Trust me, I know what I'm doing!

A. Hammer. American Industry Concession. Pencils and Pens. Moscow – New York.
Unknown artist, 1927

In the early twenties Soviet Union desperately needed ample funding to restore the economy. The hopes for foreign investments were vague, as gross nationalization had been only three years before. Moreover the process of international recognition had just started and there were only a few countries the diplomatic relations were established with.

But as the large international consortiums were cautious about doing business in the USSR, those young and ambitious were trying to snatch a roll. The Soviet Government was selling out masterpieces of art, furs, jewelry, caviar. Armand Hammer – a young businessman from New York had huge plans for purchasing some of those valuables for cheap. He came to Soviet Union with medical supplies for soviet citizens and made several deals with Lenin for importing of furs. Later he moved to Russia to supervise those operations, opening his most famous venture – a pencil factory. Although these factory products made him quite famous as every pupil in the country dreamt about getting Hammer pencils, which were of excellent quality, Hammer’s main source of income was in oil and coal. Somehow, he managed to talk Lenin into granting him exclusive rights to develop several asbestos and coal mines.

He returned to USA in the early 30s but his business ventures in the USSR remained. Although it is not known how Bolsheviks and Hammer shared expenses and profits later, but Hammer was the one and only multimillionaire, who had personal acquaintances with all the leaders of the Soviet Union starting from Lenin (died 1924) up to Yuri Andropov (died 1984) – 60 years of successful business in Russia.

Note the way the Armand Hammer's logo is emblazed on the red flag on the poster above. Instead of the original “Hammer and Sickle” is has got colors of the Star Spangled Banner and the Statue of Liberty image. This was quite a familiarity doing such things with a national anthem, but nevertheless Hammer could get away with it, as his enterprises were too valuable for the Soviet Union.

Visit the Zoo!

The Zoo has received a big lot of new animals
Bulanov D. A., 1930

The ad on the elephant’s forehead says: “The Zoo has just received a big lot of various animals, the Zoo is improved and expanded, the animals now live in new cage-houses, shows for children are performed at holidays”. The bar held by elephant’s trunk below gives a profound description of services offered for the grown-ups: “Public cinema with season thrillers is available in the Zoo, tickets 30-60 kopeeks, admittance to the Zoo included, “Petroraihrabkoop” (Petrograd’s Workers Society) bar – hot and cold lunches, snacks and refreshments, string band”.

All men are created equal...

Say “No to Fascism!”
V. Koretsky, Year Unknown

As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.

Abraham Lincoln
Letter to longtime friend Joshua F. Speed (24 August 1855)

The topic of fascism was frequently taken up in the soviet poster art after WW2. No surprise, the victorious Soviet Union could not tolerate this ideology based on suppressing ethnical and racial social groups. But unfortunately some of the actions of the soviet political leaders could be considered fascist in essence. Lenin being a revolutionary idealist of some sort did think that the leaders of national minorities should be picked out in their communities, as they really understood the needs of their fellow citizens. Stalin on the contrary thought that the power should be consolidated in his own hands, so all the officials had to obey his orders only.

After the war great many people from the occupied territories were deported to new places so that no nationalist and separatist movements could show up. These were thousands of Lithuanians, Letts, Estonians, Ukrainians, Chechens, Kalmyks, Volga Germans, Tatars, Ingushes and Russians as well.

During the War Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was set up. It was organizing political and material support for the Soviet fight against Nazis and played significant role in forging of victory. After the war JAFC became the center of national unification and put forward the idea to create a Jewish autonomy in Crimea or on Volga. Immediately JAFC was called a “Jewish proamerican conspiracy” and very soon its leader Solomon Mikhoels – a famous Soviet Jewish actor, died in car crash framed up by the MGB (a predecessor of the KGB). Other members of the Committee were arrested and convicted. This started the anti-Semitic policy in the Soviet Union.

Building a peaceful world on empty stomachs.

Help!
D. Moor (Orlov), 1921

This is a very famous poster by Dmitry Moor (Orlov) – a classic political poster artist. His style was based on black and white ink drawings with the emphasizing color accents. His pseudonym Moor was taken from Friedrich Schiller’s melodrama “The Robbers”, and suited his temper well – he was stern and energetic, lacking humor sometimes.

“Help!” shows a Russian starving peasant and a broken wheat crop. By 1921 the Civil War between the Red Army and the White army was almost over. The war seriously destabilized the country’s economy: the population decreased by 10 mln people, industry output was 7 times smaller compared to the pre-revolution level, all consumer goods were in permanent shortage. The Communist Government tried to replenish the income by the same old measures – through extraction of food from peasants. But the War Communism years exhausted the agriculture. There were not many kulaks (prosperous peasants) left, so the farming was not effective. Besides the peasants lacked incentive – why work harder, if the yield was to be confiscated anyway. The government responded by increasing the quotas for food requisition putting forward the famous slogan “Those who don’t work – don’t eat”. The peasants were left enough food to barely survive, so when the draught of 1921 emerged, the fierce famine struck.

Lenin made the most of the situation. The famine was weakening the peasantry, which still was the major political force in the country and it also allowed to attack the Russian Orthodox Church: the churches were striped on the ground that the valuables would help the starving victims. Also the communists were receiving international aid and kept selling their own grain abroad at the same time, as they desperately needed funding to retain power. The famine took millions of lives and along with the Kronshtadt Rebellion forced Lenin to change the political course and ease the extreme tension in the society. This new policy was called NEP.

