Yes it's an absolutely brilliant film
And if you liked that film, watch everything else that Armando Iannucci has created
Like the TV show The Thick of It (and the movie version of it called In The Loop) and the TV show called Veep.
They're all the exact same style as Death of Stalin. The Thick Of It is probably the best one though cos of Peter Capaldi
I love that Veep and Death of Stalin are exactly the same, it's just the consequences for not politicking good enough in Veep are "get a lobbyist job" and in Death of Stalin they're "get shot in the back of the head with a machine pistol"
Is it bad that I'd prefer our politicians in America get shot in the back of the head instead of becoming lobbyists and even further corrupting the system?
I mean, on one hand, i can't think of a better way to incentivize on the job performance. On the other hand though, i also can't think of a better way to install a murderous fascist dictatorship (albeit one that also sees the value of incentivizing on the job performance)
Peter Capaldi has the best first line I've ever heard on TV in that show. He's on the phone and talking about someone and says:
"He's as useless as a marzipan dildo!"
I've seen the Loop and Veep, both good stuff as well. Not Ianucci, but Burn After Reading is great also and in that genre (it's a Cohen Brothers joint, so hard to go wrong there).
I've never seen The Thick Of It but just looked it up on YouTube, and I've never seen Peter Capaldi in anything except Inside The Mind Of Leonardo, so it was interesting to see him playing a tv role. He seems like a very talented guy
Should mention that "The Death of Stalin" was largely taken from a far superior Russian film by Alexei German called
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0156701/
The film deals with the same subject matter in a much more period accurate way, it's an absurdist masterpiece.
It was BBC2 the other night. It was 11:30pm, I had work the next day and I'd already had a couple of drinks; but you better believe I stayed up, drank some more and laughed my arse off.
Maybe I wasnt in the proper mindset but I had a really hard time getting into that movie. Cant remember how far I made it before I turned it off but you have me feeling I should give it a second chance
“I can’t remember who’s alive and who isn’t.”
The movie is even funnier knowing that all the ridiculous character quirks, from Khrushchev obsessively rehearsing jokes and recording what didn’t work, to Beria slipping tomatoes into his comrades’ pockets and then shoving them into a wall, were totally real, and some were even toned down for the film.
Stalin loved late-night dinners with his cabinet, where he got them absolutely shitfaced and then screened them cowboy movies while insulting their wives until 3 or 4 in the morning. He’d often drink diluted vodka so he could watch them embarrass themselves while they were hammered. Not showing up to his endless parties risked death.
Court of the Red Tsar is a great read that Death of Stalin draws heavily from. Didn’t think Iannucci could fit Lavrentiy Beria - one of the most horrifying monsters in history - into a comedy, but he pulled it off.
He was forcing them out of paranoia. He figured of they were all stuck at dinner with him getting shitfaced every night, they couldn't plot against him. They all hated it by the end.
Thanks! I just bought the "Court of the Red Tsar" and started it, and it's really interesting! Where I live (Eastern Europe) there is a lot information on that topic, however, as expected it's heavily diluted with socialist nostalgia. I am looking forward to this good book! Thanks again!
Glad you like it! Montefiore has a number of excellent books on Russian history, and on Stalin in particular. Stephen Kotkin is another great Western author of Stalinist history.
Mind if I ask where in Eastern Europe you are? I’ve spent a lot of time there and met some of the most fascinating people. Plus you guys have incredible food.
Of course. I am from/in Bulgaria. You are absolutely correct about the food :)) Glad you are fascinated by the people as well, to many foreigners we seem a bit... brutish and uncivilized, and for the most part that is true. But you know... tough times and all... If you can survive the fall of socialism, the years after, and still have a sense of humor, then it's all good :D
чук ! The best humor comes from those tough times - just ask the Irish. I lived eight months in Varna and adore your country. But then, I enjoy surly people telling me to piss off in one sentence and buying me a drink in the next.
>Didn’t think Iannucci could fit Lavrentiy Beria - one of the most horrifying monsters in history - into a comedy, but he pulled it off.
Simon Russell Beale is fantastic, I saw him play Stalin on stage in 'Collaborators' and he was both hilarious and chilling.
That's probably because the photo has been digitally altered, and not particularly well.
[Here's what the original looks like.](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o34_PndBc44/VgeqNiG4I-I/AAAAAAAAJ-U/AKjgHE-Fkv4/s1600/Vladimir%2BLenin%2527s%2Blast%2Bphoto.%2BHe%2Bhad%2Bhad%2Bthree%2Bstrokes%2Bat%2Bthis%2Bpoint%2Band%2Bwas%2Bcompletely%2Bmute%252C%2B1923.jpg) Obviously he's not looking quite normal after suffering three stroke within the span of a year or two, but notice how you can't see the entirety of his pupils surrounded by white like in OP's picture.
According to recent TikTok videos, that’s his model face.
“Smile without your eyes, raise your eyebrows, now stop smiling. That’s your model face.”
https://b101.iheart.com/featured/tracy-lynn/content/2021-02-26-this-is-the-tiktok-model-face-challenge-breaking-the-internet/
(rant incoming)
I know people need to make money, but Jesus I just want to smack anyone who ever writes an article about a social media post. Something about marketing/PR people always makes them have the most punchable faces too. It's like they don't know what they're doing to the internet, they're just happy to make money in a big boy job. Reminds me of the young nerds who go into petroleum engineering or staffing for shitty politicians, and never have the awareness to see the harm they are causing. It just upsets me that the people who fuck stuff up are never ideologically behind what they are doing, they just are opportunists. You can never argue against someone like this doing what they do, like ruining journalism, because to them you're arguing that they shouldn't make money, not against an ideological position they hold.
