Incidentally, in 1944 Picasso joined the French Communist Party. But those who imagined that this might influence his art in the direction of socialist realism were sadly disappointed. The French Communist Party was already deep in the mire of revisionism — and not only in the sphere of the arts — and praised Picasso’s art unreservedly. When Stalin died in 1953, the Party commissioned Picasso to do a portrait of him for their literary journal ‘Les Lettres Francaises’:
. . .
Although, unlike many paintings by Picasso, this portrait is recognisably that of a human being, its publication brought a host of angry letters from readers and the editors were compelled to print an apology for having published it
— ‘STALIN & THE ARTS’ On Marxist-Leninist Aesthetics BY W.B.BLAND - Alliance 53 (2004)
I kinda like it. Stalin looks kinda sad and disappointed, as if he’s looking into post-war Europe and seeing that all hope of revolution is being extinguished.
It’s probably the exact face he would make if he got to listen in on the French Communist Party meetings at the time.