I’m reading a graphic novel on Rosa Luxemburg at the moment. I won’t go into it too much because I’m not finished and will write a piece on it when I do. There is just something worth mentioning now and it is the way Socialist intellectuals of that time look and are portrayed. There is a recurring theme in images and film that they all look a little like Lenin and Trotsky combined. For context Rosa Luxemburg lived at the beginning of the twentieth century and was deeply involved in the left wing intelligentsia of Germany and Poland. Possibly more places but I haven’t got there yet and my knowledge of her is not detailed enough yet to go out on a limb and make too many statements. Mixing in this world when it was really beginning to come to life with genuine importance she must have mixed with many ‘Lenotskys’ as I shall call them.
The look then is Lenin’s slightly round face, balding hair and goaty mixed with a little hair to signify Trotsky, similar facial hair and his glasses. Perhaps more of a Lenin but with glasses and a Trotsky air to him. That feels closer. Regardless there always seems to be this same character, it’s like the stock image graphic artists go for when they want to represent the archetype left wing intellectual. Of course this just could be how people looked at the time, and Lenin and Trotsky were merely fashionistas of the age, early twentieth century revolutionary hipsters if you like. The glasses would probably have been a style, the hair can’t be help and the goaty like the glasses could be a fashion. The soft accountant like look because they weren’t working men toiling in the field and under the sun. Maybe it’s not as straight forward as I’m trying to portray it.
One of the reasons I enjoy this image is that I have met a few people who looked arguably similar in features and style who also happened to be left-wing and saw themselves as intellectuals. Probably less Lenin but Trotsky has certainly captured the attention of those trying to style themselves on someone but that could just be because nobody wants to style themselves on a bald middle aged man. There’s definitely something less romantic about that than a revolutionary hero who died with an ice pick through his skull. It was a remarkable time in history, makes life seem rather mundane by comparison. Even if it did look like there were accountants everywhere.
Observations and Misunderstandings 