Khrushchev speaks on Gagarin’s flight at Red Square 1961

Description

Khrushchev speaks on Gagarin’s flight at Red Square 1961, photo; Licensed article; Original: 5740×4315; Photographer: Unknown; subject to license; Rights: a9 Bleek/zb Media. The photo shows Nikita Khrushchev with a hat during his speech at Red Square in Moscow on April 12, 1961, on the occasion of Yuri Gagarin’s triumphant return from his historic space flight.
Scene: Khrushchev stands on a platform at Lenin’s Mausoleum, wearing a dark coat and hat during his speech.
Gagarin off-image: Beside him stood Yuri Gagarin in an air force uniform, decorated with medals, as he waves to the crowd.
Background off-image: Red Square is full of cheering people, flags, banners with space symbols or portraits of Gagarin. The doors of the Lenin Mausoleum are open, a sign of the special significance of the moment.
Significance: Khrushchev praises Gagarin’s space flight as a triumph of Soviet socialism, emphasizes the scientific superiority of the USSR, and uses the success as propaganda against the West.
The photo symbolizes the political staging of the spaceflight triumph, the great enthusiasm of the population, and Khrushchev’s central role in the Soviet Union of the 1960s.