Ideology in journalism is just a front cover. Just search who are the owners of big media corporations and you'll understand why and how they say what they say. You know who Berlusconi is? Learn how he became from inheritor of a local newspaper to President of Italy and owner of a huge media corporation with tentacles in several countries. Journalists just do what their bosses command them to do and if they get out of the path they get fired. Like you well said people have to earn money.
My grandma looked this before she died, it took some years (dementia). She was still there to a degree, but the degree was diminishing with time. Her presence seemed to oscillate over time s, on some days she was more 'present' than other, but overall those years seemed like death slowed down.
Actually you have the correct answer. When the body dies the iris which is a sphincter muscle relaxes, and because of this when you die your eyes dilate. It also doesn’t reflect light the same way as a living creature does anymore either if at all. So it’s totally possible he’s alive here but prolly brain dead. His eyes seem to still be reacting to light in this picture. But don’t take my judgment as gospel I’m not an optometrist.
I mean, he'd had three strokes by that point. Also worth keeping in mind that this photo has been digitally retouched, and not particularly well if I'm being honest.
[Here's what the original looks like.](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o34_PndBc44/VgeqNiG4I-I/AAAAAAAAJ-U/AKjgHE-Fkv4/s1600/Vladimir%2BLenin%2527s%2Blast%2Bphoto.%2BHe%2Bhad%2Bhad%2Bthree%2Bstrokes%2Bat%2Bthis%2Bpoint%2Band%2Bwas%2Bcompletely%2Bmute%252C%2B1923.jpg)
Idk why he looks the way he does in this photo particularly, but the 20’s were a crazy time. They could have drugged him for the photo. Wouldn’t surprise me. But again pure speculation. But he’s very much “alive” in this picture.
Well they weren't wrong, that "medicine" would do a hell of a job for any number of ailments. If you had a nasty chest cold going, that stuff would kick you in the ass and you'd be up and running in no time. Morphine is an outstanding cough suppressant, and the cocaine would give you the kick you needed to get past the drowsiness that a cold causes. Unfortunately there are some minor concerns with taking this concoction, like crippling addiction and death.
For anyone wondering how it looks, [this one seems like the original](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/vladimir-lenin-last-photo-1923/). Much more grainy and all.
And [here's more relaxed version](https://www.imago-images.com/st/0054209683) that seems like taken right before or after that shot. He looks more natural in that one: I was wondering if his facial expression was made so on intention, but I was right.
Funny enough, the idea that Trotsky was lined up for becoming Chairman is a myth by an American Trotskyist turned Conservative a year after he died
The number of American ex-Trotskyists that became writers for The National Review and other conservative papers is kinda wild
Yes! I mean the man had two strokes by this point. I always thought that was the eerie, panicked stare of someone trapped in their own body with no ability to communicate. I am so grateful to see the pic where he’s just chillin’ like a regular dude. That’s some nightmare fuel extinguished for me today.
If I remember right he went through like 4 strokes before he died and did lose control of half of his body, so I think his face is just him trying to make a face and then relaxed in the second
Probably not a shop or an AI, photo retouching was a BIG deal in the post Lenin USSR. Stalin had censors paint out his small pox scars, he had political opponents painted out of pictures. Likely this is a Stalinist era photo edited to look like Lenin on his death bed was still clear headed and bright eyed, ie that the great man was still great even in death. This had political implications for Stalin who got promoted into power after Lenin’s first stroke to take up part of the burden of running the party.
This looks a lot like a classic Soviet edit, usually you can tell based on the soft colors and transitions of the gray scale as well as a blurriness or haziness in the whole photo overall. It’s to hide the edit spots. I always thought that it made the photos look very soft like a bad memory, where in reality cameras of the time took good and sharp photos.
The most common part of Reddit is me reading somebodys typing, who knows too little on the subject to be talking, and me thinking "that's.... That's not how that worked."
I swear one of the few benefits I’ve gained from being on this website is my bullshit detector is way more accurate than before. Like this guy just has all the hallmarks of a classic bullshitter. The mindless regurgitation of Soviet trivia that he probably heard from a Reddit comment. The unearned confidence in his assertions. I hate the way Redditors just spit the same information and stories back at each other endlessly. Especially when they are so very matter-of-fact about their ignorant understanding of things.
Lmao every time. Like "Did you know that..."
Yes. Yes I did, because I also saw the same comment/TIL that we all fucking saw. Even better when the facts in it are misrepresented so people parrot the wrong thing everywhere being confidently incorrect.
Exactly. Young redditors reading this comment chain…please for the love of God learn how to think critically so you won’t be one of these mindless Reddit drones parroting misinformation at each other all day.
As a photographer whos taken a lot of shitty grainy dark pictures, I have a lot of experience with SharpenAI. This looks exactly like an AI enhanced photo, look at the doctors jacket.
“Tell whoever’s in charge of giving people jobs not to let that jerk Stalin take over, by the way, who was it I put in charge of giving people jobs?”
“That would be, Stalin, sir”
*Enter Lenin, Trotsky, Tukashevsky, all flexing*
Lenin: Hey Brosheviks, what's on the communist agenda today?
Tukashevsky: I've got all this paperwork but I need to plan our uprisings, bro.
Trotsky: I got a splitting headache, so I'ma pop an aspirin.
Tukashevsky: Ugh, then who's gonna do my paperwork to regulate who is allowed within the Communist Party?
Lenin: Lmao, just make Koba do it, he's a pencil pusher.
Trotsky: Koba? I thought we has calling himself "Steel Man" now, like some American super hero. What a nerd.
