Graham Budgett, Socialist Realism, 1986

SOCIALIST-REALISM purportedly concerns itself with historical truth and not artifice; it is however much more than a simple mirror. The relationship of socialist-realism to history is that of the ink-blot to its print. In the act of recording in this manner the blot itself is radically altered, assuming characteristics of the print for all subsequent viewers.

Socialist-realism is the style of this official portrait of Soviet leader Mikhael Gorbachev. See how the artist has busied himself only with the outermost surface of his subject; no attempt to express a psychology of either sitter or painter is made. He knows well that his real subject-matter is far greater than one man. [To belabour unimportant details is the aim only of mystifiers: icon-painters and abstractionists]. History itself is the socialist-realist's material.

So how will history remember Gorbachev? What can we read from this portrait?

If we were to swap the tradition of portraiture for that of landscape-painting [a particular Ukranian landscape in this case] Chernobyl would not appear here. The disastrous reactor is covered with concrete [his blemished brow is painted smooth], and everything is covered [in the socialist-realist style] by the Media. "Gorbachev says there is no future without atomic-power", they report, and it becomes clear that the opposite is actually realistic; with nuclear-power there will be no history.