1This cartoon is a satire on the portrait of Stalin painted by Pablo Picasso. Stalin died on 5 March 1953 after a cerebral hemorrhage in his dacha at Kountsevo not far from Moscow. He was 74 years old and had wielded monolithic power in the Communist world. His funeral in Moscow on 9 March gave rise to scenes of collective hysteria which brought about the death of hundreds of onlookers, trampled to death or suffocated.

2The shock of Stalin’s death reverberated throughout the Communist world and France joined in the general hysteria. The Parisian headquarters of the French Communist Party were entirely draped in black. On 12 March, at the request of its editor, Louis Aragon, Les Lettres françaises, the Communist cultural weekly published a tribute by Picasso to the great Stalin. The departed autocrat was portrayed in youthsome tones, fresh and rosy. Initially, Aragon was relieved. Picasso could have, but did not, portray Stalin as a hero, and as the heroic mode requires, as a nude on a cloud. Nevertheless, Picasso’s tribute was considered a scandal. Protests poured in, immediately and spontaneously. “a horrible drawing,” “an indecent caricature,” “appalling,” “ridiculous,” disrespectful,” “outrageous,” a hideous portrait,” were some of the reactions. Picasso and Aragon had committed a sacrilege by representing him other than as a reassuring elderly man, eternal father of his peoples, in short, in a way which did not correspond to the canons of socialist realism.

3The indignation of the Party was unanimous. The Party secretariat categorically condemned the publication of this unrealistic and unsympathetic drawing:

4“Without putting into question the sentiments of the great artist Picasso, known to all for his affection for the working class, the Secretariat of the French Communist Party regrets that comrade Aragon, a member of the Central Committee and editor of the Lettres françaises who, let it be noted, fights courageously for the development of realistic art, allowed this publication.”

5To repair the damage the Lettres françaises were summoned to publish the letters of disapproval. As for Aragon, he was obliged to offer excuses.

6“[O]ne can invent flowers, goats, bulls and even men or women, but our Stalin cannot be invented because in the case of Stalin, an invention – be it of Picasso himself – is necessarily inferior to reality, incomplete and therefore false.”