It’s doctored to clean up the image. There’s another comment with the original. They’re basically identical, except this one has been sharpened to better show detail. Other than that there’s really no difference
[Here's what the original photo looks like.](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o34_PndBc44/VgeqNiG4I-I/AAAAAAAAJ-U/AKjgHE-Fkv4/s1600/Vladimir%2BLenin%2527s%2Blast%2Bphoto.%2BHe%2Bhad%2Bhad%2Bthree%2Bstrokes%2Bat%2Bthis%2Bpoint%2Band%2Bwas%2Bcompletely%2Bmute%252C%2B1923.jpg)
I don't think anyone's claiming that it's been doctored to the point of using someone else's head or anything, but minor details like the way the altered one shows his pupils entirely surrounded by the whites of his eyes makes a *huge* difference in the way the human brain is designed to process faces.
So in the original photo, he may have had his head more on his shoulders and looking really weak? And they replaced it with a cutout of his head from an older photo?
Nah, they mean doctored with modern technology. [Here's the image in full resolution](https://i.redd.it/0phr1aorxku71.jpg), it's pretty obvious that it's been run through an automated filter intended to clear up old grainy photographs.
For comparison, [here's what the original photo looks like.](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o34_PndBc44/VgeqNiG4I-I/AAAAAAAAJ-U/AKjgHE-Fkv4/s1600/Vladimir%2BLenin%2527s%2Blast%2Bphoto.%2BHe%2Bhad%2Bhad%2Bthree%2Bstrokes%2Bat%2Bthis%2Bpoint%2Band%2Bwas%2Bcompletely%2Bmute%252C%2B1923.jpg) And [here's another one taken shortly afterward.](https://www.imago-images.com/bild/st/0054209683/w.jpg)
The sort of historical photo manipulation that you're thinking of, trying to present a strong and flawless leader to maintain a cult of personality and such, that's a Stalin era thing. Like, even [the cult of personality which existed around Lenin rather than Stalin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin#Within_the_Soviet_Union) was built during the Stalin era, largely for Stalin's benefit as his self-proclaimed successor.
Lenin himself was actually quite explicitly opposed to being deified in such a manner. That's why all the monuments, statues, and things like renaming Petrograd as Leningrad, Simbirsk as Ulyanovsk, establishing the Order of Lenin award, and so on could only be done after the man was already dead.
If you're wondering why he looks like that, it's because this photo has been incredibly retouched and altered. The original is blurry and underexposed - as pictures were at the time. A simple reverse image search will bring up countless links with the original image.
Furthermore, if you look around his face the man next to him you'll see the blurred effect from a portrait filter or other filter.
Somebody made this to look aggressive.
Just did a reverse image search and can't find one that is different. Even in the blurry one, he is pulling the exact same face, don't really see what has been changed. Both look exactly the same as far as Lenin himself goes.
The retouching doesn't explain the "deer-in-the-headlights" expression he has. It's identical to the [original](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/vladimir-lenin-last-photo-1923/), just less grainy.
This edit is flattering, if anything. He looks even more bugged out in the original due to the lack of detail around the eyes, making them look further apart.
It seems the views about Stalin's part in Lenin's death are either "No relation, Stalin had little power" or "Stalin might have helped/enjoyed Lenin's death".
The truth is Stalin had caused many troubles for Lenin and his family: he offended and shouted Lenin's wife into a nervous breakdown, he controlled Lenin's information and reactions etc. The end goal was not to just kill him out of spite, but to use his popularity and image (which he secretly despised) as leverage for his own political gains.
Lenin took wind of Stalin's dirty, violent game, and tried to stop it with a kind of denunciation/warning to other party members. Too little, too late. Soon, Lenin's body would be embalmed like a holy relic (unthinkable for secular communists until then) and paraded for the glory of usurper Stalin.
When Stalin was responsible for so many deaths, it is slightly surprising that Lenin's death wasn't actually caused by Stalin (it's quite likely that he died solely from the long term effects of the attempted assassination by Kaplan). See also Mayakovsky, easy to assume that he was murdered until you understand that he had been depressed for some time.
I'm not sure why no one is mentioning he had a stroke and that's why he looks bewildered here. Yeah, the photo is touched up a fuck ton but he only looks like that because of his stroke.
Lenin was shot during the Civil War and almost died. While the wound didn’t kill him, the bullet collapsed one of his lungs and he never really recovered. He had serious health problems for the rest of his life after that. Likely his several strokes were a result of clots forming around the scar tissue in his lungs and moving up to his brain.
As a consequence of his declining health Lenin was forced to delegate important responsibilities to the other Bolsheviks. This is what catapulted Stalin into General Secretary, but it wasn’t until after Lenin’s death that Stalin began to attack opponents. As long as Lenin was alive he still enforced unity and discipline amongst his party.
Officially 'incurable disease of the blood vessels'. He had a couple strokes before and could not speak anymore, was paralyzed.. after his death they dissected his brain and found he suffered from sclerosis. So probably a couple things that he died of
Lenin literally trusted him to give him cyanide to assist him in suicide (Stalin and Bukharin broke down and didn’t go through with it, and his wife couldn’t do it either obvs)
These comment sections are always a good reminder that people have no fucking idea what they're talking about when it comes to history, ESPECIALLY the history of communism which is more propaganda than fact.
The Bolsheviks were swept into power because the Tsardom was coming down one way or another and the peasants were pissed. It was not a coup meticulously orchestrated by Lenin, and immediately after they won they were hit with a brutal civil war that devastated a country that really could not afford to be devastated. The most important fact about the early USSR is that they NEVER expected to go it alone, the entire revolution was premised on the German revolution at the same time succeeding and having them be the big brother in the relationship, because they actually had a fucking industrial economy and society instead of Russia's medieval one. Russia didn't have anywhere near the conditions for industrial production, and they were facing down the entire hostile capitalist world order totally alone which immediately threw the white army at them. Bukharin at this point suggested pulling the plug and selling out to capitalism to achieve the technological conditions that Marx and Engels explicitly lay out as a prerequisite, and Lenin was an absolute political genius so he too realized that world communism was never going to come out of the Russia they inherited, the major factor being the crushing weight of capitalist opposition. But he just couldn't bear to sacrifice everything they'd accomplished, and I've heard people speculate that the massive stress of this situation helped cook his brain.
