Gagarin – a shining example of Soviet man
On the 12 April 1961, Yuri
Alexeyevich Gagarin made history as the first human being to enter space, in
Vostok 1 a Soviet spaceship. His flight lasted just 108 minutes, the distance
travelled before he ejected to return to earth by parachute was 40,806 Km and
600M. He had reached a maximum height of 327Km as he circled the earth and he
will always be remembered for his heroic part in this display of Soviet
scientific excellence.
Gagarin the man was so much more though than this
historic 108 minutes.
Born 9 March 1934 in Klushino the young Yuri saw
that city occupied during the war by the Nazi hordes. These were difficult
years when just surviving each day was a victory. After the city was liberated
Gagarin resumed his studies and was inspired by his mathematics teacher, who
had fought in the Red Army, to develop himself as fully as he could both
mentally and physically.
After leaving school, he worked in a foundry as a
moulder until 1954; this was hard work but Gagarin threw himself into whatever
he did and enjoyed overcoming his tasks. He then moved to Saratov, learning to
fly at an aeroclub and applying to join the Oremburg Military Flying School to train as a fighter pilot. It was here that he first met his future wife,
Valentina Goricheva, and by 1957 he was a qualified fighter pilot. Two years
later saw him qualify as a trainee cosmonaut.
This is proof not only that he constantly pushed
himself to be the best he could be but also that, even though the renegade
Khrushchev and his cronies had taken power in the Kremlin, the socialist spirit
of the USSR had not yet succumbed to the rottenness of revisionism and the
Soviet people were still being encouraged to learn and develop themselves for
the good of themselves and their society as a whole. Just one year on, in
1960, he was chosen from 20 candidates to go into space in Vostock 1. It is
reported that the first word he spoke during his mission on that day was
‘Poyehali’ which means ‘let’s go! Poyehali is a word which sums up how this
proud citizen of the Soviet Union approached life.
After the space flight Gagarin travelled the world,
visiting 30 countries, talking to people wherever he went about both
spaceflight and the Soviet peace initiatives. He wrote a book on his
experiences called I See The World and continued working on the Soviet
spaceflight programme even though he was elected to the Supreme Soviet as a
Deputy in 1962.
During an interview with a Western journalist
discussing the spaceflight, the journalist said to Gagarin: “it is
guaranteed that you can relax now for the rest of your life.” Gagarin
replied “Relax? Here in the Soviet Union everybody works, including
celebrities, Heroes of Socialist Labour of the Soviet Union, and they work with
greater dedication. There are thousands of people in this country and they all
try to work as best as possible, in order to give an example for others to
follow”.
This was not empty talk on Gagarin’s part.
Although the great Soviet Union was being destroyed from the top down, he, like
many others, believed totally in the socialist ideal and he never stopped
working to improve the space programme and try to keep the USSR at the cutting edge of scientific development. Gagarin worked on new designs for
reusable spacecraft and in 1967 his work found him involved in the launch of
the new Soyuz spacecraft. In 1968 while on one of his regular test flights he
crashed and died at the young age of 34 years old. This was no wasted life,
Yuri Gagarin was a hero to a whole generation of Soviet children, not just for
his 108 minute spaceflight but for the way he lived his life with honour,
bravery and humility, for the very fact that he believed all individuals owed a
debt to the whole of Soviet society and openly lived his life in that manner.
Such was the love that the Soviet people felt for
Gagarin that statues of him were raised in many places while the city of Gzhatsk in the Smolensk region was renamed Gagarin and the Military Aviation Academy in Monino included Gagarin to its name. Many institutions, especially to do with
science and flight, took his name and hundreds of streets, squares and schools
were to carry his name, many outside of the Soviet Union. His name has also
been given to a crater on the moon and a minor planet.
In Britain a statue of Gagarin, a gift from the
Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos), will be placed in the Mall in July to mark
the 50th anniversary of the first spaceflight but, unfortunately, it will only
remain there for one year. There are also plans for an exhibition of items
from the Soviet space programme, again though only for a limited time.
The British establishment may only plan to celebrate Gagarin’s
spaceflight and then only for a limited time but we salute the whole life of
this heroic example of Soviet Man whose selflessness and devotion to the cause
we share continues to inspire us.