to the chairman of the Union of Artists RSFSR Vladimir Serov, who did Historical-Revolutionary paintings and specialised in portrayals of Lenin. In 1963 a sketch of the painting was presented to the arts board of the organising committee of the "Socialist Ural" art exhibition. The board approved the sketch, and signed a contract with the artists. When the painting was almost complete, Mosin and Brusilovsky rolled up the canvas and painted an alternative version, portraying Lenin as a decisive person who was capable of doing anything in order to achieve his goals. When Serov found out that the artists had not shown Lenin as quiet and humble, like Serov himself and other artists of the time had, he attempted to do everything he could to ban the painting while it was still being painted. E. F. Belashova, chairperson of the Union of Artists of the USSR, helped to promote the painting, and used it in her campaign against Serov. "1918" was exhibited at the largest exhibitions in Moscow, given a special commendation by the Ministry of Defence, reproduced in the journals "Tvorchestvo" (1965 and 1967), "Ogoniok" (1967), and "Art" (1967, 1969), in the books "Art born of October" (1967) and "The glory of those days will never cease" (1968), represented Soviet art at the international Biennale exhibition in Venice in 1966 and at an exhibition of young artists in Berlin (GDR) in 1967. The painting became an acknowledged part of official Leniniana and brought fame throughout the Soviet Union for Gennady Mosin and Misha Brusilovsky. The cinematographer Boris Shapiro made a film about the creators of the painting for the cinema journal "Soviet Ural". The painting is currently in the Volgograd Museum of Fine Arts. The first version of the painting was completed by Brusilovsky at the end of the 1980s and given to the Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts. The 1963 sketch of the painting is in the Perm State Art Gallery. His fame throughout the Soviet Union did not change Brusilovsky's standing among the bureaucrats from the Sverdlovsk branch of the Communist Party, who added the artist's name to the "black" list of formalists, and his relationship with the publishing house ended with his being officially forbidden from working. Independent work Having lost his job at the publishing house and thus becoming free from the demands of the bu siness cycle, Brusilovsky worked a lot in his studio,