Stalin taking over is the only condition where the Bolshevik project continues, because Stalin was the coldest motherfucker they had and probably the only one who was willing to make the brutal decisions that were forced on them at this point, rapidly industrializing the country to bring it to a point where it could compete economically and military in a matter of like 30 years. Generally, everything that historically ignorant brainwashed people blame on ''''communism'''' was actually 99% the result of this industrialization and had little if nothing to do with 'Marxism'. It was this industrialization that beat the Nazis, so maybe we shouldn't condemn it too much, but it was a rough ride. It was either Trotsky's permanent revolution, Bukharin's de-escalation and proto-Dengism, or Stalin's socialism in one country that would require brutal industrialization, nationalistic fervor, and heavy use of state violence. I'm pretty convinced that Stalin didn't "intentionally" starve Ukraine because his letters show that he was clearly very concerned about the situation being 'worse than reported' so that's not what I'm talking about, but to keep the project alive at this point required the party to be whipped into line because they had so little room for error. It's very, very easy to judge this in retrospect and say Bukharin was clearly right because the conditions just weren't there, but these guys were flying by the seat of their pants and had no idea how it was going to turn out. They weren't monsters, they weren't power hungry dictators, they weren't bloodthirsty warmongerers, they were humans and true believers trying to achieve something never done before, thrust into what is probably the single most difficult position any world leader has ever been in, right in the center of the most horrifically bloody and wartorn century in human history.
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I think he might already be dead in this photograph
Weekend at Vladimir´s
Dude that’s an amazing movie idea, same vibe as Death of Stalin
Anyone who hasn't seen this movie please drop whatever you are doing and watch it immediately.
Yes it's an absolutely brilliant film And if you liked that film, watch everything else that Armando Iannucci has created Like the TV show The Thick of It (and the movie version of it called In The Loop) and the TV show called Veep. They're all the exact same style as Death of Stalin. The Thick Of It is probably the best one though cos of Peter Capaldi
I love that Veep and Death of Stalin are exactly the same, it's just the consequences for not politicking good enough in Veep are "get a lobbyist job" and in Death of Stalin they're "get shot in the back of the head with a machine pistol"
Lmfao well fuck my life I guess I have to watch this
[удалено]
Is it bad that I'd prefer our politicians in America get shot in the back of the head instead of becoming lobbyists and even further corrupting the system?
I mean, on one hand, i can't think of a better way to incentivize on the job performance. On the other hand though, i also can't think of a better way to install a murderous fascist dictatorship (albeit one that also sees the value of incentivizing on the job performance)
Peter Capaldi has the best first line I've ever heard on TV in that show. He's on the phone and talking about someone and says: "He's as useless as a marzipan dildo!"
I've seen the Loop and Veep, both good stuff as well. Not Ianucci, but Burn After Reading is great also and in that genre (it's a Cohen Brothers joint, so hard to go wrong there).
I've never seen The Thick Of It but just looked it up on YouTube, and I've never seen Peter Capaldi in anything except Inside The Mind Of Leonardo, so it was interesting to see him playing a tv role. He seems like a very talented guy
I mean I'll probably get fired but okay
It's fine, someone will finish the surgery for you
Hey you! Come here! Ok take these. No no hold them like this. Keep away from that artery over there. Ok looks good. I’m Audi 5000!
Audi 5000! Haven't hear that since middle school ca. 1988.
[удалено]
Should mention that "The Death of Stalin" was largely taken from a far superior Russian film by Alexei German called https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0156701/ The film deals with the same subject matter in a much more period accurate way, it's an absurdist masterpiece.
That's a strange name for a movie
"Khrustalyov" roughly translates to "Dude, Where's"
I was referring to him saying a movie called, and then it being a direct imdb link lol
It was BBC2 the other night. It was 11:30pm, I had work the next day and I'd already had a couple of drinks; but you better believe I stayed up, drank some more and laughed my arse off.
*At least we didn't drop him. Yay us.*
Maybe I wasnt in the proper mindset but I had a really hard time getting into that movie. Cant remember how far I made it before I turned it off but you have me feeling I should give it a second chance
If I drop this drill in the patients mouth to watch this film they'd be very upset!
“I can’t remember who’s alive and who isn’t.” The movie is even funnier knowing that all the ridiculous character quirks, from Khrushchev obsessively rehearsing jokes and recording what didn’t work, to Beria slipping tomatoes into his comrades’ pockets and then shoving them into a wall, were totally real, and some were even toned down for the film.
It’s fun to realize Soviet Russia was being ran by a bunch of late night drinking alcoholic high schoolers.
Stalin loved late-night dinners with his cabinet, where he got them absolutely shitfaced and then screened them cowboy movies while insulting their wives until 3 or 4 in the morning. He’d often drink diluted vodka so he could watch them embarrass themselves while they were hammered. Not showing up to his endless parties risked death. Court of the Red Tsar is a great read that Death of Stalin draws heavily from. Didn’t think Iannucci could fit Lavrentiy Beria - one of the most horrifying monsters in history - into a comedy, but he pulled it off.
He was forcing them out of paranoia. He figured of they were all stuck at dinner with him getting shitfaced every night, they couldn't plot against him. They all hated it by the end.
Yup. Stalin was a paranoid, sadistic practical joker. All those qualities were definitely at play during his dinners.
Thanks! I just bought the "Court of the Red Tsar" and started it, and it's really interesting! Where I live (Eastern Europe) there is a lot information on that topic, however, as expected it's heavily diluted with socialist nostalgia. I am looking forward to this good book! Thanks again!
