# DID The Soviets Routinely Alter Photographs/Re **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 25, 2004, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-soviets-routinely-alter-photographs-re/252239 "2004-06-25T21:14:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-soviets-routinely-alter-photographs-re/252239/1 "2004-06-25T21:14:18Z")
Many authors writing about the old Soviet Union claimed that the communist governemnet regularly retouched photographs and rewrote history. For example, the cosmonauts were frequently photographed together…but later versions of these pictures sometimes showed people missing, or people added. Ones story I heard was that Dr. Sergey Koroloyev (the father of the soviet manned space program) had falled out of favor with Kruschev. Photos containing him were then altered to remove his image. I also read once that the “GREAT SOVIET ENCYCLOPEDIA” (the Soviet equivilent of the Encyclopedia Brittanica) once mailed out replacement pages, which the owners were instructed to paste in over the existing pages. Are these stories true? Or was this just anti-Russian propaganda? I can’t imagine why such effort would be invested to fool people…I can also imagine that the Russian people must have been highly skeptical about the news emanating from their governemnet,with this kind of stuff going on. One last question: I believe that the Russians released some very grainy pictures of their “moon rocket” (the rocket that was to carry cosmonauts to the moon). After the Apollo program success, the Russian dropped the wholeidea…and all of the pictures of this rocket mysteriously dissipeared-can anybody verify this story? A good source ofinfo is james Oberg’s “RED STAR IN ORBIT”-he does show several examplesofthese retouched pictures. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-soviets-routinely-alter-photographs-re/252239/2 "2004-06-25T21:20:17Z")
Oh no, retouching or completely butchering photographs was an all-too-common phenomenon of Russian life after the rise of Stalin. There’s a great book out, called _The Commissar Vanishes_, that’s a real showcase of such things. It may actually be out of print now, but if you can find the hardcover edition it’s well worth the read. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-soviets-routinely-alter-photographs-re/252239/3 "2004-06-25T21:33:02Z")
Do you remember that famous photo of Lenin, standing on the wooden platform with his arm upraised, speaking to a crowd? Stalin and Trotsky are both standing near him. During Stalin’s reign, he had Trotsky edited out of the photo. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-soviets-routinely-alter-photographs-re/252239/4 "2004-06-25T21:37:26Z")
It wasn’t just photographs. The Soviet Union also doctored maps as well. For decades, you couldn’t get an accurate map of any major Soviet city in the USSR. You _could_, however, get very accurate maps of every major Soviet city from AAA in the US. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-soviets-routinely-alter-photographs-re/252239/5 "2004-06-25T22:08:32Z")
There was an article in the _Los Angeles Times_ a few years ago about a woman(?) who did a lot of the “editing” of old Soviet photographs. They definitely gave the impression it was a very routine thing, and showed several before-and-after images of her work. Can’t remember much more than that, though. ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-soviets-routinely-alter-photographs-re/252239/6 "2004-06-26T00:07:30Z")
[This](http://www.lostcosmonauts.com/erased.htm) page shows some examples of cosmonaut related vanishings. The pictures are legit, but the site’s claims that the Soviets were covering up numerable fatal space missions isn’t (see the [Master’s](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030117.html) column). ---
**Author:** ![chukhung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-soviets-routinely-alter-photographs-re/252239/7 "2004-06-26T02:10:50Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > There’s a great book out, called _The Commissar Vanishes_ If you can’t get your hands on a a copy of _The Commissar Vanishes_, take a look at this website with photos taken from the book: [http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar\_vanishes/main.htm](http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar_vanishes/main.htm) There’s lots more in the book, but you can see some interesting examples there. Not only were people airbrushed out, some were montaged in (for example, to make it look like there was a huge crowd of mourners around Stalin’s casket) and in some cases, the retouching seems to have been for apparently esthetic reasons (so a telescope in the foreground of photo doesn’t look like a gun pointed at the head of Lenin’s sister). ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-soviets-routinely-alter-photographs-re/252239/8 "2004-06-26T02:18:13Z")
[Here’s the one I was talking about.](http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar_vanishes/9_10.htm) ---
**Author:** ![habs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecae2f/32.png) [@habs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/habs)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-soviets-routinely-alter-photographs-re/252239/9 "2004-06-26T04:18:51Z")
It wasn’t just the former Soviet Union that altered photographs. Most of the ex-communist satellite states also touched up photographs, most notably Nicolae Ceasescu’s “Securitate” (Secret Police) services. Ion Pacepa’s book, [Red Horizons](http://www.globecorner.com/t/t36/18127.php), gives a good account of the widespread doctoring of photographs intended to promote Ceasescu’s policies (and silence his opponents). ---
**Author:** ![don\_Jaime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b4bc9f/32.png) [@don\_Jaime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_Jaime)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-soviets-routinely-alter-photographs-re/252239/10 "2004-06-26T05:09:12Z")
The guy editted out of the _Great Soviet Encyclopedia_ was Laventri Beria, chief of the secret police. Beria was a vicious killer and serial rapist, but his position made him a likely successor to Stalin. Luckily, he was outmaneuvered by Nikita Khrushchev and ultimately executed. He was replaced by an article on the Bering Sea. Korolyev’s identity was a state secret until his death. So he may have been airbrushed out of some pictures, but he never fell from grace. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-soviets-routinely-alter-photographs-re/252239/11 "2004-06-26T05:38:47Z")
There’s a well known picture of Nazis standing trial at Nuremberg being guarded by black American soldiers. There is also a well known Russian example where the American guards were changed to Soviet ones. ---
**Author:** ![markdiscordia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c6cbf5/32.png) [@markdiscordia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markdiscordia)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-soviets-routinely-alter-photographs-re/252239/12 "2004-06-26T10:51:13Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > It wasn’t just photographs. The Soviet Union also doctored maps as well. For decades, you couldn’t get an accurate map of any major Soviet city in the USSR. You _could_, however, get very accurate maps of every major Soviet city from AAA in the US. 😃 Chinese maps during the 1960s war with India showed the Chinese border extending as far as the Bay of Bengal. This gave rise to the wonderful term “cartographic aggression,” possibly coined by Nehru himself. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-soviets-routinely-alter-photographs-re/252239/13 "2004-06-26T12:45:15Z")
Yes, this did indeed go on. I have an excellent book called ‘Making People Disappear’ by Alain Jaubert which provides countless examples from the Soviet Union and elsewhere, and the stories behind them. The book’s subtitle is ‘An Amazing Chronicle of Photographic Deception’. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-soviets-routinely-alter-photographs-re/252239/14 "2004-06-26T18:22:42Z")
Not only did this go on, but it directly inspired Winston Smith’s occupation in _1984_.