Alexei Leonov was a prolific and talented artist, and drew and painted many pictures inspired by his experiences in space
This particular picture is rather special though, because he drew the first draft for it while in space using coloured pencils he took with him
(Post reappropriated from Tumblr)
how can I miss something so much when it was gone by the time I was born?
Hauntology, I guess. I often find myself mourning the future that could have been had the USSR persisted
It's positively un-marxist of us, but I do the same. I just look at stuff like this and feel a slight hope only for it to shrivel again when I remember how they destroyed it and quite possibly our entire future :shrek-pixel-despair:
I try to channel it back into revolutionary optimism — it's incredible that the USSR existed, and even more incredible that it accomplished so much in its time despite all of the resources that the global capital poured into defeating it.
If the USSR can go from an agrarian society of illiterate peasants to winning the space race in the span of a generation, despite being constantly dogged by reactionaries and capitalists, massive famine, and bearing the brunt of WWII, surely nothing is impossible.