Gotta jet!

To fly higher than all, farther than all, faster than all!
D. Pjatkin, 1954

The poster dates 1954, a year after Stalin’s death. After the victory Stalin did not cancel research and development of new weapons. On the contrary soviet military base was rapidly growing after receiving reparations from Germany. War reparations to Soviet Union were to be USD 10 bln of the total 20 bln, as it was the soviet country, which suffered the major losses. Besides, the allies agreed to this demand at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 partly in exchange to Stalin’s promise not to expand the communist regime on the liberated territories and further. This sum was paid not only in cash but also in machinery, intellectual property and labor of German captives.

In 1944 the Messerschmitt Me 262 “Schwalbe” ("Swallow") became the world's first operational turbojet fighter aircraft. Russians were behind in development of turbojet engines, although the piston aircrafts fought German machines pretty well. The first soviet turbojet prototype “BI-1” took off in 1942, but unfortunately in 1943 upon hitting 800 km/h speed fell into a spin and crashed. Actually, Me 262 suffered from the same aerodynamical problems – it even had a special instruction for pilots prohibiting speeding over the deadly 800 km/h mark.

Nevertheless, the German reparations (documentation along with the people who created it) allowed Russians to fill in the technological gap.

So MiG-9 Fargo and Yak-15 Feather became the soviet first generation turbojet fighter and attack aircraft hitting the skies in 1946 and 1947. The perspectives of the turbojet aviation were bright and ample resources were invested in the development. The propaganda responded correspondingly as you can see on this “Fly High” poster.

The pilot in the foreground is a soviet ace of the WW2, flying on a piston aircraft. The red stars on the fuselage are his kill score. And the jets in the background are a collective image of a modern soviet jet fighter of the fifties.

That's the way to advertise!

Read “Young Guard” Magazine
A. Rodchenko, V. Mayakovsky, 1924

This is another work by constructivist classic Alexander Rodchenko and soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. This is an advertisement which promotes “Young Guard” literary magazine. Russia was always a country where literary magazines (or “thick magazines”) were extremely popular due to fast publishing cycle, as some times it took years for a book to hit the stores.
Besides even the most remote libraries always had those magazines available.

In the early twenties “Young Guard” magazine was formed by members of “Young Guard” literary society. Its members were writing revolutionary articles and books as well as speaking in public promoting education and revolutionary values.

In the sixties and seventies the magazine was a symbol of stagnation, publishing conservative socialist-realism fiction and bad science-fiction stories.

But the name “Molodaya Gvardia” – “Young Guard” became well known in Russia because of the WW2, and it was not the magazine, which had set the stone rolling. During the war "Young Guard" - an underground anti-fascist organization formed by young Komsomol members from Ukrainian town Krasnodon were performing guerilla actions against occupation forces of Nazi Germany. They were betrayed, tortured and finally executed. After the war revolutionary writer Alexander Fadeyev wrote an exciting fiction book based on the event. The film followed. And finally the “Young Guard” heroic myth was born. A publishing house, a huge bookstore, a pioneer camp and numerous other facilities, goods and things were named “Young Guard”.

Check vintage posters at allposter.com

Spiritual leaders of the Soviets!

Courageously and irresistibly we fight and stab,
We are Suvorov’s grandchildren and Chapaev’s sons.
Kukryniksy, 1941

Here is a good one. This poster is dated 1941, when the Fascist Germany was attacking Soviet Union, and the Russians could hardly stop the offensive.

Joseph Stalin quickly realized the propaganda potential of cinema. He personally supervised all the movies, which were produced in the country. In the late thirties the chances of war were high and Stalin ordered a number of large-scale movies based on historical events to be filmed. Among them there were three keystone biopics, which rapidly became part of Russian culture.

“Alexander Nevsky” (1938) - a masterpiece created by Sergei Eisenstein (a revolutionary Soviet film director and film theorist) was about Alexander Nevsky - a talented medieval Russian military leader and politician, who managed to smash well equipped German invaders in 1242 at The Battle of the Ice.

“Suvorov” (1941) depicted life of Alexander Suvorov (1729-1800) who was a brilliant Russian general and strategist, reportedly not loosing a single battle.

“Chapaev” (1934) was about Vasily Chapayev – a hero of Russian Civil War, who did a great job of defeating the Whites. Due to this film Chapaev became a cultural phenomenon and a hero of thousands of jokes, which are still popular in Russia.

You can see these three historical figures in red inspiriting soviet soldiers on the poster.

Of course all these historical events were heavily edited to bring forward the main idea: Russian army is truly invincible, guided by “the great helmsman” Joseph Stalin.

The poster was created by a caricaturist group “Kukriniksy”, which were extremely popular in the Soviet Union. “Kukriniksy” is a collective name of three artists – Mikhail Kupriayanov, Porfiri Krylov and Nikolai Sokolov. Their satirical works bashing fascist leaders received international acclaim during the WW2.

P.S. I have just started another poster blog: Posters of Cuba - The Crimson Dawn Island. It will be updated 2 or 3 times a week. You can subscribe here. Cuban posters are not as known as the Soviet or, say, German propaganda, but in no way they are less inspiring. They are bright, colorful, energetic. I am sure you'll like Posters of Cuba project.

And many thanks for coming! It is a pleasure that you all like this beautiful poster art! ;)