Propaganda Posters

Stalin presented himself a simple man of the people, but distinct from everyday politics by his unique role as leader. His clothing was carefully selected to cement this image. Propaganda presented him as Lenin's heir, exaggerating their relationship, until the Stalin cult drained out the Lenin cult—an effect shown in posters, where at first Lenin would be the dominating figure over Stalin, but as time went on became first only equal, and then smaller and more ghostly, until he was reduced to the byline on the book Stalin was depicted reading. This occurred despite the historical accounts describing Stalin as insignificant, or even a "gray blur", in the early Revolution. From the late 1920s until it was debunked in the 1960s, he was presented as the chief military leader of the civil war. Stalingrad was renamed for him on the claim that he had single-handedly, and against orders, saved it in the civil war.