and diversify their economic activities to supplement their families’ income. The most recent trainings were provided as part of UN Women’s 2016 programme on “Women’s Access to Income, Land and Rights”, supported by the Government of Sweden through the One Fund in Tanzania.

 

Photo: UN Women/Deepika Nath

 

Read More: www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2016/10/maasai-women-of-t...

 

www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/indigenous-womens-rights...

nerjisasifshakir.blogspot.in/

  

Selling vegetables at Bandra Bazar

from one generation to the next .grandmother ,grand pa mother father and the rest ,have tried to give their grand daughter convent education hope for this generation next ..they are trying escape their world of illiteracy I wish them the very best .. no politician that harp on the Marathi Manoos sadly has done to rehabilitate them for better prospects ..

 

Getting their votes taking them for another 5 years ride .. a story board of their pain struggle hardship..a fighting test -

 

Her Grand Pa takes care of Jesus in the Grotto ..Sarv Dharm Ek All Faith Are One the only Motto this pilgrims progress ..living in peace with everyone as the main subject is what he with his dedication humility projects ....

 

Luke 6:40

“A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.” (ESV)

This blue plaque is positioned on the boundary of St. Nicholas Church, now known as Great Yarmouth Minster in Norfolk.

 

Marjory Kempe (c. 1373 – c. 1438) was an English Christian mystic, known for writing through dictation The Book of Margery Kempe, a work considered by some to be the first autobiography in the English language.

She was born Margery Burnham or Brunham around 1373 in Bishop's Lynn, now King's Lynn, Norfolk. Her father, John Brunham, was a merchant in Lynn, mayor of the town and Member of Parliament. The first record of her Brunham family is a mention of her grandfather, Ralph de Brunham, in 1320 in the Red Register of Lynn. By 1340 he had joined the Parliament of Lynn. Robert Brunham, possibly her brother, became a Member of Parliament for Lynn in 1402 and 1417.

No records remain that Marjory Kempe had any formal education. As an adult, a priest read to her 'works of religious devotion' in English, which suggests that she might have been unable to read them herself,.

At around 20 years of age, Marjory married John Kempe, who became a town official in 1394. Marjory and John had at least fourteen children. A letter survives from Gdańsk in Poland which identifies the name of her eldest son as John.

After the birth of John, Kempe went through a period of crisis for nearly eight months. During her illness, Kempe claimed to have envisioned numerous devils and demons attacking her and commanding her to 'forsake her faith, her family, and her friends'.

Nearly everything that is known of Kempe's life comes from her spiritual autobiography. In the early 1430's, despite her illiteracy, Kempe decided to record her spiritual life. In the preface to the book, she describes how she employed as a scribe an Englishman who had lived in Germany, but he died before the work was completed and what he had written was unintelligible to others. This may possibly have been John Kempe, her eldest son. She then persuaded a local priest, who may have been her confessor Robert Springold, to begin rewriting on 23rd. July 1436, and on 28th. April 1438 he started work on an additional section covering the years 1431 - 4.

The narrative of Kempe's Book begins with the difficult birth of her first child. She then undertook two domestic businesses, a brewery and a grain mill, both common home-based businesses for medieval women. Both failed after a short period of time. Eventually turning away from her worldly work, Kempe dedicated herself completely to her spiritual calling. Striving to live a life of commitment to God, Kempe in the summer of 1413 negotiated a chaste marriage with her husband.

During the 1420's Kempe lived apart from her husband. When he fell ill, however, she returned to Lynn to be his nursemaid. Their son, John, who lived in Germany, also returned to Lynn with his wife. However, both her son and husband died in 1431.

In 1438, the year her book is known to have been completed, a 'Margueria Kempe', who may well have been Margery Kempe, was admitted to the Trinity Guild of Lynn. It is not known whether this is the same woman, however, and it is unknown when or where after this date Kempe died.

The manuscript was copied, probably shortly before 1450, by someone who signed himself Salthows on the bottom portion of the final page. This scribe has been shown to be the Norwich monk Richard Salthouse. The manuscript contains annotations by four hands. A recipe, added to the final folio of the manuscript by a late-fourteenth-century or early-fifteenth-century reader of the Book, possibly at the cathedral priory in Norwich, provides more evidence of its readership and has been determined to be for medicinal sweets, or digestives, called 'dragges'.

