The Yezhov Meme Top*
*A Meme Top is a Short-Term Top, marked by a Meme Moment in Time - Shrubipedia
Back in the day, Stalin was a bit like a teenage girl on Instagram, in that he loved to photoshop himself, as well as erase others from pictures.
The most famous such photo, involved the erasure of Nikola Yezhov, a secret police official who oversaw Stalin’s purges:
“For a while Yezhov worked at Stalin’s right hand, interrogating, falsely accusing and ordering the execution of thousands of Communist Party officials. But in 1938, Yezhov fell from Stalin’s favor after being usurped by one of his own deputies. He was denounced, secretly arrested, tried in a secret court, and executed.” (source: History.com)
One can argue that this photo marked the Meme Top for Yezhov…