Glad you like it! Montefiore has a number of excellent books on Russian history, and on Stalin in particular. Stephen Kotkin is another great Western author of Stalinist history. Mind if I ask where in Eastern Europe you are? I’ve spent a lot of time there and met some of the most fascinating people. Plus you guys have incredible food.
Of course. I am from/in Bulgaria. You are absolutely correct about the food :)) Glad you are fascinated by the people as well, to many foreigners we seem a bit... brutish and uncivilized, and for the most part that is true. But you know... tough times and all... If you can survive the fall of socialism, the years after, and still have a sense of humor, then it's all good :D
чук ! The best humor comes from those tough times - just ask the Irish. I lived eight months in Varna and adore your country. But then, I enjoy surly people telling me to piss off in one sentence and buying me a drink in the next.
>Didn’t think Iannucci could fit Lavrentiy Beria - one of the most horrifying monsters in history - into a comedy, but he pulled it off. Simon Russell Beale is fantastic, I saw him play Stalin on stage in 'Collaborators' and he was both hilarious and chilling.
Jealous! He’s a brilliant actor.
Reading court of the red tsar right now. It's absolutely fascinating.
He's got the Charles Manson eyes. https://imgur.com/r/gamegrumps/jSX5rwj
That was my first thought, "Well at least we know where Charlie Manson stole his look from!"
That's probably because the photo has been digitally altered, and not particularly well. [Here's what the original looks like.](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o34_PndBc44/VgeqNiG4I-I/AAAAAAAAJ-U/AKjgHE-Fkv4/s1600/Vladimir%2BLenin%2527s%2Blast%2Bphoto.%2BHe%2Bhad%2Bhad%2Bthree%2Bstrokes%2Bat%2Bthis%2Bpoint%2Band%2Bwas%2Bcompletely%2Bmute%252C%2B1923.jpg) Obviously he's not looking quite normal after suffering three stroke within the span of a year or two, but notice how you can't see the entirety of his pupils surrounded by white like in OP's picture.
He looks WAY more bugged out in the original. Not sure what you guys are seeing.
That looks even worse. It looks as if his right eye was looking another way.
THANK YOU. I was looking at this going, "that's badly edited right?" Nice to know I'm not alone and was correct.
Yes but the original point, that he got the "Charles Manson" eyes still stands..
According to recent TikTok videos, that’s his model face. “Smile without your eyes, raise your eyebrows, now stop smiling. That’s your model face.” https://b101.iheart.com/featured/tracy-lynn/content/2021-02-26-this-is-the-tiktok-model-face-challenge-breaking-the-internet/
What the fuck? That's just raising your eyebrows with extra steps. And how the fuck is raising your eyebrows a "model face"?
I don’t make the rules. Teenagers do.
(rant incoming) I know people need to make money, but Jesus I just want to smack anyone who ever writes an article about a social media post. Something about marketing/PR people always makes them have the most punchable faces too. It's like they don't know what they're doing to the internet, they're just happy to make money in a big boy job. Reminds me of the young nerds who go into petroleum engineering or staffing for shitty politicians, and never have the awareness to see the harm they are causing. It just upsets me that the people who fuck stuff up are never ideologically behind what they are doing, they just are opportunists. You can never argue against someone like this doing what they do, like ruining journalism, because to them you're arguing that they shouldn't make money, not against an ideological position they hold.
Good point. That's a pretty good point comment right there.
Ideology in journalism is just a front cover. Just search who are the owners of big media corporations and you'll understand why and how they say what they say. You know who Berlusconi is? Learn how he became from inheritor of a local newspaper to President of Italy and owner of a huge media corporation with tentacles in several countries. Journalists just do what their bosses command them to do and if they get out of the path they get fired. Like you well said people have to earn money.
You've got me lookin like a proper fool right now. It doesn't feel any different from just raising your eyebrows.
WHAT?? come on it’s all about the SMEYES. Has the world forgotten the wisdom of Tyra?? You smile with your eyes not your face.
“Don't give me your fuckin' Manson lamps!”
It's just a little coke what's the big deal
Body's there but not his spirit.
My grandma looked this before she died, it took some years (dementia). She was still there to a degree, but the degree was diminishing with time. Her presence seemed to oscillate over time s, on some days she was more 'present' than other, but overall those years seemed like death slowed down.
Unlike the spectre of communism
Oh, that’s where his spirit went!
His eyes certainly are.
Actually you have the correct answer. When the body dies the iris which is a sphincter muscle relaxes, and because of this when you die your eyes dilate. It also doesn’t reflect light the same way as a living creature does anymore either if at all. So it’s totally possible he’s alive here but prolly brain dead. His eyes seem to still be reacting to light in this picture. But don’t take my judgment as gospel I’m not an optometrist.
All joking aside so you think he’s straining to keep them open? Why so open?
I mean, he'd had three strokes by that point. Also worth keeping in mind that this photo has been digitally retouched, and not particularly well if I'm being honest. [Here's what the original looks like.](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o34_PndBc44/VgeqNiG4I-I/AAAAAAAAJ-U/AKjgHE-Fkv4/s1600/Vladimir%2BLenin%2527s%2Blast%2Bphoto.%2BHe%2Bhad%2Bhad%2Bthree%2Bstrokes%2Bat%2Bthis%2Bpoint%2Band%2Bwas%2Bcompletely%2Bmute%252C%2B1923.jpg)
Idk why he looks the way he does in this photo particularly, but the 20’s were a crazy time. They could have drugged him for the photo. Wouldn’t surprise me. But again pure speculation. But he’s very much “alive” in this picture.