Kempe's book was essentially lost for centuries, being known only from excerpts published by Wynkyn de Worde in around 1501, and by Henry Pepwell in 1521. However, in 1934, the only surviving manuscript of Kempe's Book was found in the private library of the Butler-Bowdon family. This manuscript is now in the British Library. It has since been reprinted and translated in numerous editions.

 

In 1413, soon after her father's death, Kempe left her husband to make the pilgrimage to the Holy Land, referred to on the plaque. During the winter, she spent thirteen weeks in Venice. From Venice, Kempe travelled to Jerusalem via Ramlah. It is thought that she passed through Jaffa, which was the usual port for pilgrims who were heading to Jerusalem. She was in Jerusalem for three weeks and went to Bethlehem, Mount Zion and visited the burial places of Jesus, his mother Mary and the cross itself. Finally, she went to the River Jordan and Mount Quarentyne and Bethany.

After she visited the Holy Land, Kempe returned to Italy and stayed in Assisi before going to Rome. Like many other medieval English pilgrims, Kempe resided at the Hospital of Saint Thomas of Canterbury in Rome. She did not leave Rome until Easter 1415. When Kempe returned to Norwich, she passed through Middelburg, in today's Netherlands.

Kempe undertook two further pilgrimages, to Santiago de Compostela, 1417-1418 and to Prussia, 1433-1434.

“Freedom is meaningless if people cannot put food in their stomachs, if they can have no shelter, if illiteracy and disease continue to dog them.”

— Nelson Mandela

Many people in Canada cannot put food on their tables but retailers continue to make big profits - www.cbc.ca/news/business/loblaw-q1-revenue-boycott-1.7190272

If you're amazed of what you're reading, return to your moccia: these are just illiterate words

 

Per il sesso maschile dovremmo essere diciassette: il censimento lo fa Alberto, ch’è ubriaco già quando m’apre la porta di casa sua. Manca almeno un’ora all’arrivo degli altri.

-Diciassette?

-Uomini.

-Uomini?

-E promiscui.

-Bene.

Per il sesso femminile la cifra non raggiunge la decina: cinque di loro stanno con altrettanti uomini (tranne quella che sta con Alberto), le altre passano il tempo ad aspettare che sia pronta la pizza, sdraiate come manzi su divani e letti, ascoltando musica disgustosa a tutto volume. C’è un momento, durante la serata, in cui ci si potrebbe illudere di ascoltarne di migliore, e si tratta soltanto dei Guns, poi si torna a sprofondare tra Placebo e Smashing Pumpkins.

I maschi li pensavo peggiori: sono tutti di Cantù, e questo basterebbe a pensarli idioti. Escluso il sottoscritto, che a Cantù c’è solo nato, ma non va certo a dirlo agli altri.

Non è brutta gente: ci troviamo tutti in cucina, alle prese con una mezza dozzina di chili di pasta fresca. Alberto si dà al mattarello (Cosa ne direbbe Freud?, mi chiede: Non lo so, ma un sacco di freudiani direbbe idiozie degne d’un racconto, gli rispondo, soprattutto se il mattarello continui a tenerlo in quel modo). A me tocca il pomodoro: ho avuto incarichi peggiori.

Dopo un’ora siamo tutti sporchi di farina e condimenti, sia quelli che alternano lavoro e svago (vino) sia quelli che restano assiduamente in cucina occupandosi delle pizze. A loro provvede Diego (ti chiami così?, Diego; non mi ricordo): un bicchiere di vino in una mano, un panno di cotone nell’altra. Mi tampona delicatamente il viso come nessuna donna avrebbe mai l’intelligenza di fare, e intanto mi disseta a suon di Refosco. Sorride. Non avesse la barba, ed il petto felpato, sarebbe quasi interessante.

Delle otto che aspettano la pizza la prima a manifestare la sua presenza in un modo diverso dagli strilli commossi è Nicoletta. Si presenta in cucina vestita di microscopici pantaloncini di jeans, calze da zoccola e canottiera da fame. Ondeggia i fianchi e dimena le braccia.

- Ehi! - dice - allora?

Finché ci guarda, non la guarda nessuno. Così lei si dimena un altro po’ e poi se ne va.

Torna una seconda volta, ed il rituale è identico. Questa volta, però, canta guardando il pizzaiolo negli occhi. Canta una canzone di tiziano ferro, sorride con gli occhi e piange con la bocca. Cosa faccia agitando fianchi e tette è tutt’un’altra cosa.

