Product Description
Old Communist Leaders. The anonymous artist has tackled his or her representation of the former Soviet leaders by caricaturing them. Mikhail Gorbachev is wearing a red suit emblazoned a banner with yellow letters spelling out President in Russian. Boris Yeltsin wears a tie with the colors of the Russian flag. Leonid Brezhnev wears a brown suit and a yellow tie and a set of stars and ribbons on his left side, Stalin has red (blood?) on the lapels of his green army fatgues and Lenin has his ubiquitous red Communist party ribbon. Artist has written "Made in Russia" in black paint on the red bottom of the first piece. Nice caricatures, set is in about fine condition. 6½" down to 2". 1 only.
Most of the the early "Gorby" (an mildly affectionate name for "Gorbachev") dolls were made by talented amateurs in the Soviet Union. Mikhail Gorbachev transformed the USSR by unleashing a pair of political, and cultural, waves. The first was "Гласность" (Glasnost, i.e, openness) and "Перестройка" (Perestroika, i.e., rebuilding). These shock waves led to unrestrained freedom of expression. This set leading off with Gorbachev indicates that it was made before 1991, when Yeltsin was elected, and Gorbachev demoted to second place.
