(Original photo. Photo from this website.)

This is one of the most infamous photos from World War II. It’s two Soviet soldiers hoisting a flag over the bombed-out remains of the Reichstag. It was revelaed later that not only was the photo staged, but apparently both soldiers in the photos had wristwatches covering their arms, likely looted from German civilians on their way to the Reichstag. Those watches were worth a lot of money, but to sidestep Stalin’s anger, the photographer doctored the photos so the stolen watches weren’t visible. The photographer, Yevgeny Khaldei, knew evidence of Soviet looting would not go over well with the man in charge, so he took care of the issue.

While he was removing the wristwatches (which you can see if you look closely at the photo above, but I will show in detail in a moment), he darkened the smoke, made the whole scene a bit more dramatic, and a bit moodier.

(Doctored photo. Photo from this website.)

Photo editing in the USSR didn't start with this photographer. Rather, he was following a storied history since Stalin came to power in 1929. While occasionally I see people on social media pass around obviously edited photos of Stalin with those around him carefully disappearing in each shot, it's never taken too seriously. Back in Stalin's day, however, it was cutting edge. This was an important cog in the propaganda wheel, as it were. This manipulation and editing of not only himself, but the people around him and even situations like the one pictured above was one of the ways Stalin kept his thumb on what the Soviet people, as well as the wider world.

Image showing the watches removed. From here.

Keep in mind, there was no photoshop back then, so this manipulation took very real effort and careful thought on the parts of those doing the doctoring. It wasn't some vanity project, but rather something that people did with a purpose, and, as you'll see, over time, it became something many people in the USSR did voluntarily. Afraid of what would happen if they were caught with a photo of a person who was out of favor in their house, be it in a magazine or a newspaper or any other means, may Soviet citizens began scratching out images they might find in their own house, in their own magazines, on their own time in an effort to not fall out of favor, or get in trouble.

So how did they do this? Apparently it was a job for the art department of publishing houses at the time, and it was all hands-on work that required a lot of attention to detail and dexterity. Commonly used tools were a scalpel, glue, and an air brush. Publishers would be contacted by individuals who worked for Stalin, and informed about who was the enemy of the week. Then, the art department would go to work at getting rid of that person in all the photos and publication they had.

Image of Stalin and Yezhov, the head of the NKVD. Yezhov was ousted, tried in a secret court, and executed, at which point Stalin had him removed from photos. Extra water was added into the picture where Yezhov had been standing. From this website.

Nikolai Yezhov was the man who oversaw Stalin's Great Purge in 1937-38. When he was ousted by Lavrenty Beria, Yezhov was arrested, tried as an enemy of the people in a secret court, where he duly confessed to a laundry list of crimes that would make him just that. He was executed in February of 1940. Soon thereafter, he was erased from public memory.

Stalin didn't just deal with current day issues, though. He often went back and carefully edited history as well.

Leon Trotsky and Stalin had a long running feud. After Trotsky was ousted from the Soviet Union and went abroad, Stalin had all the photos with Trotsky in them altered to remove the man.

(Image showing Trotsky in the first photo, and Trotsky removed in the second. This is during Lenin's famous speech in Sverdlov Square. Image from this website.)

He even went so far as to have some of the historical record prettied up a bit. Made a little more dramatic. For example:

(Image of a demonstration during the 1917 revolution. In the first photo, the flag is unreadable and the sign is for a clock shop. In the second, the sign says, "You'll take what's yours through struggle" and the flag says, "Down with the monarchy!" From this website.)

And it went as far as Stalin's public image as well. His portrait was everywhere, but he was very picky about how he wanted to be portrayed. Stalin suffered from smallpox as a child, and had scars all over his face. However, in most images you see of him, his scars have been airbrushed out, his hair has been smoothed, and his attraction level has generally been increased.

(Image from here)

Why Stalin did this can be attributed to many things. On the one hand, if you control historical, in a lot of ways you control and define truth. By systematically deleting people from the record, he's basically erasing their existence. Stalin had an image to protect, and keeping pictures around with people he didn't find appealing anymore didn't do him any favors. By editing bits of history, making a crowd larger, getting rid of someone like Trotsky in photos, maybe making him look like he was sitting a bit closer to Lenin and was a bit taller than he ended up being, he was both sending a message, tailoring what people would or could know, and making sure history, the important story, stayed exactly how he wanted it to be.

And while we might laugh about him airbrushing out his smallpox scars, there's a reason for that too. While I will argue that part of it was probably for vanity, part of it was also because he was the leader of the USSR and he needed to appear to strong, tall, and healthy, with a smolder. He needed to be the friend and confidant, the father of the people, the one you trusted. Not the short, scarred man he truly was. Public image, to a dictator, is everything.

In the end, if you can erase your enemies, alter the past, you can transform the future. History and the present became unreliable as Stalin proved just how easily it could be edited. He used his muscles to flex his propaganda machine, and through pectoral evidence, we can see just how he drove a wedge in the idea of "truth" and redefined it.

And lest you think Stalin was the only person doing this. it happens all the time. I urge you all to take a look at this absolutely incredible website.

Benito Mussolini, the doctored photo is on the left, the original on the right. He had the man holding the horse's reigns removed. From this website.

Mao Zedong, AKA Chairman Mao, had this image doctored after he fell out of favor with Po Ku. Image from here.

Hitler had Goebbles removed from this photo. Image from here.

If you think it is just dictators and tyrants who have done this, it's not. I've found some wild doctored photos in the writing of this post, from Abraham Lincoln, to Civil War generals, to Winston Churchill. As I also, interestingly, learned, Kim Jong Un apparently uses photoshop to make his ears smaller.

When people discovered they could manipulate photographic evidence, they did so, and as technology evolves, it gets easier and easier. What we see with Stalin, however, is how manipulation of the historical record was used to erase enemies, change how people perceived the government, himself, important events, and more, and he did so on a vast, incredible scale.

As History says, "But as Stalin shows, manipulating photos... can be a way of literally erasing today's political enemies from tomorrow's picture of history--and making the future as unreliable as a present filled with propaganda and lies."

Here we see the often fraught relationship between truth and politics.

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On Soviet Photo Doctoring: The Editing of History

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