- Ehi! - dice - allora?

E se ne va.

Quando torna la terza volta succede tutto come prima. Forse se ne accorge anche lei, forse no.

- E quindi? - dice.

S’agita.

Il tizio della mozzarella, quello bello, mi guarda.

- A te le coreografie non ti piacciono, vero? - mi chiede.

Ha una gran faccia da cretino, lui. Solo lui, tra gli altri. Gran bellezza, la sua, e gran faccia da cretino. Come fosse possibile scindere le due cose, ora che ci penso.

- No, mi fanno schifo.

Per un attimo mi domando se abbassar la voce, visto che lei ancora è in cucina. Ma più bassa di così non s’abbassa, la mia voce. A meno di star zitto.

Nicoletta s’agita.

- Perché? - mi chiede lo stronzo.

- Perché le sedicenni mi facevano pena già quando avevo sedici anni, vedi tu se mi piacciono ora.

- Quanti ne hai?

- Trentasette.

- C’ha mica sedici anni, lei - mi dice lui.

- Ah, no?

- No, ce n’ha ventinove.

- Peggio.

- Cosa?

- Tentarne sedici avendone di più.

Nicoletta sembra non capire. Pare solo rincresciuta di veder ignorate le sue tette.

Arrivano due tizi, ansanti. Han parcheggiato di traverso il furgone dove vivono, il parcheggio è una nuvola di fumo, ed ha tutta l’aria di puzzare meno di loro. Una delle due persone che ne son scese è una donna, l’altra un uomo. La donna è quella con meno barba e più odore, credo.

- Trentasette?

- Cosa?

- Anni!

- Chi?

- Tu! Hai detto trentasette!

- Sì, l’ho detto.

- Cazzo, ne dimostri quindici in meno, lui ce n’ha uguale e ne dimostra cinquanta!

Lui è il suo compagno. Lo guardiamo tutti. Lui, una specie di zoticone gentile e sporco, tace e arrossisce. Riusciamo, forza dell’empatia, a non ridere.

Poi arriva Viviana. Se è così che si chiamava. A differenza di Nicoletta è parecchio brutta, ma ha uno sguardo che potrebbe farla sembrare acuta. Alberto m’avverte: cerca marito, e sua madre lo cerca a lei. Bene, penso, che culo.

Viviana in effetti s’impegna parecchio per sembrare acuta: s’impegnasse altrettanto per esserlo, sarebbe un genio.

- Ciao!

- Come la vuoi, la pizza?

- Mi chiamo Viviana!

- Acciughe? Paolo, le acciughe dove sono?

- Mia madre scrive poesie.

- Zucchine?

- Solo che non le legge nessuno.

- Finite?

- No, ne scrive ancora!

- Cosa?

- Poesie!

- Zucchine, pensavo.

- Cosa c’entrano le zucchine?

- Sulla pizza sono meglio delle poesie.

- Non capisco.

- Vedo.

- Io invece insegno.

-Olio.

- Cosa?

- L’olio.

- e lo cerco!

- No l'hai già trovato.

- Dov'era?

- C’hai messo sopra i gomiti.

- Cazzo. Cioè..

- Insegni?

- Religione!

- Quale?

- Come, quale?

- Ce n’è tante.

- Vabbé, io rispetto tutti, ma da insegnare ce n’è una.

- Lo dicono anche i talebani.

- Scusa?

- Niente.

- Insegno religione, ballo la salsa e da ragazza facevo a botte.

- Bene.

- Non ci credi? La vedi questa cicatrice?

- No.

- Me l’han fatta ad un corso di boxe.

- Ah.

- Giuro. C’andavo.

- A prenderle?

- Simpatico.

- Non per forza.

- Ti piace la religione?

- Non proprio.

- Cioè?

- Leggo miti, m’interessa studiarli.

- Storie indù, animiste?

- Anche cattoliche.

- Simpatico. Hai mai letto la bibbia, i vangeli?

- Spesso.

- Cosa me ne dici?

- Stronzate, per come le raccontano.

- Per esempio?

- Quella cosa che Gesù fosse figlio unigenito della madonna, per esempio.

- Lo era.

- No, visto che aveva fratelli e sorelle in abbondanza.

- Roba apocrifa.

- Matteo, per esempio.

- No.

- L’hai letto?

- Che domande fai?

- Lo insegni: l’hai letto?

