Soviet leaders as you've never seen them before (PHOTOS)

Vladimir Lenin

What is probably engrained in everyone’s mind is the image of the leader of the proletariat as a passionate orator, delivering speech after speech from a platform. However, there are also rare photos of him as a man about town in Europe during his youth, or as a kindly-looking man in his later years.

Lenin (second from left) at the terrace of Maxim Gorky's villa on Capri, Italy

Russian State Archive of Social-Political History/russiainphoto.ru

Lenin taking notes at the Third Congress of the Comintern in the Kremlin

Karl Bulla/Sputnik

Lenin and his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya riding around in their Gorki estate near Moscow

Sputnik

Lenin in Gorki estate, 1922

Maria Ulyanova/Sputnik

Joseph Stalin

Photographs of Stalin fell into a special category and were used for propaganda purposes. Many of them were never shown to the people and it was forbidden to take photos of him when he was off his guard. Still, some shots showing the ruthless figure of Stalin as an ordinary person have survived to this day.

Joseph Stalin in Uzbek national clothes, 1930s

MAMM/MDF/russiainphoto.ru

Stalin (center) and Anastas Mikoyan (right) taking rest

Sputnik

Stalin playing Russian folk game 'Gorodki', early 1920s

Personal archive of E.Kovalenko/Sputnik

Joseph Stalin, Sergei Kirov and Stalin's daughter Svetlana, 1930s

Personal archive of E.Kovalenko/Sputnik

Stalin and Churchill during the Yalta Conference

Getty Images

Stalin laughing (!) on top of Lenin's Mausoleum

Getty Images

Nikita Khrushchev

Khrushchev can be described as the most relaxed leader as far as his own appearance was concerned. Most of the jokes, funny stories and anecdotes about Soviet leaders involve him - the story of how he used the expression “I’ll show you Kuzma’s mother” [the rough equivalent of “I’ll show you what's what!”] during a UN address speaks volumes. The general secretary of the USSR Communist Party was a very spontaneous person, and even during official visits didn’t shy away from unfamiliar cameras.

Nikita Khrushchev as the First Secretary of Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party, 1935

Boris Ignatovich/MAMM/MDF/russiainphoto.ru

Prime-Minister of Indian state Jammu and Kashmir, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, and Nikita Khrushchev during his visit to India in 1955. Mutual feeding, a Kashmiri hospitality custom.

Dmitry Baltermants/МАММ/MDF/russiainphoto.ru

Nikita Khrushchev taking a sunbath on a boat

MAMM/MDF/russiainphoto.ru

Nikita Khrushchev, Roman Karmen and an unknown woman with a child

Lev Petrov/MAMM/MDF/russiainphoto.ru

Leonid Brezhnev

Brezhnev’s most iconic photos - showing him kissing the leaders of friendly states on the lips - is immortalized in graffiti on the Berlin Wall [kissing DDR leader Erich Honecker]. He was one of the most “senior” leaders, hence his informal photos often show him on vacation and in the company of his grandchildren and great grandchildren. 

Leonid Brezhnev in a sport suit drinking tea on his dacha

Vladimir Musoelyan/MAMM/MDF/TASS/russiainphoto.ru

Leonid Brezhnev and his great granddaughter Galya

Vladimir Musoelyan/MAMM/MDF/TASS/russiainphoto.ru

Leonid Brezhnev in a banya

Getty Images

Mikhail Gorbachev

In the era of glasnost and perestroika ushered in by this leader, it was already difficult to hide any photographs from the people. In any case, Gorbachev behaved pretty immaculately. Almost always.

Mikhail Gorbachev (L) and French film star Gerard Depardieu at their meetin gduring a film festival in Moscow, 1993

Reuters

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev puts a cowboy hat on backwards during a visit to the State Fair of Texas in Dallas, 1998

AP

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