Rulers of the Soviet land

Soviet leaders had almost unlimited power. Cities and ships were named after them but their nationwide glory was short lived, quickly turning into damnation and oblivion. New leaders promised a new life, but their fate was far from cloudless either.

"The Life of Lenin. History of the Russian Communist Party" booklet, 1924

Leon Trotsky talking with a group of Red Army soldiers,1918-1919

Nikolai Bukharin, 1920s

Queue to Lenin's mausoleum, Moscow, 1965

Joseph Stalin, 1918

"For the blood of our unforgettable Kirov, fire on the fascist reptile! "We boldly walked where death was, but we knew for sure that by dying, we will secure victory." S. M. Kirov " Soviet poster, Leningrad, 1942

First-graders watching the funeral of Yuri Andropov, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee on TV. Photo by Vladimir Vorobiev, Orphanage No. 5. Novokuznetsk,1984

Georgy Malenkov. Time magazine cover, 1953

The leaders of the USSR - Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin in London, 1956

Portrait of Mikhail Kalinin, 1940s

Yuri Andropov, General Secretary of the Central Committee of CPSU, 1982

Leonid Brezhnev, Konstantin Chernenko, Alexey Gromyko, Crimea, 1980

"Yakov Sverdlov introduces Lenin to Stalin" sculpture by Ernst Neizvestny,1953

"Brezhnev. Soviet Cosmos" painting by Erik Bulatov, 1977

Dismantling of the monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky on Lubyanka square, Moscow, August 23, 1991

Mikhail Gorbachev, 1980s

"Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members" poster, 1977

Lavrentiy Beria, 1930s

Portrait of Leonid Brezhnev, embroidered by Turkmen weavers, 1970

"Yakov Sverdlov" film poster, 1940

Post-Soviet visual. Nesting doll, 2021