Tace. Per sempre, spero. Poi riparte.

- Ascolti RadioMaria? No, vero?

- Sì.

- Davvero?

- Certe notti c’è un biblista che affronta i testi antichi da un punto di vista filologico. Non dottrinale.

- E cosa te ne fai?

- L’ascolto.

- A che scopo?

- Tu l’ascolti?

- Io? No!

- Io sì.

- Ascolti solo quel professore?

- Sì, per il resto del tempo ci son solo cantilene e quel talebano di padre livio.

- Lo adoro!

- Ti ci togli?

- Cosa?

- Tu: ti ci togli?

- Da dove?

- Dalle palle.

Se ne va.

- C’hai pazienza, tu, mi dice Alberto. Gl’altri ridono. Diego mi massaggia la fronte. Ride di più, lui.

- T’ha fatto sudare, eh!

- C’ho mica pazienza, io, gli rispondo. Il forno intanto fuma, le pizze sono pronte.

- Ma è vera quella cosa?, mi chiede.

- Già.

- E perché ce la raccontan diversa?

- Perché i credenti non leggono: credono.

- Non capisco lo scopo dell'imbroglio.

- Dev'essere che fa più scena definirla vergine, la madonna, mica si può ammettere che avesse, dopo il primo figlio, fornicato.

- Perché no?

- Perché per il primo c'era la scusa dello spirito santo, per gli altri no: era sesso.

- Sessista, la chiesa.

- Già.

La terza zitella arriva quando vino ed erba han sorpassato le pizze nella lista dei mezzi di sostentamento della serata. Si chiama Grazia, ha la stessa età delle altre due e sembra infinitamente più intelligente. Poco, ma già le basta a vincere senza fatica. Chiede come s’usi una macchina fotografica, di dove si trovi, in città, un certo maestro di fotografia che in effetti conosco bene per averci bevuto parecchio tra una diapositiva ed un ingrandimento. Glielo spiego, e non capisce. C’è chi nasce e vive nella stesa città e ci si perde come fosse una megalopoli, in effetti.

- Mi ci porti? - dice.

- Tu domani arriva in città, fin dove la sai, poi il resto te lo mostro.

- Che tipo è, il maestro?

- Fossi una donna me lo farei.

- Perché?

- Perché non sa d’esser bello.

- E allora?

- E allora non ne abusa.

- Ma a me piace il Cholo. A te?

- A me no.

- No, dico: a te chi piace?

A lei lo posso dire. Quel che penso e che voglio. Quel che ho fatto e quel che farei. Quel da cui vengo e verso cui mi piacerebbe andare. Chi voglio, chi no.

Così il giorno dopo ascolto questa tizia raccontarmi di quanto le piaccia il Cholo (E chi cazzo sarebbe, le chiedo?; C’hai fumato!, mi risponde lei; Ho fumato e bevuto con tutti, ieri, le rispondo; Quello bello!, mi ice lei), e di quanto secondo lei il Cholo tema l’esuberante affettività di lei. Il motivo per il quale le ho fatto questo favore, oltre al fatto che non ballasse cantando canzoni di tiziano ferro o degli smashing pumpkins agitando le tette e che non volesse mettere alla prova la sua coscienza davanti a dio corteggiando un ateo rasato a zero, consiste sommariamente nel fatto che non sembri provarci. Troppo brutta per farlo, penso. Ma se ambisce al Cholo c’è qualcosa che non quadra. Il Cholo è una merda d’uomo, più merda che uomo, bello come il sole (odio il sole) e squallido come tutti i belli (tranne il maestro di fotografia e mio padre).

Dubito sia il cuore di Grazia ad aver allontanato il Cholo da lei. Lei è una brava persona, molto piccola e cicciotta ma questo non basterebbe a limar le sue possibilità di fronte el Cholo: ha un torace troppo corto e gambe troppo lunghe. Insomma, sembra un ragno. Un ragno gentile ed educato, ma al Cholo questo non importa, immagino. Beviamo un caffè prima ch’io me ne vada, ed in quel momento arriva Diego. M’è sembrato subito simpatico, lui, già la sera prima, e quell’altra ancora, al concerto di Alessandro e dei suoi.

- Occhio, dice - e non so a chi lo dica: arrivano gli altri.

Infatti, ed è passato un minuto, arrivano gli altri.

