Above, a candid picture of Josef Stalin, captured by Lt. Gen. Nikolai Vlasik, the dictator’s bodyguard. Vlaski, Stalin’s erstwhile confidante, co-conspirator and son-in-law, was purged by his master in 1952. After Stalin died in 1953, he was released from a gulag. Vlasik’s off-the-record photos of Stalin caused a sensation in the early 1960s when an enterprising Soviet journalist spirited some out, selling them to newspapers and magazines worldwide.
Now, author David King documents otherwise lost Soviet images. Gathered from advertisements, posters, photographs, and even mug shots, these images reveal a piece of history. In the new book called, “Red Star Over Russia: A Visual History of the Soviet Union“, King covers his research of images from the USSR’s inception to Stalin’s death.
For images from the book, see Foreign Policy Magazine here.
And even tyrants could sometimes joke 🙂