1920s Trotsky memorabilia

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Back in 2008, Mansur Mirovalev wrote a piece for NBC News on a curious leftover from the late Cold War era:

The Soviet Union may be in the dustbin of history, but there’s one place the socialist utopia lives on: cyberspace.

And no, Mirovalev wasn’t talking about this blog, or Richard Seymour’s Lenin’s Tomb, Roland Boer’s Stalin’s Moustache, or Martin Gittins’ magnificent Kosmograd website.

He had something quite different in mind.

Namely:

Sixteen years after the superpower’s collapse, websites ending in the Soviet “.su” domain name have been rising — registrations increased 45 percent this year alone. Bloggers, entrepreneurs and die-hard communists are all part of a small but growing online community resisting repeated efforts to extinguish the online Soviet outpost.

That’s right — you can have your very own Soviet Union domain name. And cheap, too. Most go for under $50. Get ’em while they’re hot!

But the story doesn’t end there. Douglas La Rocca, a fellow member of Platypus and an enterprising chap in general, has bought up the rights to trotsky.su — Trotsky [dot] Soviet Union. At first I didn’t believe him, because I figured that one of the countless Trotsky sects would have beaten him to it. But sure enough, he got it.

In fact, that’s where he posted his excellent poster design for Platypus’ upcoming International Convention (register here!). Maybe someday, if he’s strapped for cash, he could always auction off the site name to the highest sectarian bidder. For now, though, I think he’ll hang onto it.

Anyway, in honor of his recent acquisition, here’s a collection of rare memorabilia — portraits, sculptures, photomontages, and even coffee mugs — representing the Bolshevik revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky, all from the 1920s.  Enjoy!

Gallery

Annenkov, Trotsky (1921)

Trotsky talking with a group of soldiers

Iurii Annenkov, Portrait of Leon Trotsky with Picassos in the background (1920)

Annenkov’s portrait of Trotsky on the cover of Time Magazine

Iurii Annenkov, Cubo-futurist portrait of Trotsky (1926)

Mikhail Adamovich, porcelain Trotskii mugs (1923)

Mosei Nappelheim – Signed photograph of Leon Trotskii as commander of the Red Army

Lenin, Trotskii, Dzherzhinskii in February 1918

Commemorative photomontage of Trotsky’s journeys, 1921

Iurii Annenkov, Portrat of Trotsky (1922)

Signed photograph of Trotsky (1924)

Colored drawing of Leon Trotsky, 1925

Trotsky rides in the back of a motorcar in Petrograd, 1918

Commissar Trotsky on the cover of Time Magazine

Trotsky poses with some troops on the stairs

Brest-Litovsk treaty, February 9, 1918

Gallery view of the Russian exhibition at the Venice Biennale, 1924

Pavel Shillingovskii’s portrait of Trotsky, 1918

Klement Red’ko, Uprising 1924-1925, featuring Lenin, Trotsky, and the other Old Bolsheviks

Clare Sheridan, Bust of Trotsky, 1922

People’s commissars, 1918

Sergei Pichugin, Portrait of Trotskii (1923)

Cubo-futurist rendering of Trotsky, uncredited (probably Annenkov, 1922)

Iurii Annenkov, Cubo-futurist portrait of Trotsky (1923)