In a recent study of Soviet paintings Matthew Cullerne Bown treats Zaporozhe Cossacks by Repin as a model for socialist realist works and points to Stalin's strong preference for images of male camaraderie. In his attempt to explain this taste in art Bown employs psychological arguments. He writes: Stalin's liking for such works was perhaps a reflection of his own dreams; he sometimes strove-not very sucessfully-to create a 'hearty' impression on colleagues, and soir6es at his dacha were often the scene of womanless dancing.1 I think that the fact that socialist realist art prefers male characters should not be explained in psychological terms. Similarly: any sociological account that links Stalinist culture with the suppresion of feminist movements in the twenties and regards the thrirties as a throwback to the age of patriarchal inequality (as it is known, in 1930 the women's department of the Party was closed down) would appear to be false. Masculinity, as discussed here, requires an ideological interpretation. Womanlessness reflects the gender relations assigned to the new, Communist world, namely-the primacy of high-spirited masculine relations over the traditional, heteroerotic love. Male fellowship plays an important role in Stalinist mythology. The friendship shared by two geniuses (Marx-Engels, Lenin-Stalin, Stalin-Gorki) were interpreted as perfect union which gave birth to a great idea (Marxism, Leninism, Socialist Realism). Zaporozhe Cossacks, a famous picture painted at the end of the nineteenth century, depicts a group of male characters preparing a letter to the Turkish sultan. The composition and the idea of Repin's work were duplicated many times during the Soviet period. The best known composition based on Zaporozhe Cossacks seems to be Iurii Neprintsev's A Rest after Battle (1951), which received the Prize. Describing the mental picture of one of the main characters of his painting, Neprintsev emphasises that: he is bold, inventive, fights well and is capable of completely forgetting himself when a friend needs a hand (emphasis mine--W TJ.2 What is the idea of the work? A Rest after Battle shows the soldiers and officers relaxing after their duty is done. They sit together around a young man, who-we may suppose-is telling a funny story. Telling the story is a form of creative act, one that in Repin's work was expressed as the collective composition a letter to the Turkish sultan. Neprintsev depicts the close relationship between the soldiers, who-in turn-represent new people. There are two predominant features within the picture. One is masculinity (evoked by qualities considered to be typical of men: their appearance and occupation) and creativity. They are boldness and inventiveness as Neprintsev terms them. These features may be easily found in many visual works of art in the Stalinist period. An extremely interesting example is furnished by the work Military Cadets designing a Wall Newspaper (known also as Hero of the Soviet Union N.V. ludin visiting KomSoMol Tank-Troops), painted by Aleksandr Laktionov in 1938. There are some similarities between the three pictures we have been discussing. In one respect, however, Laktionov's work seems to be distinctive. All the compositions combine boldness and inventiveness. They depict a group of smiling military men (Cossacks, soldiers, tankmen or cadets), engaged in creative action (writting a letter, telling a story, preparing wall newspapers). Laktionov's painting provides an additional component: the of Lenin and hanging on the wall in the background. This within an image suggests the supreme degree of male friendship, the quasi-heavenly union, repeated in an imperfect way by the young cadets in the foreground. As Bown observes, Stalin was regularly dressed by painters in white, a symbol of moral purity. It was also a signifier of heaven itself...3 In Laktionov's inner both figures wear white, military-style uniforms. …