A brigade of construction workers building the Moscow Metro. They were led by Tatiana Fedorova who is on the left holding the jackhammer. She was only 20 at the time.
Fedorova would go on to become a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the deputy head of the Metrostroy Department that oversaw metro and tunnel construction.
Learn more about the Soviet Moscow Metro at: Soviet Moscow's Metro, 1960
In 1995 she was interviewed for the US PBS series People's Century (excerpt):
Q: What did communism mean to you as a young person?
Fedorova: Something elevated, very hard to have access to; something which you had to struggle for, something which you struggled for with deeds... We were really young people who went underground and into the air, and affirmed ourselves, because the people living under communism should be strong and healthy. Communism for us meant a higher manifestation, a higher testament for the word "oath." It was Mayakovsky who said, "Communism is the young people of the world, and it needs to be led by young people." So we wanted to do everything we could to erect this building of communism with our own hands. We lived in a very hard time. We were hungry. But when Mayakovsky said that about communism, that it was the young people of the world and it must be built by the young, we wanted to do something for our country, for our motherland. We wanted to do something with our own hands, to glorify our country -- not just with words but with deeds. And we did it. We built the metro, we built Magnetogorsk, we built the railway. We did it all with such comradeship, enthusiasm and happiness. And if today I could live again, despite all the big difficulties, I would have done the same things again.
Q: Can you describe your feelings of happiness a bit more. In what ways did you feel happy?
Fedorova: I was working and studying at that time -- which was the first time I received instruction of some kind. I think it was something about studying the stratosphere. I saw the very first enthusiasts who jumped [parachute jumping]; an enormous achievement. Karlov, an aviation woman, was flying. They were sort of sheer new records. Everyone was trying to do the best for the country, to raise the heights of the motherland. Then there was what we were doing underground...with the Moscow metro. We worked in such a friendly way. It was such a good time. There wasn't so much to eat, we weren't well dressed. We were simply very happy. Happy because we were making it our personal contribution. If I come to a station that I was lucky enough to build, it's a bit like meeting my youth when I go there. I'm simply happy that in those years I chose that hard path.
Q: But the conditions you were working in the metro were not very different from the conditions people worked under capitalism, maybe even worse.
Fedorova: I can't compare with capitalism at that time. That time we were doing our thing; we were doing it with enthusiasm. We were told by the Komsomol sixty years ago, we were going there to build the best metro.... The amazing thing was we had this great wish to do this great thing which people didn't believe possible. In 1934, a well-known hero of the working class, H.G. Wells, came to look at our Moscow metro. He looked at the technical difficulties and told the personnel they won't be able to build it. But the enthusiasm of the young led to these great things. They built it. We didn't always believe that it was possible. An American consultant and a very good solid engineer, John Morgan, helped quite a lot with the engineering. Yet he didn't believe that it was possible to do it; to dig a meter in 24 hours. But our boys did three meters in 24 hours. When Morgan saw that, he said, "I didn't reckon on the enthusiasm of the Komsomol."
Q: What was your proudest moment of working on the metro. What was the thing you're most proud of?
Fedorova: It was when the first train went by. It was when the noise of the motor of the first train went by in this clean tunnel which had, until then, only seen the ordinary little carriages. You can't compare that feeling to anything. The construction workers who felt that will feel it forever.
Q: What was the most difficult work you did in the metro, personally?
Fedorova: The ground was icy. There were no rails. Setting up the fences was very hard but it was cheerful. We loved the fact that we dug this frozen ground with our own hands; for our own Moscow. I love Moscow very much. It's my city.
Q: You led a team of Stakhanovites when you were building the metro. What did that mean?
Fedorova: There were a lot of leaders in the Stakhanovite movement; a movement of workers which took over the whole country. In the Moscow metro building, of course, everyone wanted to be a Stakhanovite. I led a team who worked really brilliantly under the ground. Then we would go forty kilometers away and do parachute jumps. It was a wonderful happy life, full of enthusiasm.
Q: What good did the Stakhanovite movement do for the Soviet Union?
Fedorova: It was a movement that wasn't organized by anyone in particular. It was started by a working man, who I knew very well, and everyone in the country who knew him started it. He studied the very best methods of working in mines and then learned the technical side of it. Stakhanovite produced this fantastic speed record and then, literally, in all aspects of the economy and in all branches of the Moscow metro building, whether you were working with concrete or not, everyone wanted to achieve the highest speed. It was, economically and spiritually, a very big thing for the country.
Q: Wasn't it really just a method of trying to get workers to work harder?
Fedorova: No. No one forced us to do it. We didn't have to do it, but everyone wanted to... It's very hard to explain but it was the time of the enthusiasts. At that time Mayakovsky said that communism is the young people of the world and we were the young people of those years. Each of us tried to build a foundation of the structures with great joy. It was like a happy song.
Q: Tell me about your meeting with Stalin after you made your speech in Red Square?
Fedorova: When I finished my speech, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin came towards me. It was completely unexpected, he came to congratulate me. He came up to me and said, "Where did we get such an orator?" And they said, "From underground, from underground." That was my first meeting with Stalin. He gave me his hand and said, Well done!" That meeting was very precious for me.
Q: What were your feelings just then about that meeting with Stalin?
Fedorova: I felt great - very excited. I was a young woman, a young girl, a team leader of the metro who could see and stand next to the leader of our country and the progressive working movement. This feeling was very elevated. I can't give it to you in words, you have to experience it.
Q: What's your assessment of Stalin?
Fedorova: I had very high regard of him. It was very complicated and hard, but this was a great man. He was great as a thinker and as someone who acts. He was also a good person.... Historians will say what they think, but I would say the truth -- he deserves a good word despite all the things that are said about him; he deserves good words.
He united people. If you look at the film, the Kino-Chronicle, no one could create those faces, those smiling faces, those joyful faces artificially.
[Fedorova speaking as a construction worker in 1934 film:] "We live so well. Our hearts are so joyful. In no other country are there such happy young people as us. We're the happiest young people. And on behalf of all young people, I want to thank our Party and our dear Comrade Stalin for this joy that we have."
Stalin set a task: build this or build that and, thanks to the fact that people trusted him and this enthusiasm of young people, it was possible. Remember, people were illiterate, lived in virtual darkness, wore birch bark shoes. Even now I think it's like something out of a fairy tale
RealAudio
It was one of the most difficult times to build this country. To build these great construction sites would only be possible through unity, the unity of the people and the love of the people to their idol. Stalin for us was an idol.
Full interview: People's Century | Red Flag | Tatiana Fedorova
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