Sembra una scena di quelle che da ragazzini, a sedici anni, succedono al liceo. Roba da Carrie, insomma, quel libro con cui esordì King. Grazia è la vittima. Da sempre, desumo. Ogni gruppo ha bisogno d’una vittima: serve agli stronzi per far la parte dei leoni ed alle stupide loro aspiranti pompinare per far bella figura con loro. Ne arrivano una decina o poco meno, e subito fioccano sorrisi e parole fintamente affettuose nei confronti di Grazia.

- Bene - le dicono - complimenti!

C’è pure Nicoletta.

- Bravo, mi dice - bravo davvero! Complimenti!

Mollo sul bancone un pezzo da cinque, raccolgo la borsa per andarmene.

- Ed il resto? - mi chiede il Cholo.

Ficcatevelo in culo, penso. Nella mente mi s’affollano immagini di Swanton Bomb e Twist Of Fate. E no: non è violenza repressa, non è la mente a sbandare fino a pensarci. In realtà è il corpo, per una volta perfettamente d’accordo con la mente, a sentirne il bisogno. Ma non mi va di litigare, di fare a sberle. L’ultima volta, sui navigli fognari di quella fogna milanese, ho dovuto riscoprire che a mollare manrovesci ci si fa del gran male alle mani, che a reagire quando si è uno contro tanti è pericoloso. Dopo d’allora, non avrei mai pensato che ci fosse qualcosa di peggio dei cretini che in abiti firmati affollano i navigli e delle cretine che c’escono. Davanti agli occhi, adesso, ho pezzenti d’una specie appena migliore. Forse. Forse no.

Diego mi guarda, e tace. Dicon più i suoi occhi, il suo avvertimento. Saluto, e me ne vado, Diego è dispiaciuto ed io lo son per lui, e quando attraverso la strada arrotolandomi una sigaretta ed un cretino cerca di tirarmi sotto gli faccio il dito con una mano e con l’altra gli faccio segno di tornare indietro, solo che ho finito le mani e così tabacco e cartine han decorato la strada, e mentre le raccolgo la fila di chi cerca di tirarmi sotto s’allunga un bel po’. E senza occhiali mi tocca pure far finta di sapere dove sia quel che sto cercando, sennò sembra che stia solo paspando l'asfalto.

 

Dr Openshaw, one of the surgeons at the London Hospital, now called the Royal London Hospital, played an important part in helping to investigate the Ripper’s crimes. On 29 October 1888, a letter sent to the hospital and addressed to Dr Openshaw was signed by Jack the Ripper. It discussed his analysis of half a kidney which reputedly belonged to Catherine Eddowes who had been murdered a month earlier.

 

Half a human kidney was first sent anonymously to George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee on 16 October 1888. This was apparently the kidney that had been taken by the Ripper from Catherine Eddowes on the night she was murdered. Lusk was encouraged to have it examined by a medical expert, and it was eventually submitted for examination to Dr Thomas Horrocks Openshaw, a surgeon at the London Hospital.

 

Dr Openshaw examined the kidney and allegedly concluded that: ‘the kidney belonged to a female, that it was part of the left kidney, and that the woman has been in the habit of drinking. The person died around the same time as the Mitre-square murder was committed.’

 

These findings were reported by the press. On 29 October 1888, Dr Openshaw received a letter signed by Jack the Ripper that discussed his findings. It said:

 

‘Old boss you was rite it was the left kidny i was goin to hoperate agin close to you ospitle just as i was going to dror mi nife along of er bloomin throte them cusses of coppers spoilt the game but i guess i wil be on the jobn soon and will send you another bit of innerds

 

Jack the Ripper

 

O have you seen the devle with his mikerscope and scalpul a-lookin at a kidney with a slide cocked up

 

Analysis of the letter concluded that the author feigned illiteracy. It was also noted that the word ‘hospital’ was spelt correctly on the envelope but not in the letter itself.

Vintage Italian postcard. Soc. An. Ed. Bettini, No. 99. Photo by Riccardo Bettini. NB mark that this card refers to Bettini's former homestead of Livorno instead of the other cards in the series.

 

Guido da Verona, pseudonym of Guido Abramo Verona (Saliceto Panaro, 7 September 1881 - Milan, 4 April 1939), was an Italian poet and writer.

