Lyin' like a rug

Mason Oller (whose website makes the Drunkablog's look quite sick--check out the photos) sent me a link to a page of Soviet-era "propaganda carpets," and they are pure downhome Party slavishness.

Here's Leon "Leaky" Trotsky. A commenter here once insisted that Trotsky was murdered with a pick-axe rather than an ice-axe. Here's a fascinating article on Trotsky's killer (who was made a Hero of the Soviet Union for the murder) in the no doubt peer-reviewed journal Shat Upon (#6).


Doesn't look anything like his picture, does he? (Update: it doesn't look like Trotsky because it's Kalinin, president of the Supreme Soviet in the 30s, as several strange people point out in comments on the page.)
Next up, Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.


Kissable: he's a Hero of the Soviet Union of my heart!
And Breshnev:


Three-time Hero of the Soviet Union? That's pushing it, Lenny.
And finally, one of the Beatles:


John Lennon, Hero of the Soviet Union for Imagine.