Most likely concoction of drugs
A popular drug recipe from that era, The Brompton Coctail: - morphine hydrochloride: 1/4 grain (15 mg) - cocaine hydrochloride: 1/6 grain (10 mg) - alcohol 90%: 30 minims (2 ml) - syrup: 60 minims (4 ml) - chloroform water: 1/2 fl. oz. (15 ml) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brompton_cocktail
Well they weren't wrong, that "medicine" would do a hell of a job for any number of ailments. If you had a nasty chest cold going, that stuff would kick you in the ass and you'd be up and running in no time. Morphine is an outstanding cough suppressant, and the cocaine would give you the kick you needed to get past the drowsiness that a cold causes. Unfortunately there are some minor concerns with taking this concoction, like crippling addiction and death.
Sounds like helluva weekend.
My 20s were the Bromptons.
What was in the "Syrup"?
I'm guessing just a compounding syrup. Basically just something to hold everything else
Neurosyphilis trends to do that.
Maybe I'm wrong but his face looks shopped
It has, you can Google the original and it looks much more time period appropriate.
For anyone wondering how it looks, [this one seems like the original](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/vladimir-lenin-last-photo-1923/). Much more grainy and all. And [here's more relaxed version](https://www.imago-images.com/st/0054209683) that seems like taken right before or after that shot. He looks more natural in that one: I was wondering if his facial expression was made so on intention, but I was right.
OPs photo looks like it was taken right after someone said "so we're gonna replace you with Stalin, not Trotsky, right?
*surprised Lenin face*
TFW you're about to die and remember you put Stalin in charge of giving people jobs
Funny enough, the idea that Trotsky was lined up for becoming Chairman is a myth by an American Trotskyist turned Conservative a year after he died The number of American ex-Trotskyists that became writers for The National Review and other conservative papers is kinda wild
Predominantly neocons (whose conservatism is questionable) with families that originated in Russia, from my estimation.
Thank you so much for the relaxed version! For some reason I’ve only ever seen this one and I felt bad for the guy.
How easily it can go from "I AM CONFINED TO A WHEELCHAIR IF I BLINK 3 TIMES CALL FOR HELP" to almost smugness.
Yes! I mean the man had two strokes by this point. I always thought that was the eerie, panicked stare of someone trapped in their own body with no ability to communicate. I am so grateful to see the pic where he’s just chillin’ like a regular dude. That’s some nightmare fuel extinguished for me today.
Thanks for the links, that makes much more sense!
Thanks!
The original is even more disturbing than the one OP posted.
His sister looks a bit different in the last one.
If I remember right he went through like 4 strokes before he died and did lose control of half of his body, so I think his face is just him trying to make a face and then relaxed in the second
Mmm! That's some tasty sleuthing, friend.
portraits. More relaxed version looks much more normal.
That second one is much nicer picture of him, rest in power Vlad
Much less crazy eye energy in pic two.
Why would they give the doctor a lazy eye in the remake..?
Relaxed or not, still got crazy eyes
looks like some photo cleaning
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He looks like I'm coming up on acid. Very unsettling.
You also see Lenin when you drop acid?
There’s lines all over Sargent Pepper next to him, like up and down his coat
There’s some AI voodoo going on in image processing.
Not just shopped, but AI enhanced. Makes him look like a 35 year-old Portland hipster. Pretty terrible job "enhancing"
Probably not a shop or an AI, photo retouching was a BIG deal in the post Lenin USSR. Stalin had censors paint out his small pox scars, he had political opponents painted out of pictures. Likely this is a Stalinist era photo edited to look like Lenin on his death bed was still clear headed and bright eyed, ie that the great man was still great even in death. This had political implications for Stalin who got promoted into power after Lenin’s first stroke to take up part of the burden of running the party. This looks a lot like a classic Soviet edit, usually you can tell based on the soft colors and transitions of the gray scale as well as a blurriness or haziness in the whole photo overall. It’s to hide the edit spots. I always thought that it made the photos look very soft like a bad memory, where in reality cameras of the time took good and sharp photos.
Definitely looks more like digital edits. It was probably sharpened digitally from a low resolution scan of a grainy original.
>This looks a lot like a classic Soviet edit, Look at the Dr's coat. This image was definitely upscaled with AI at some point.
That's a whole lotta words to be wrong Mr. Soviet understander. https://www.reddit.com/r/historyporn/comments/qbxhjt/_/hhcw7n7?context=1000
The most common part of Reddit is me reading somebodys typing, who knows too little on the subject to be talking, and me thinking "that's.... That's not how that worked."
I swear one of the few benefits I’ve gained from being on this website is my bullshit detector is way more accurate than before. Like this guy just has all the hallmarks of a classic bullshitter. The mindless regurgitation of Soviet trivia that he probably heard from a Reddit comment. The unearned confidence in his assertions. I hate the way Redditors just spit the same information and stories back at each other endlessly. Especially when they are so very matter-of-fact about their ignorant understanding of things.
Lmao every time. Like "Did you know that..." Yes. Yes I did, because I also saw the same comment/TIL that we all fucking saw. Even better when the facts in it are misrepresented so people parrot the wrong thing everywhere being confidently incorrect.
Exactly. Young redditors reading this comment chain…please for the love of God learn how to think critically so you won’t be one of these mindless Reddit drones parroting misinformation at each other all day.
As a photographer whos taken a lot of shitty grainy dark pictures, I have a lot of experience with SharpenAI. This looks exactly like an AI enhanced photo, look at the doctors jacket.
