This YouTube video is a collection of movie clips of all the communist leaders of Russia, from V.I. Lenin to Mikhail Gorbachev:
It’s great to see film footage of the early guys especially. To see them moving around adds a little zip to their otherwise static historical personas. With the exception of Lenin (that rascal), Mikhail Gorbachev is the only one who looks like he’s got a little pep in his step. Everyone else looks like a mean old man.
Of course, Joseph Stalin was a mean old man, perhaps from birth. In recent years, declassified Soviet documents have confirmed his meanness.
And poor Leonid Brezhnev. Can’t someone get those caterpillars off his forehead?
For more on Russian communist leaders:
The Who2 biography of V.I. Lenin.
The Who2 biography of .
The Who2 biography of Nikita Khrushchev.
The Who2 biography of Mikhail Gorbachev.