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Un Portrait de Staline. Laurent Lévy. Review.
Laurent Lévy Un portrait de Staline. Aragon, Picasso et le parti communiste. La Fabrique. 2026.
On the 5th of March 1953 Stalin died. “He personified, not only the USSR and the Soviet people, but Communism itself.” The General Secretary of the French Communist Party, Maurice Thorez, had famously declared himself to be “the best disciple of Stalin in France”. In 1949 a whole train of gifts was sent from France to celebrate the 70th birthday of the ruler of the Kremlin.
When news of Stalin’s death reached France, leaders and members of the Parti communiste français (250,000 to over 400,000 members during this decade) – unaware of what Laurent Lévy Calls the “Shakespearian scenes” around the Leader’s passing – were seized with emotion. L’Humanité, featured a massive portrait of Stalin on March 6, 1953, with a stark, sombre headline announcing the death. On Tuesday, March 10, 1953, a huge public evening of homage was held at the Vel d’Hiv (Vélodrome d’Hiver) in Paris.
The one-time Surrealist, and poet, Lois Aragon, edited the Communist Party cultural journal Les Lettres françaises, (from 1953 to 1972). He had the genial idea of commissioning a portrait of the deceased Father of the Peoples by the world most celebrated artist, and Communist, Pablo Picasso. The design (above), drawn with fusian, (charcoal), was not the painter’s first idea. This it seems was the picture Stalin as a Greek hero on a cloud. But that, he had concluded, stumbled on how to draw the ‘zizi’ (willy), either classically discreet, or large as a Minotaur’s. (P 72 -3)
The did not receive good reception from Communist activists, or the Party leadership, An ““incroyable vague d’indignation” swept the Party. Laurent Lévy describes how the reaction of activists was soon part of n “orchestrated campaign by the leadership. Very shortly this statement was issued: “The Secretariat of the French Communist party categorically disapproves the publication in Les Lettres Francaises of March 12 of the portrait of the Great Stalin drawn by Comrade Picasso.”
The Affaire du portrait de Staline obliged Aragon to publish a raft of it critical letters and was swept up in the campaign by leading PCF member, Auguste Lecœur, to defend ‘socialist realism’. Maurice Thorez ordered by telegram from his convalescent home, Barvikha Sanatorium near Moscow., where he was recuperating from a stroke, to put a stop to this “ridiculous debate”. Lévy observes that the PCF chief leant towards a “Front populaire” attitude towards intellectuals and artists, embracing their support, not staking out a ‘class against class ‘ line based on the ‘proletarian ethos’.
The affair served as the backdrop for the great “discussion on painting” in La Nouvelle Critique at the end of 1953 and in the spring of 1954. This pitted what was known as “realism” against “formalism.”
Perhaps one of the most interesting political aspects of Un portrait de Staline is the account of Aragon’s gnawing dissatisfaction with Stalinism. His dislike of the anti-Semitism surrounding the ‘Doctors’ Plot’ grew. It was heightened by his Sister-in-law, the Jewish, and Russian resident, Lili Brik – whose family had had four members shot in 1937 – lived in “permanent fear” (P 121).
Elsa Triolet, his wife, published in 1957, Le Monument. The novel is about a sculptor, Lewka, who is commissioned by the government to create a massive, monumental statue of Stalin. Lewka is conflicted over strict, Party-mandated, artistic standards (socialist realism) while trying to maintain his own vision.
In 1966 the French Party accepted the right to absolute artistic freedom. Lévy equally notes that the book had a great impact on Jean Kanapa, one-time right-hand man of PCF leader George Marchais, opponent of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and a leading French supporter of Eurocommunism. Aragon, Un Portrait de Staline concludes, played an “essential role” in defending artistic freedom. This concise book is not just about the Affaire du Portait de Staline. It illuminates the deeper tragedy of Stalinism.
*****
See also this Review: L’art, le peuple et le parti. par Théo Roumier
#Art #History #painting #politics #Stalinism
@newsletterTF USA 2026 seems to have a lot in common with the USSR circa 1938.
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https://digpodcast.org/2026/04/19/pre-history-of-the-cold-war/
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