An earlier edition of Gems of the Archive featured this puzzle, manufactured and purchased by Andrew St. George in Cuba. Here we see the same puzzle in the context that explains why St. George found it so interesting. Surrounded by books that normalized hero worship in the pivotal year of 1960, it was one of many cultural instruments—some produced by state agencies and others for profit by local businesses—that mimicked the “one-man, one-state, one-way” ideology typical of fascist and communist rule. St. George had witnessed both political systems in Nazi-controlled Hungary and in Central Europe after the Soviet Union’s liberation became a permanent occupation after World War II.
