A bigger pack

Smoke cigarettes “The Pack”
M. Bulanov, 1927

A tobacco advertizing poster from the NEP era. The slogan says:

Smoke cigarettes “The Pack”
[Available] Nowhere but in Mosselprom

The poster advertizes cigarettes named as simple as “The Pack”. The poster shows “The Pack” stationed on a gun carriage, forming a cannon with multiple barrels – the cigarettes themselves. This goes back to the popular vanity show of the times – a human cannon ball. The cannon has just fired a shot, and there is a smiling man riding a flying “papirosa” (a cigarette without a filter). He is dressed in a typical store clerk clothes – “kosovorotka” or Russian shirt, “kartuz” or peaked cap and jack boots. The store clerks responsible for the wholesale purchase were the target audience, as there was a Mosselprom building pictured in the background there. The poster was bright and energetic enough to attract attention to the cigarettes with such an ordinary name – “The Pack”.

Check the vintage cigarettes here:

Man's power

Man’s power – to help the woman!
A . Rudkovich, 1970

Carrying on with the woman’s subject. Here is a nice social poster of the seventies devoted to elimination of spongers and parasites not only in the economy, but in private life of Soviet people as well. The forefront of the poster is occupied by a shadow image of a tiny woman bent under the housekeeping workload: the perambulator and a big bag with some food and goods in it. Actually, the times of deficit were never far away, and in the seventies Soviet people had to spend lots of time standing in queues after work. So working full time, nursing a baby and getting food for the family all in one day was a hard occupation indeed.

On the contrast the background shows a healthy and strong hand of a man, who is holding nothing but a standard domino bone, which is apparently very light. In the Soviet times dominoes were extremely popular – it was a game of ordinary working folk. The chess were too complicated, cards were usually gambling, and therefore played on bets giving it a criminal flavor, backgammon was played mainly by the Easterners – so dominoes ruled the yards near the newly built Khruschev’s blocks-of-flats, later named Khruscheby (“Khruschev” and “truschebi” (slums) merged together), factories at lunch times, and all other places, where Soviet men could cease working without aftermath. Homes were such places as well, so a great majority of women were heavily overworked compared to men. Obvious inequality, it is. And the socialism was declaring that both men and women were equal. Hence this poster.

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We bring fear to the bourgeoisie!

Worker and peasant women – all should go to the polls!
N. Valerianov, 1925

The poster says:

Worker and peasant women – all should go to the polls!
Gather under the Red Banner along with men,
We bring fear to the bourgeoisie!

Women in traditional peasant sarafans and workers blouses march in passionate pace crushing and throwing back the landlord or factory owner. This poster from the twenties shows the typical image of a fat capitalist in waistcoat, top hat and chain-watch. Later it will be reproduced many times in children books, on posters and in other various types of propaganda.

The election system of the Soviet times looked democratic, but of course was far from it. People were electing Working People’s Deputies on all levels – including the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the basis of universal, direct and equal suffrage by secret ballot. But the elections were formal and non-competitive, all the candidates were previously approved by their superiors in the Party. However, the very election procedure was considered to be the perfect opportunity for propaganda and in this very case education as before the Revolution women hadn’t have the right to vote, and the majority of them were illiterate.

Check the vintage woman posters at allposters!

Everything for the Victory

Everything for the Victory
Women of USSR for the Front
A. Kokorekin, 1942

It were not only the Soviet Soldiers who were the heroes of the Great Patriotic War. 15 mln of Soviet women were accomplishing a great labor feat on the home front. The evacuation which implied moving of 500 of factories and works from Moscow alone required a tremendous amount of labor force. As all the males were joining the Red Army women and children were operating machines on the factories. More than 374 thousand of housewives returned to the industry. By October 1941 45% of all workers in the Soviet Union were women.

The poster shows a determined woman in workers’ coveralls with a slide gauge in her pocket. Her hand leans on a general purpose aircraft bomb FAB-250 (250 is its mass in kg). The background has rows of smaller bombs FAB-100 ready for dispatch to the front. The aircraft bomb has a red star painted on – this goes back to the war tradition, when the workers painted encouraging notes for the soldiers on the arms they send to the battlefield. In this case this is just a Red Star.

