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Another Warning Sign:

Thanks to Arts & Letters Daily for this link to "Unrealised Moscow." It is a slide show, with text, offering the majestic plans Stalin and his technocrats drew up for the capital of the Soviet empire.

Surprisingly, much of the architecture seems to be non-Modernist: notice the Gothic spires on the corners of the Palace of Soviets, below the giant New Soviet Man. The Palace of Technology is fronted with a Roman-revival arch. The People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry looks like a squared-off Colosseum.

It's notable that the USSR never managed to construct any of these things. Yet, somehow, it was perceived as a competitor by the America that never lets a year go by without some additional monument or museum on the National Mall.