Why do you think Joseph Stalin removed the other men from the original photograph? What message do you think he was sending by doing this?

Stalin was ordering that people from his photos are removed because he didn't wanted to be associated with them.

Explanation:

Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union. He is infamous for number of things, including elimination of people, imprisoning political opponents, committing genocides, terrible economic practices etc. One thing he is also famous for is that he was often ordering that people are removed from his photos.

The reason why Stalin was ordering that people are removed from his photos was because he did not wanted to be associated with them. Usually, the people that were removed from the photos were people that were eliminated or imprisoned because of some misunderstanding with Stalin. Because their relations were disrupted, Stalin didn't wanted to have any evidence that he was once in good relations with them, so we can say in a way that this idea of his was the predecessor of the modern Photoshop.

It is not just Stalin that has been doing this, as there are some other leaders that are doing this, even in modern times, such as:

Kim Jong Un

Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow

Xi Jinping

the answer i chose to believe is 'harmony'