And rejected
remember that the regime of terror and the purges conducted under his leadership came to light only after Kahlo’s death at the age of 47 in 1954. She painted Self-Portrait with Stalin in the last days of her life, to “serve the party” and “benefit the Revolution”. To her, he was a hero, a crucial player in the creation of a utopia that saw all people as ultimately equal. (Yet Trotsky had been expelled from the communist party in the Soviet Union and had continued to oppose Stalin, writing The Revolution Betrayed, which was published in 1937.)
Towards the end of her life, Kahlo sought out the ideals of communism in a way that many of the sick and dying find religion. Despite her declining health and doctors’ advice, she found a renewed belief in the cause. You can see it in her painting, Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick, in which she stands between a pair of giant hands gently holding her body; a white dove swoops in from the left and Marx looks down from the right. It was one of her last paintings; it lay unfinished on her easel when she died.
Kahlo refused to back down on a range of issues and causes right up to the end. She can be seen in a photograph from July 1954, weakly holding her fist up in protest against the United States’ involvement in Guatemala; the Central Intelligence Agency was behind the coup in that country. She died 11 days later after a painful and protracted ordeal.
Kahlo’s funeral reflected the beliefs that she held most passionately in her life. Her coffin was draped in a red cloth bearing the symbolic hammer and sickle in homage to her communist beliefs. More than 600 people attended her funeral, throwing away their propriety in their grief.
A diary entry from November 1952 summarises Kahlo’s passion most eloquently: “I am a communist being … I have read the history of my country and of almost all nations. I know about their class struggles and their economic conflicts. I understand very clearly the material dialectics of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tse. I love them as the pillars of the new communist world.”
Many people find themselves drawn to Kahlo as a symbol of hope and defiance in the face of pain and trauma, and draw comfort and support from her image. But its overwhelming popularity has probably played a part in obscuring the radical nature of Kahlo’s politics and beliefs. After all, it is her paintings that reflect her political doctrines.
Looking at the current global situation, with the rise of right-wing politics in the United States and many countries in Europe, and the repression of so many people in many other parts of the world, perhaps it is time for people to start rediscovering Kahlo’s radical ideals: her refusal to play the part that is expected of a woman; her support of an ideology that she believed in; the dedication with which she resisted the rise of Western culture and imperialism; the opening of her house to those fleeing fascism; and making it a point to immerse herself in the history and culture of her people.