Death to world imperialism
D. Moor (Orlov), 1920
We must bear in mind that imperialism is a world system, the last stage of capitalism — and it must be defeated in a world confrontation. The strategic end of this struggle should be the destruction of imperialism. Our share, the responsibility of the exploited and underdeveloped of the world, is to eliminate the foundations of imperialism: our oppressed nations, from where they extract capital, raw materials, technicians, and cheap labor, and to which they export new capital — instruments of domination — arms and all kinds of articles, thus submerging us in an absolute dependence.
The poster personifies Imperialism as a giant serpent, which does not allow the workers to take control over production means – the factories and plants. In reality the nationalization was running wild starting from 1918, when “Nationalization” Decree was issued. All the major enterprises were already under direct control of Bolsheviks. The poster however relates not only to the internal affairs. One of the basic Lenin’s ideas was that the Socialist Revolution in Russia would spark the fire of worker’s revolutions in other countries, thus leading to the World of Communism without boundaries. So this poster gives the workers an idea that soon they would have to help their fellow comrades abroad.
Buy “Satan” posters at allposters.com:
9 comments:
wow, i just found your site and i love that you are displaying these posters. I was in Moscow a year ago and feel completely in love with them there. i wanted to collect them all. the line work of the drawing and symbolism is fantastic. I loved the sculptures over there as well. And there are still so many buildings with the wheat and sickle embedded in the architecture. So gorgeous. Thank you for sharing these.
I too just discovered your blog because of the "Blogs of Note" column. All I can say is fantastic! I love what you're doing here. The posters are amazing and your descriptions are well written. Please continue...
Ah yes. Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Communism is just the opposite. Beautiful poster! Tragic that so much talent was spent on such a horrible cause!
Another blog of note referee. Glad I found your site. I was a Russian major and lived in St. Petersburg for a bit just after the fall of USSR. These posters bring back a lot of memories. Are these all pictures from your own collection? Or are you featuring them from whereever you find them on the Net?
Feel free to check out my blog. Just notes on travels and life with a Brave New Word.
Thank you, Alexander! An amazing collection, and I hope it will keep growing for years :).
I love this article. I'm preparing a speech for one of my classes about how U.S. foreign policy favors imperialism over peaceful diplomacy. I'd like to use that poster as a visual aid. Check out blog http://literarymeme.blogspot.com/
We just got it up and it only has a handful of posts but more coming!
That's one creepy serpent.
I came for the posters, but I'm really enjoying your descriptions. Very interesting!
Stagnant Artist
Yep, lot's of marks of the past are still present on the Moscow buildings. The majority of them is being carefully restored nowadays, but some are recked. For instance on one of metrostations there was a huge mosaic with Stalin - after the restoration it was gone. In no way i am a fan of Stalin, but the artwork looked stunning indeed. I wonder why don't people of Rome demolish the statue of Emperor Neron he was also quite evil ;)
Jeff Mattison
No, i don't collect these posters on paper. The Internet has lot's of sources like this famous flickr set http://www.google.ru/search?q=flickr+soviet+poster&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:ru:official&client=firefox-a
Regarding the emperor Nero - his statues were destroyed by the Romans after he was dead -- the arms, legs, and head broken and marks of ranks removed. The ceremony was called damnatio personae and was used when a public official had harmed the public good. The archeological museum in Bologna has a good speciment of one of these statues of Nero. So, I guess Joe just got was was coming.
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