My pet project: Communist victims of Communism Vol. 1
Hello, hello, hello!
Here is your standard USSR hater, Lenin statue toppler, and wall smasher. As I usually say: 'Communism is the ideology of the paradoxical.'
One way it displays this peculiar nature is through the innate ability of communist regimes to mistreat or kill their own cultists just as much as anyone else. Because of that, we are defeinitely not lacking examples of people who got their faces (deservedly or not) eaten by leopards.
What better way to start than by telling the story of some of my Italian compatriots?
Born in Salerno, Italy, Beatrice Vitoldi emigrated to St. Petersburg as a child when her father, an engineer, moved there for work. As she grew up, she passionately embraced Bolshevik ideology and joined the Communist Party.
In 1925, legendary Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein selected her for what became the masterpiece of Soviet propaganda: Battleship Potemkin.
Beatrice played the highly dramatic role of the mother holding her dying son during the iconic "Odessa Steps" sequence. Her tearing face, screaming in horror as she confronts the tzarist soldiers, became a worldwide cinematic icon, the universal symbol of an oppressed people rising up.
Beatrice didn't pursue an acting career; instead, she entered the Soviet diplomatic corps. In 1931, she was even stationed at the Soviet embassy in Rome. But in 1937, at the height of the Great Purge, she was recalled to Moscow. Upon arrival, she was arrested by the NKVD under the paranoid accusation of being a foreign spy. Already in 1939 she was convicted, sentenced to death , and shot in November.
For decades, the USSR proudly showcased her face in theaters worldwide while her body lay hidden in a mass grave. Her remains have never been, and will probably never be, found or identified.