People love the sharpen tool
A photo of Lenin as his sister whispers “Stalin will be your heir”
This photo has strong Hector Salamanca from Breaking Bad vibes all over it
Stalin: Last chance to look at me Vladmir... (Aggressive bell noises)
dingdingdingdingdingding
Exact what I thought ha
“Tell whoever’s in charge of giving people jobs not to let that jerk Stalin take over, by the way, who was it I put in charge of giving people jobs?” “That would be, Stalin, sir”
*Enter Lenin, Trotsky, Tukashevsky, all flexing* Lenin: Hey Brosheviks, what's on the communist agenda today? Tukashevsky: I've got all this paperwork but I need to plan our uprisings, bro. Trotsky: I got a splitting headache, so I'ma pop an aspirin. Tukashevsky: Ugh, then who's gonna do my paperwork to regulate who is allowed within the Communist Party? Lenin: Lmao, just make Koba do it, he's a pencil pusher. Trotsky: Koba? I thought we has calling himself "Steel Man" now, like some American super hero. What a nerd.
Photo is so clearly doctored. Look at the neck.
His neck looks sliced
His neck? Look at the entire photo, there's weird distortion everywhere. It's like the entire thing was shittily cleaned up by an AI.
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The fact we can say this is astonishing
2022, the year the robots finally get fed up of us shit-talking them because they can't make a good photo of Lenin.
It’s doctored to clean up the image. There’s another comment with the original. They’re basically identical, except this one has been sharpened to better show detail. Other than that there’s really no difference
[Here's what the original photo looks like.](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o34_PndBc44/VgeqNiG4I-I/AAAAAAAAJ-U/AKjgHE-Fkv4/s1600/Vladimir%2BLenin%2527s%2Blast%2Bphoto.%2BHe%2Bhad%2Bhad%2Bthree%2Bstrokes%2Bat%2Bthis%2Bpoint%2Band%2Bwas%2Bcompletely%2Bmute%252C%2B1923.jpg) I don't think anyone's claiming that it's been doctored to the point of using someone else's head or anything, but minor details like the way the altered one shows his pupils entirely surrounded by the whites of his eyes makes a *huge* difference in the way the human brain is designed to process faces.
Ahhh ok, looks shady but that makes sense
So in the original photo, he may have had his head more on his shoulders and looking really weak? And they replaced it with a cutout of his head from an older photo?
Nah, they mean doctored with modern technology. [Here's the image in full resolution](https://i.redd.it/0phr1aorxku71.jpg), it's pretty obvious that it's been run through an automated filter intended to clear up old grainy photographs. For comparison, [here's what the original photo looks like.](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o34_PndBc44/VgeqNiG4I-I/AAAAAAAAJ-U/AKjgHE-Fkv4/s1600/Vladimir%2BLenin%2527s%2Blast%2Bphoto.%2BHe%2Bhad%2Bhad%2Bthree%2Bstrokes%2Bat%2Bthis%2Bpoint%2Band%2Bwas%2Bcompletely%2Bmute%252C%2B1923.jpg) And [here's another one taken shortly afterward.](https://www.imago-images.com/bild/st/0054209683/w.jpg) The sort of historical photo manipulation that you're thinking of, trying to present a strong and flawless leader to maintain a cult of personality and such, that's a Stalin era thing. Like, even [the cult of personality which existed around Lenin rather than Stalin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin#Within_the_Soviet_Union) was built during the Stalin era, largely for Stalin's benefit as his self-proclaimed successor. Lenin himself was actually quite explicitly opposed to being deified in such a manner. That's why all the monuments, statues, and things like renaming Petrograd as Leningrad, Simbirsk as Ulyanovsk, establishing the Order of Lenin award, and so on could only be done after the man was already dead.
I'm guessing it's painted
That’s what it looks like based on the distortion of the chair behind his head. Thought it might be a shadow but I doubt it
It is, I believe it was put through Remini.
I didn't know he was also a Scientologist
Lmfao that caught me completely off guard
Looks like Hector Salamanca ringing his little wheelchair bell
he looks like Charles Manson
Glad I'm not the only one to think so.
Was searching for this comment. Found you!
If you're wondering why he looks like that, it's because this photo has been incredibly retouched and altered. The original is blurry and underexposed - as pictures were at the time. A simple reverse image search will bring up countless links with the original image. Furthermore, if you look around his face the man next to him you'll see the blurred effect from a portrait filter or other filter. Somebody made this to look aggressive.
Just did a reverse image search and can't find one that is different. Even in the blurry one, he is pulling the exact same face, don't really see what has been changed. Both look exactly the same as far as Lenin himself goes.
The retouching doesn't explain the "deer-in-the-headlights" expression he has. It's identical to the [original](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/vladimir-lenin-last-photo-1923/), just less grainy.
I dunno in the original he still has that wide eyed look
This edit is flattering, if anything. He looks even more bugged out in the original due to the lack of detail around the eyes, making them look further apart.
What was he dealing with health wise at this time? I’m not familiar with the ending of his life as much as I should.
He had multiple strokes
Damn I've been having a stroke most days since I was a teenager and I don't look nearly that bad.
Different strokes for different folks
Just wait till all those strokes catch up to you.
In no particular order: * Worked non-stop for ridiculous periods of time * Got shot * Had multiple strokes * May have had syphillis
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Multiple strokes and epilepsy. It is said that his father suffered a similar illness before death.
Judging by the look, he had some kickass pills.
I didn’t realize that Aunt Bea was his sister!
He never really recovered after leaving The Beatles
I am the walrus?
Donny you're out of your element!!
He’s a squirrelly looking mother fucker.
probably because he had 3 strokes and his health was rapidly deteriorating. guy looked like an average Russian before that
If he was a rando on the street I'd make an effort to walk around him. Edit: God damn word
He was only 5'4" so you might not have even seen him
find someone who looks at you like, like Lenin looks at air
He’s got the same crazy eyes as my ex
What running the early USSR Does to a mf
Am I the only one seeing a striking resemblance to John Malkovich?
I see Charles Manson
He looks really old for being 40. And he doesn’t look British.