 

Guido Verona was born the eldest son of Pio Verona and Elvira Terni into a Jewish family of landowners in Emilia, and the brother of Alberto and Piero. The family later moved to Milan. His father died in May 1889; later his mother remarried and gave birth to his half-sister Selene Fochessati. Guido in adding a da to his surname took up the medieval and renaissance version of Jewish surnames, imitated by his second brother, who became a sculptor known as Piero da Verona.

 

Guido da Verona was an admirer of Gabriele D'Annunzio. He made his debut as a poet in 1901 with the collection Commemorazione del fatto d'arme di Brichetto, followed by I frammenti d'un poema the following year and Bianco amore in 1907. If as a writer of verse he was not so significant, he gained great popularity in 1911 with his first novel Colei che non si deve amare, the progenitor of the 'romanzo d'appendice' (feuilleton) and erotic literature. By the 1920s, he was the most commercially successful writer in Italy. The novel Mimì Bluette fiore del mio giardino (published in 1916 by Bemporad), reached 300,000 copies in 1922, an impressive print run in an Italy where illiteracy characterised the majority of the population. This was followed by Sciogli la treccia, Maria Maddalena (1920) and many other novels, all of which met with wide public acclaim. He was defined by the polemical pen of the journalist and man of letters Adriano Tilgher as the 'D'Annunzio of typists and manicurists'.

 

Behind the light style of the fashionable witty writer who so well knew how to interpret the rather snobbish and vaguely erotic fantasies of the bourgeoisie of his time, Guido da Verona concealed and held high the sense of his own human right to freedom of thought. Also present in his work was an ambiguous contamination of aestheticising eroticism, sentimentalism and a particular predilection for the exotic that led him to set his stories in magical, faraway places (Morocco, Iran, etc.). A signatory of the Manifesto of Fascist Intellectuals in 1925, in 1926 he bought the 'Castello di Ariberto' in Intimiano, going to live there with his companion, a separated Russian singer named Elena Bulavinzeva. In 1929-1930, he published a parody of I promessi sposi (The Betrothed); Da Verona considered Alessandro Manzoni a patronising and harmful man of letters, so he removed from the novel all the elements he considered mannerist and futile and replaced them with erotic and even political passages: the satire against fascism, although never explicit, was well perceived by the readers of the time.

 

Having become for this reason an intellectual disliked by the regime and marginalised after the approval of the racial laws against the Jews, it is said that he decided to commit suicide, but Enzo Magrì states that the writer actually died of a worsening angina pectoris on 4 April 1939. He was buried at the Intimiano cemetery, near Como. His inheritance was divided into two parts, one destined for his elderly mother and the other for his brother Piero and his half-sister Selene, who, however, decided to give it to his companion Elena, who left them the late author's papers. However, his brother Piero da Verona died the same year, in October.

 

Da Verona's novel Mimi Bluette fiore del mio giardino was the inspiration for the film of the same name directed by Carlo Di Palma in 1975 and starring Monica Vitti. In his review of that film, Morando Morandini described it as a 'B-list D'Annunzio'. In 1952 Ferruccio Cerio had made the film La donna che inventò l'amore from another of his novels, while the same novel (published in 1915) had already been filmed in the 1910s in Russia as Zhenshchina, kotoraya izobrela lyubov (Vyacheslav Viskovsky, 1918), starring the Russian diva Vera Kholodnaya.

 

Sources: Italian and English Wikipedia, IMDb.

A couple of copies were given to the four person panel on GM. This magazine is now called "Organic New Zealand".

organicnz.org.nz/magazine

 

The Soil & Health Association has published a magazine since 1942. Our magazine was called Soil & Health from August/September 1965 until March/April 2001. It is now called 'Organic NZ'.

 

Organic NZ is a leading source of information on organics and sustainable living.

 

Our magazine is published six times a year and includes information on organic gardening, farming and growing; health, food and additives; pesticide reports, genetic engineering, animal health, international issues, new products, profiles, and recipes. The magazine also includes an organic Goods & Services Directory.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commission_on_Genetic_Modific...

As a tribute to a great man and his love for the children, Jawahar Lal Nehru birthday is celebrated all over India as 'CHILDREN'S DAY'.

 

Violence against women and girls is everyone's problem. It brings down an entire society. We are ALL touched by femicide in India. Census data shows that poverty and illiteracy are not key factors in India’s female genocide as many assume. The survival of girls is determined by a patriarchal politics of wealth control.

Save the Girl, Educate the Girl.

