A closer look
Leave it to Stalin’s relentless propaganda machine to spin a catastrophic maritime disaster into a dazzling display of socialist superiority. When the SS Chelyuskin inevitably got crushed by heavy Arctic ice and sank directly to the bottom of the Chukchi Sea, the crew was left pathetically stranded on a shrinking ice floe. Instead of admitting their expensive icebreaker was total garbage, the Soviets launched a harrowing, highly publicized aerial rescue mission. The pilots who pulled the freezing scientists off the ice were instantly branded as the first "Heroes of the Soviet Union." By the end of it, the entire world forgot about the sunken ship and was just deeply impressed by the airplanes.