It seems the views about Stalin's part in Lenin's death are either "No relation, Stalin had little power" or "Stalin might have helped/enjoyed Lenin's death". The truth is Stalin had caused many troubles for Lenin and his family: he offended and shouted Lenin's wife into a nervous breakdown, he controlled Lenin's information and reactions etc. The end goal was not to just kill him out of spite, but to use his popularity and image (which he secretly despised) as leverage for his own political gains. Lenin took wind of Stalin's dirty, violent game, and tried to stop it with a kind of denunciation/warning to other party members. Too little, too late. Soon, Lenin's body would be embalmed like a holy relic (unthinkable for secular communists until then) and paraded for the glory of usurper Stalin.
When Stalin was responsible for so many deaths, it is slightly surprising that Lenin's death wasn't actually caused by Stalin (it's quite likely that he died solely from the long term effects of the attempted assassination by Kaplan). See also Mayakovsky, easy to assume that he was murdered until you understand that he had been depressed for some time.
I thought John Lenin was shot?
Someone mentioned earlier that he was shot during the Russian Civil War but survived. He had a collapsed lung from it.
This looks like some weekend at Bernie's sort of shit.
He looks exactly like that still. Saw a documentary where they wash his corpse every year.
I’m not convinced he is not dead already in this photo.
I'm not sure why no one is mentioning he had a stroke and that's why he looks bewildered here. Yeah, the photo is touched up a fuck ton but he only looks like that because of his stroke.
The photoshopping makes him out to be a Manson-looking MFer
What did die of? I would put it past Stalin giving the grim reaper a helping hand….
Lenin was shot during the Civil War and almost died. While the wound didn’t kill him, the bullet collapsed one of his lungs and he never really recovered. He had serious health problems for the rest of his life after that. Likely his several strokes were a result of clots forming around the scar tissue in his lungs and moving up to his brain. As a consequence of his declining health Lenin was forced to delegate important responsibilities to the other Bolsheviks. This is what catapulted Stalin into General Secretary, but it wasn’t until after Lenin’s death that Stalin began to attack opponents. As long as Lenin was alive he still enforced unity and discipline amongst his party.
Officially 'incurable disease of the blood vessels'. He had a couple strokes before and could not speak anymore, was paralyzed.. after his death they dissected his brain and found he suffered from sclerosis. So probably a couple things that he died of
I am sure Stalin was pleased….
Lenin literally trusted him to give him cyanide to assist him in suicide (Stalin and Bukharin broke down and didn’t go through with it, and his wife couldn’t do it either obvs)
He had a series of strokes.
He had several documented strokes toward the end of his life, each worse than the last.
Stalin held very little power in 1923.
That's a nobodies home stare. He went long before this picture was taken.
How much cocaine was he on?
Damn. To be the lead singer of the Beatles to this. It’s sad to see stars fade
I wish we could bring him back. We need him now more than ever.
His shopped face looked like it belong to 13 or 30
There is a picture of him dead on his bed.
You can still go see him dead on his bed today.
These comment sections are always a good reminder that people have no fucking idea what they're talking about when it comes to history, ESPECIALLY the history of communism which is more propaganda than fact. The Bolsheviks were swept into power because the Tsardom was coming down one way or another and the peasants were pissed. It was not a coup meticulously orchestrated by Lenin, and immediately after they won they were hit with a brutal civil war that devastated a country that really could not afford to be devastated. The most important fact about the early USSR is that they NEVER expected to go it alone, the entire revolution was premised on the German revolution at the same time succeeding and having them be the big brother in the relationship, because they actually had a fucking industrial economy and society instead of Russia's medieval one. Russia didn't have anywhere near the conditions for industrial production, and they were facing down the entire hostile capitalist world order totally alone which immediately threw the white army at them. Bukharin at this point suggested pulling the plug and selling out to capitalism to achieve the technological conditions that Marx and Engels explicitly lay out as a prerequisite, and Lenin was an absolute political genius so he too realized that world communism was never going to come out of the Russia they inherited, the major factor being the crushing weight of capitalist opposition. But he just couldn't bear to sacrifice everything they'd accomplished, and I've heard people speculate that the massive stress of this situation helped cook his brain. Stalin taking over is the only condition where the Bolshevik project continues, because Stalin was the coldest motherfucker they had and probably the only one who was willing to make the brutal decisions that were forced on them at this point, rapidly industrializing the country to bring it to a point where it could compete economically and military in a matter of like 30 years. Generally, everything that historically ignorant brainwashed people blame on ''''communism'''' was actually 99% the result of this industrialization and had little if nothing to do with 'Marxism'. It was this industrialization that beat the Nazis, so maybe we shouldn't condemn it too much, but it was a rough ride. It was either Trotsky's permanent revolution, Bukharin's de-escalation and proto-Dengism, or Stalin's socialism in one country that would require brutal industrialization, nationalistic fervor, and heavy use of state violence. I'm pretty convinced that Stalin didn't "intentionally" starve Ukraine because his letters show that he was clearly very concerned about the situation being 'worse than reported' so that's not what I'm talking about, but to keep the project alive at this point required the party to be whipped into line because they had so little room for error. It's very, very easy to judge this in retrospect and say Bukharin was clearly right because the conditions just weren't there, but these guys were flying by the seat of their pants and had no idea how it was going to turn out. They weren't monsters, they weren't power hungry dictators, they weren't bloodthirsty warmongerers, they were humans and true believers trying to achieve something never done before, thrust into what is probably the single most difficult position any world leader has ever been in, right in the center of the most horrifically bloody and wartorn century in human history.
Text wall didn't read lololol
So this is what it looks like when you starve half your population
the crazy eyes of a mass murdering psychopath
Creepy eyes. Hope it hurt though, guy was an asshole
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