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It’s the Hero’s heart who fights the fight

Glory to heroes of Brest Fortress
O. Savostjuk, B. Uspenskiy, 1969

This is a poster created to commemorate the great defense of Brest, performed by Soviet soldiers in 1941. The poster shows a soldier holding a RPG-40 antitank grenade ready to make a throw. The contrast red and black image along with the slogans form the Red Star. The slogans go clockwise starting from 9 o’clock: “I swear”, “Viva Motherland”, “No step backward”, “Never retreat from the fortress” and finally “Death to fascism”.

Brest Fortress was actually attacked two times – in 1939, being a Polish fortress, it was assaulted by German general Guderian, who according to the secret protocols of Molotov-Ribbentrop pact signed by Nazi Germany and Soviet Union was partitioning Poland. Later that year, Brest Fortress was given to Soviet Union according to that pact.

On June 22, 1941 the fortress and the city of Brest was attacked by Nazi Germany at the beginning of the surprise war – this was its second and the most famous siege. According to Operation Barbarossa (blitzkrieg or flash war) Brest Fortress was to be taken by 12 o’clock the first day the war broke out. But German generals, who had been planning the operation, certainly underestimated the devotion of Russian soldiers, who managed to defend the fortress for almost a whole month – surrounded and not knowing that the front line had been moved hundreds of kilometers deep into the Soviet territory. Finally, the defendants perished, and became one of the icons of Soviet WW2 Heroic Propaganda. Upon getting into the demolished fortress Nazis found writing on the part of the wall which said: “I die but never surrender. Farwell, Motherland. 20th of July, 1941”.

Check the beautiful fortress images at allposters!

I'm so crazy I don't know this isn't possible

Let's conquer the virgin blue!
V. Gorlenko, 1964

Sometimes the ideas for Soviet Posters seem to be quite hilarious. Take this one from the sixties. It shows a great number of ducklings, who carry slogans which say: “Let’s conquer the virgin blue!” They are proceeding from a giant egg, moving in a horde like soviet workers at an October demonstration. Their main goal according to the slogans is to live and increase its weight on the water.

In reality lots of soviet young people were cultivating the virgin soils which were considered to be the main source of extensive development of agriculture. At that time lots of “advanced” means were tested like planting of maize corn everywhere including areas near the polar circle, general breeding of rabbits or in this very case the duck farms building, which was considered to be a perfect way of getting plenty of cheap meat for the people.

Needless to say that all the efforts were in vain: the corn didn’t seem to grow according to forecasts, and moreover Soviet people were not eager to choose it instead of wheat bread. The rabbits and ducks although breeding well and fast were prone to epidemics and required lots of food to grow. These were some of the failures in agricultural development which lead to Khrushchev’s forced retirement in 1964.

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Long Live the World October

Long Live the World October
G. Klutsis, 1933

The International Communist Revolution was an idea by Karl Marx mentioned in his Communist Manifesto. He thought that the class struggle would wipe the borders and all workers and peasants would finally live happily in a classless communist society.

The idea of Revolutionary War, which would lead to International Communist Revolution, was based on the assumption that the communists of Russia would be helping their mates abroad to start the fight with world imperialism. At first the plan was as follows: Soviets were suggesting the democratic peace treaty which would end the WW1 to all the parties, and in case it had been turned down the war would have to become Revolutionary War, leading to establishing of communist regimes in Europe.

However, when the peace treaty proposal was rejected by every country except Germany (it agreed to start negotiations), Lenin was to start the War. But he didn't as the army was in poor shape and the economy was collapsing. Certainly Bolsheviks would have lost recently acquired power, as both the workers and peasants would have turned against them in case of another armed conflict, when so many internal problems had yet to be settled.

So despite the opposing Bolsheviks headed by Buharin, the idea of World Communist Revolution had to be postponed.

This poster goes back to 1930, when the chance to spark the Revolution was certainly slipped. However Soviet Union was supporting local communist parties abroad, which were united under Comintern.

The brilliant poster by Gustav Klutsis (who was one of the victims of the Great Purge of the later thirties) shows the Earth with several workers standing with Red Flags in their hands. The Earth image and the workers’ figures are photomontage. Also, the Earth is part map, part another photograph showing the heads of workers at a march. The standing figures represent various countries – holding flags with the slogan “Long Live the World October” written in different languages including hieroglyphs, meaning that the October Revolution would happen no only in Russia, but in all other counties of the world.

Get the astonishingly beautiful Earth space images below: