Stalin in an off-record photo captured by his bodyguard Vlasik The year is unknown.

Vlasik’s off-the-record photos of Stalin caused a sensation in the early 1960s when an enterprising Soviet journalist spirited some out, selling them to newspapers and magazines worldwide.

In his memoirs Vlasik wrote: “I was severely offended by Stalin. For 25 years of doing an excellent job, receiving nothing but encouragement and awards, I was excluded from the Party and flung into prison. For my boundless fidelity he gave me into the charge of my enemies. But never, for any minute of the condition I was in, to whatever mockeries I was exposed while in prison, had I in my soul any malice against Stalin”