Stalin: Psoriasis and Facial Scars (from Smallpox)
- Joseph Stalin (1878-1953; Ioseb Besarionis Dze Jugashvili; Ио́сиф Виссарио́нович Ста́лин) was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid 1920s to his death in 1953.
- He had smallpox in childhood and at the age of 7 which left him badly scarred. The marks are meticulously hidden by the censorship. However they are visible in one of his early speeches (see picture below)
- He also had psoriasis. Dr Kazakow was promoted when his psoriasis disappeared at the same time that he was given « lysate ». However when the psoriasis flared he was sent to the firing squad !
- There are many other alterations which here done by the controlled centralized propaganda-based media:
- he is often portrayed as big and majestic even though he was quite small (5 feet 4 inches or 163cm)
- After a carriage accident in his youth, his left arm was shortened and stiffened at the elbow
- A Soviet work done in 1974 analyzing his legacy concludes in the following way: « J. Stalin had held, since 1922, the post of General Secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee. He had made important contributions to the implementation of the Party’s policy of socialist construction in the USSR, and he had won great popularity by his relentless fight against the anti-Leninist groups of the Trotskyites and Bukharinites. Since the early 1930s…he abused his position of General Secretary of the Party Central Committee more and more frequently, violating the principle of collective leadership and making independent decisions on important Party and state issues…personal shortcomings of which Lenin had warned manifested themselves with greater and greater insistence…led to unjustified restrictions of democracy, gross violations of socialist legality and repressions against prominent Party, government and military leaders and other people. »
Contributors:
Dr Curdin CONRAD – dermatologist. Lausanne Switzerland
Dr Christophe HSU – dermatologist. Geneva, Switzerland
Bibliography
Scar picture: The Smithsonian Channel document (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcCJ2kcLpSk)
USSR Propaganda picture
Brackman R. The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life. Routledge 2004
Manfred, A.Z. (ed.). (1974) A Short History of the World in Two Volumes Vol. II. Moscow: Progress Publishers. pp. 108–109.
Bos WH et al. Joseph Stalin’s psoriasis: its treatment and the consequences. Cutis. 1997 Apr;59(4):197-9.
