Removal of Lenin statue in "Messengers from Moscow", BBC 2, 12 March 1995

The photos above are frames from a BBC television programme broadcast at 10pm on 12 March 1995, the final programme in a series called "Messengers from Moscow". These few seconds of film on cursory inspection appear to show a jubilant crowd approving the removal of a statue. As with the removal of the statue of Saddam Hussein on 9 April 2003, however, there is some evidence that perhaps not everything is quite as it seems.

In this case, the evidence is within the pictures themselves. Closer inspection of them reveals that in the one scene there are only a handful of people visible and in another scene although there are many people, only four of them seem to be taking part in any kind of celebration or looking jubilant.

The first seven photos are taken from the same few seconds of film in a part of the programme about the demise of the Soviet Union. There is only music on the soundtrack while these images appear; there is no indication of what they represent. Essentially they show a large statue - perhaps twenty feet high - being removed by two very large cranes from its column, which is itself about the same height as the statue. This is being done at night, and there are evidently some people in the foreground of the picture, with their backs to the camera, watching the statue being removed. This scene is shown only for a few seconds and during this time, there are constant flashes - presumably cameras. Some of these flashes are very powerful, lighting up the whole statue. People to the left of the scene are jumping up and down very energetically and waving their hands in the air.

Now if you watch this footage uncritically, you get the impression of a large crowd, with some people dancing in jubilation. But freezing a frame during a flash (photos 1, 2), reveals clearly how many people are present in the picture: seven.

After a few seconds of this, the film fades into a group of people outside a large building. Again, observed uncritically the next few seconds of film might appear to be a scene of mass jubilation. People are smiling and shouting and waving their arms in the air. Viewing more carefully however, we can say precisely how many people are waving and shouting and smiling - four. There are two middle-aged men and a similarly aged woman, and a young man. And they keep waving their arms in the air and smiling and dancing about and looking towards the camera - and the camera confines itself to them only. For most of the time they completely obscure everything else -at one point these four contrive to get almost into a line, one behind the other, in front of the camera. (photo 4). From the manner in which they keep themselves facing the camera, sometimes looking straight into it, you get the distinct impression that it might be the camera that they are performing for.

In the background there are more people and the interesting point is that these other people are not jubilant, nor are most of them even smiling. Some of them in fact look downright miserable, and it rather seems as though they have nothing to do with the four in front of the camera. This is particularly evident in the first few frames, where you can see people behind the man to his left, ie to the right of the picture (photo 3). These people are walking about - some of them are walking off to the right of the picture and they are looking to the right of the picture; they are not even paying attention to whatever hypothetical thing our jubilant crowd of four appears to be so excited about. In the moving picture this is even more apparent than in the still frames captured here. Could it be that these four are jumping up and down apparently for joy while in front of them is nothing of significance except a television camera?

The scene with these four seems to have been shot in daylight, so there is no reason to suppose they have anything to do with the removal of the statue at night. But the question arises of whether it was the intention of the film makers to induce the uncritical viewer to assume that this scene had something to do with the statue. Because after a few seconds of the happy four, the film fades back to more footage of the statue being hoisted off its pedestal at night.

Selected credits from "Messengers from Moscow"

special advisers Vladimir Bukovsky

Oleg Gordievsky

archive research Masha Oleneva

associate producer Masha Slonim

Producer Eugene B. Shirley, Jr.

Chief Consultant Herbert J. Ellison

Executive producer Thirteen/WNET Arnold Labaton

Series produced and directed by Daniel Wolf

A Barraclough Carey Production in association with Thirteen/WNET and Pacem Productions Inc for BBC Bristol

special advisers	Vladimir Bukovsky
	Oleg Gordievsky
archive research	Masha Oleneva
associate producer	Masha Slonim
Producer	Eugene B. Shirley, Jr.
Chief Consultant	Herbert J. Ellison
Executive producer Thirteen/WNET	Arnold Labaton