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This is Mikhail G. Sokolov's painting of Lenin's arrival at the Finland Station in 1917. It was painted two decades later--so, not surprisingly, someone is portrayed who was never on the train...

Your challenge is to make this painting accurate. (In other words, Stalin really does join Lenin in exile and really does return with him on the "sealed train" to the Finland Station...)

A thought that occurs to me about Sokolov's painting: Walter Lippmann wrote in *A Preface to Morals* about the conventions a relgious artist in the Middle Ages was required to observe:

"Having been given his subject matter and his theme, he was bound further by strict conventions as to how sacred subjects were to be depicted. Jesus on the Cross had to be shown with his mother on the right and St. John on the left. The centurion pierced his left side. His nimbus contained a cross, as the mark of divinity, whereas the saints had the nimbus without a cross. Only God, the angels, Jesus Christ, and the Apostles could be represented with bare feet; it was heretical to depict the Virgin or the Saints with bare feet. The purpose of these conventions was to help the spectator identify the figures in the picture. Thus St. Peter was given a short beard and a tonsure; St. Paul was bald and had a long beard. It is possible that these conventions, which were immensely intricate, were actually codified in manuals which were passed on from master to apprentice in the workshops." https://books.google.com/books?id=gfc7AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA99

Might it not be possible to write an analogous manual for Soviet "socialist realist" artists under Stalin dealing with the iconography of Lenin and Stalin? Probably there was even a standard angle at which Lenin held his famous cap. And when Lenin and Stalin were painted in proximity, the impression had to be given that Stalin was *at least* Lenin's equal--maybe something more. As Catherine Merridale writes in *Lenin on the Train*, p. 268:

"Apart from Lenin himself, only one character has been allowed to look out of the picture in full face. His gaze bores out of the dark train...With no regard for awkward facts, Sokolov has placed Stalin among the illustrious passengers. Indeed, although the man was never in Lenin's carriage at all, Sokolov has put Stalin one step above the late leader, suggesting that he could be a mentor or chaperone...A mere glance at the picture is enough to show that one day the bouquets and glinting steel will be for Stalin, rightfully. The succession is direct and utterly secure." https://books.google.com/books?id=H9klDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA268
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