Thursday, February 04, 2010

Strange Exhibition of Nude Images Sort of Defaced by Stalin

It sounds too crazy not to be true: a set of 1940s photos and drawings of naked Russian men in heroic or athletic poses go on display in Moscow in late 2009, with each image scrawled on by Stalin, apparently linking the men to long-dead political rivals and foes.

"Ginger bastard Radek, if he hadn't pissed against the wind, if he hadn't been angry, he would be alive," is one typical comment. Experts say this is clearly Karl Radek, the red-haired former head of the international communist organisation, the Comintern, believed to have been shot dead by Stalin's secret police in 1939.

Experts also confirmed that the handwriting is Stalin's, and that the images were kept by the Russian leader's family and body guards. But there appeared no clear link between any of the men in the images, and Radek and other dead former comrades whose names were scrawled with somewhat lewd remarks by Stalin.

Was he barmy? Did he have homosexual leanings? No one knows for sure!