20 Mind-Blowing Facts About Joseph Stalin

17. He Was The First Public Figure To "Airbrush" His Photos

[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Long before the days of tucking in Madonna's bingo-wings and making Kardashian posteriors a less cellulose place to live, Joseph Stalin was carefully managing his personal bran with clever image manipulation. Paranoid about the permanent scars he had on his face from the smallpox he had suffered as a child he'd routinely request that alterations were made during the development process.

That's fair enough, but having portrait artists reportedly shot for creating unflattering images of him is a little bit overboard. So is scrubbing once over comrades-turned-political-rivals from history.

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Managing Editor

WhatCulture's Managing Editor and Chief Reporter | Previously seen in Vice, Esquire, FourFourTwo, Sabotage Times, Loaded, The Set Pieces, and Mundial Magazine