The Stalin tunic or Stalinka () is colloquial term for a type of tunic or jacket associated with

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

; from the 1920s until the 1950s and beyond, it was commonly worn as a

political uniform A number of political movements have involved their members wearing uniforms, typically as a way of showing their identity in marching, marches and demonstration (people), demonstrations. The wearing of political uniforms has tended to be associa ...

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

officials in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

(and, after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, by officials in the

Soviet satellite states A satellite state or dependent state is a country that is formally independent in the world, but under heavy political, economic, and military influence or control from another country. The term was coined by analogy to planetary objects orbiting ...

as well).Леонид Парфенов, «Сталинка»
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History

Stalinka evolved from the ''french'' (''френч''), a tunic of the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Ar ...

, which had appeared in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

; the difference was that the ''Stalinka'' had a soft turn-down collar. Its simplistic style came from Stalin's refusal to wear clothing of a more complex nature, as well as eventual tweaks made by Soviet fashion designers that tried to create an image for the leader.

Influence

This style of the attire was picked by Chinese, Vietnamese and North Korean Communist leaders.

References

{{Russian souvenirs 20th-century fashion Military uniforms Russian clothing Stalinism