In the background, on the left side Diego Rivera presented a capitalist world With apocalyptic dyes, with soldiers carrying biological masks and war planes that cloud the horizon. Below, a popular protest is repressed by police mounted in New York, while Charles Darwin appears with an x -ray of a human skull, a criticism of social Darwinism and theories of racial superiority.
On the opposite side, Rivera presented An idealization of Soviet socialismwith the Red Army marching at the top, while women, children and workers join the protest. Karl Marx, León Trotsky and Lenin also appears, the latter as the most visible character in the entire work.
Although the design of The man at the crossroads It was approved by the Rockefeller After knowing the preparatory sketches and the press echoed the controversy of the characters in the mural, Rivera advanced in the mural until in April 1933, the newspaper New York World-Telegram He published an article where he openly criticized the work, calling it from 'anti -capitalist propaganda'.
This act probably led Rivera to change the face of one of the workers on the right side by Lenin'san incorporation that was far from official sketches. When Nelson Rockefeller He noticed the modification, arrested the act of revelation of the mural scheduled for May 1, 1933 and called Rivera to demand that he erased the face of the socialist leader.
Diego Rivera responded to Nelson Rockefeller refusing to alter his work and instead, proposing the incorporation of characters that formed a counterweight like Abraham Lincoln; However, he received Rockefeller's refusal.
After the impossibility of an agreement between both parties, the work was finally abandoned about to be completed and covered with blankets to avoid visibility. The following year in February 1934, a brief statement from the Rockefeller Center specified that 'remodeling works' would be carried out and the wall was intervened by workers, completely destroying the mural.
The reaction of Diego Rivera He led him to qualify the fact of 'cultural terrorism' and a year later after his return to Mexico, the photographs and sketches allowed him to recreate The man at the crossroads In the Palace of Fine Arts of Mexico City, where it is maintained until today with the title of The controlling man of the universe.