 

Photo: Firoz Ahmad

Location:BBMP School, Bengaluru, India

Canon EOS 6D - f/6.3 - 1/160sec - 55mm - ISO 100

 

Coffeeshop 'De Mazzelaar' (=the lucky man), Zoutmanstraat,

The Hague, The Netherlands.

 

Coffeeshops are establishments in the Netherlands where the sale of cannabis for personal consumption by the public is tolerated (in Dutch called 'gedoogd') by the local authorities.

Dutch coffee houses not serving cannabis are called koffiehuis (literally "coffee house"), while a café is the equivalent of a bar.

 

The cigar store Indian or wooden Indian is an advertisement figure, in the likeness of a Native American, used to represent tobacconists. The figures are often three-dimensional wooden sculptures several feet tall – up to life-sized.

 

Use of the cigar store Indian dates back to 1617 in England at a time when tobacco shop owners, because of the general illiteracy of the populace, commonly placed countertop figures called “Virginie men”—as Native Americans were called by Europeans then—to advertise the type of goods sold in their stores.

American Indians and tobacco had always been associated because American Indians introduced tobacco to Europeans. As the New World was colonized, sailors began bringing tobacco back to Europe and the depiction of native people on smoke-shop signs was almost inevitable.

 

‘Cigar store Indians’ are still made for sale and can, despite increased racial sensitivity, be found outside some cigar stores and .... obviously too outside a coffeeshop .... ugh..ugh

   

A local school teach at Kuttan village of Neelum Valley AJK. The Photo was taken during a fact-finding Mission of ADB for preparation of a multi-sector infrastructure rehabilitation Project for AJK.

Thousands of books still line the shelves of an abandoned public library. Detroit, MI.

 

This location provided for a good bookend to the one that began our time in Detroit. This one was far more disturbing to me though...because literally the city had pad locked the doors one day and walked away. It looked like there had been a cursory attempt at salvaging some materials, a few dozen shelves were emptied - however, half the library was still just sitting there. Including the entire History, African American Studies and Literature sections.

 

We did have a run in with the library's last patron. Walking up to the building a cautious head popped up out of the ground. Sizing us up and seeing that we weren't cops, the head disappeared back into the ground, replaced by two long pieces of metal being heaved up and out of a basement window.

 

"Anyway in down there?" I asked.

 

"Shit's all frozen..."

 

He appeared at the window again, an african american in his thirties maybe, wearing a dirty sweatshirt and jeans. Obviously scrapping the basement pipes of the library. He crawled out of the hole and loaded his haul into an old shopping cart and started down the street.

 

The basement was completely flooded and frozen over in the late winter/early spring morning. We slid along to the staircase and went about our business upstairs. Later on we could hear the scrapper going about his work down below.

 

That's how it goes.

 

*For my full Detroit Set, click here.

  

Artwork ©jackiecrossley

© All rights reserved. This image may not be copied, reproduced, distributed, republished, displayed, posted or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying & recording without my written permission. This image is not authorised for use on your blogs, pinboards, websites or use in any other way. You may not download this image without written permission from me. Thank you.

  

Watch, listen and enjoy: Slave Driver (1973) - Bob Marley & The Wailers

from one of the greatest albums ever recorded: Catch a Fire

 

Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh

Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh

Slave driver, the table has turned (catch a fire)

Catch a fire so you can get burned now (catch a fire)

Slave driver, the table has turned (catch a fire)

Catch a fire, you're gonna get burned (catch a fire)

Woah now

Every time I hear the crack of a whip, my blood a-runs cold

I remember on the slave ship

How they brutalized our very souls

Today they say that we are free

Only to be chained in poverty

Good God, I think it's illiteracy

It's only a machine that make money

the table has turned, y'all

(Ooh-ooh ooh-ooh)

(Slave driver, ugh) the table has turned, baby now (catch a fire)

(Catch a fire) so you can get burned, baby now (catch a fire)

(Slave Driver) the table is turned y'all (catch a fire)

(Catch a fire) so you can get burned now (catch a fire)

Every time I hear the crack of a whip, my blood a-runs cold

I remember on the slave ship

How they brutalize our very souls

(Ooh-ooh ooh-ooh ooh-ooh)

Oh, God, have mercy on our souls!

Oh!

Slave driver, the table has turned, y'all (catch a fire)

Catch a fire, so you can get burned (catch a fire)

Slave driver (slave driver) the table has turned, y'all (catch a fire)

Catch a fire so you can get burned (catch a fire)