Marlen Spindler (born in Karakol, Kyrgyzstan, 1931 – died 2003) was a Russian painter whose work defied socialist realism, the official genre of the Soviet Union. His name is a portmanteau of Marx and Lenin, the words his parents combined to create it. His case illustrates the pressure faced by artists who departed from official doctrine.
He grew up in several places across Central Asia, including Samarkand, Tashkent and Alma-Ata, before the family settled in Kraskovo, a Moscow suburb. Spindler refused to paint in the style of socialist realism, and as a consequence he lost his job and was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment and exile. He kept painting while incarcerated, despite harsh conditions, and regained his freedom after the fall of Soviet communism.
In the 1990s he held several solo exhibitions in Moscow and later in Zurich. He is remembered above all as an example of artistic resistance to state censorship in the Soviet Union.