And all the sweet serenity of books...

Book trade-exhibition in spring
Unknown artist, 1926

This was 1926, when the country was still recovering from the WW1, the Civil War and the War Communism, introduced by Lenin. To avoid loosing power due to national distress, Lenin launched New Economic Policy which implied restoration of private property on a small scale in a number of fields. NEP boosted the agricultural output, resulting in significant rise of living standards. But many true Marxists considered NEP to be a betrayal of the communist ideals, so after Lenin’s death in 1924 the number of NEP supporters in the party started to decrease. Stalin who after Lenin’s death was gaining power finally killed NEP in 1929, replacing it with a program of global industrialization in a form of a first Five Year Plan.

This poster advertises the book trade-exhibition held in spring in Moscow somewhere on Petrovskay street, starting May 15, 1926. In the Soviet Times such exhibitions were a perfect way not only to meet with favorite authors but also to purchase a rare edition. Quality books were one of the main means of entertainment in the country so popularity of reading was skyrocketing, resulting in kilometer-long queues to events like this trade-exhibition.

Fire in the hole!

Let’s work, and build and never whine!
Alexander Deyneka, 1933

What a great poster it is. It was created by Alexander Deyneka – one of the most famous modernist and socialist realism artists of the twentieth century.

In the thirties physical culture was being promoted widely in the Soviet Union. There were two reasons for this. The first one was that the party was trying to control all the aspects of life, by enlisting citizens in various societies and communities. And the other was that physically fit people could be better soldiers, thus improving the defense potential of the country. This explains the choice of sports disciplines on the poster: a discus thrower woman on the foreground is accompanied by a sniper, a group of runners and several motorcyclists. Discus throwing is actually a very useful skill on the battle field as it provides for accurate grenade throwing. Sharpshooting is obvious, running adds power during the battle-marching and motorcycle racing impies not only excellent riding skills (many racers served as messengers during WW2), but also mechanical engineering necessary for fixing the machinery during the war.

The verse to the right says:

Let’s work, and build and never whine –
The way to new life has been shown:
You’re not obliged to be an athlete,
But sports are what you should be doing.

Note the composition of the poster: the foreground and the background meets in a way typical for photomontage. Deyneka was always famous for his composition, one of his works showed the close-up of a shot German ace just before he hit the ground. Definitely a Daliesque kind of painting.

What a sad look!

Have you laid up the fodder?
Govorkov V. I., 1965

Almost 60-odd years ago in Canada. I was studying agriculture, how to produce better chickens, better cattle, better horses — horses in those days — better fruit, better vegetables. This was in the early years of the Great Depression, and the thoughts crossed my mind that there wasn't a hell of a lot of use producing better crops and better livestock if you couldn't sell them, that the real problem of agriculture was not efficiency in production but the problem of whether you could make money after you produced the stuff. So I shifted from the technical side to, first, the study of agricultural economic issues and then on to economics itself.

John Kenneth Galbraith

In 1965 the land reform started. Khrushchev’s agricultural policy which implied extensive farming and no personal commitment of the peasants forcefully made the country to purchase the grain abroad.

So in 1965 several crucial measures were introduced: the government increased purchasing prices for the grain and goods, the 6 years procurement plan was given to the kolkozi along with 50% bonus for over-delivery. But most important was that peasants were allowed to do their personal farming, on a very small scale, of course.

But all those measures were useless, until the free trade could be introduced. And the government was constantly imposing new regulatory instructions for the peasants, like limiting the amount of strawberry crops one could plant on his small plot of land. So on one hand the profitability of kolkozi reached 34% in 1970, and on the other all the huge investments (more than 400 bln. of rubles in 1966-1980) did not bring significant gain in total agricultural output.

Nobody has died because of not smoking, but why take a chance?

Tobacco is a poison. Quit smoking!
Ignat'ev N., 1957

This is a very famous soviet poster dated 1957. It already became a part of Russian culture and launched a powerful meme known to everybody.

The bold yellow letters say: “Tobacco is a Poison. Quit Smoking!” The small information block in the center declares: “Nicotine extracted from 4 cigarettes kills a rabbit, and it takes only a 100 cigarettes’ worth of nicotine to kill a horse”. Images of dead animal bodies complete the heartrending picture.

Immediately after the release of the poster numerous jokes were born. They involved animals consuming various substances with deadly consequences, like “A drop of nicotine kills a horse, or blows a hamster up to infinity”.

The pack of cigarettes in the right upper corner is one of the major tobacco brands popular in the Soviet Union: “Kazbek”, named after the Kazbek Mountain on the Caucasus. The pack layout features distinctive horseman and the mountain’s background. This is another truly brilliant graphical work, which could easily compete with the famous “Gitanes” design… if only the tobacco was good. But it was not, as at that time rural population was smoking home-grown tobacco of an awful quality and even in the cities filters were not common until 80s.

The big burning cigarette on the poster is a typical cigarette design of the era – small tobacco fill and a large empty tip made of cardboard. A smoker had to crumple the tip in a certain way so that tobacco grits did not get into his mouth while inhaling.

And now this poster has new life, as many smokers, who dream about quitting the deadly habit nowadays, often hang reprints of this poster at their workplaces because of its humorous nature and historical background.

The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.

Every strike of hammer - hits the enemy!
V. Deni, A. Dolgorukov, 1941

Due to the attack of the Nazi armed forces, which could not be stopped at the moment, a great many of Soviet industrial works and factories had to be evacuated to the east, so that the invader could not make use of it and increase its power, which was already ample due to the capture of French and Polish industry and resources. The task was unbelievable – more than 1500 of works and factories with machinery along with the 10 mln of personnel had to cover thousands of kilometers to the new places where there was no infrastructure at all. And they had to start operation there as soon as possible, as the battle-front was in great need for the arms and munitions. Adults and children were working 12 hours a day without weekends, in order to protect the Motherland.

This incredible efforts paid off well: although in the second half of 1941 gross industry output dropped down 2.1 times, in the beginning of 1942 it started to grow at fast pace, fully eliminating the industry superiority of fascist Germany in 1943.

I sell guns to every army but the Salvation Army!

A still of the Soviet trade and industry exhibition in Colombo Litvinov N. K., 1972

In the Seventies Russia was not only providing financial and technical help for countries, loyal to communist ideology (like Cuba, Yemen, Vietnam, etc), but was also entering world industry markets with the products and machines, which were sometimes based on the technologies from the defense industry. These were new alloys, precision machinery, high-tech materials. But the competition was fierce and the main source of hard currency income has always been and still is the raw stuff – like oil, gas and timber.

On May 22 1972 Ceylon was declared the Sri Lanka Republic. The country being a British colony for a long time had always been economically dependent and now was seeking new markets and trends. The soviet officials well realized that Sri Lanka had a perfect strategic position in the East-West and could become an outpost of communism in the region. So the new trade preferences were opened for Sri Lanka: now there was excellent Ceylon tea present on the shelves of every soviet store and there it matched well the cigars imported from Cuba due to the USA embargo.

Another thing was organizing an international Trade and Industrial Exhibition in Colombo in November 1972, right after the Sri Lanka Republic was established. The event was to show all the advances (military and industrial) which Sri Lanka could get if it only stuck to socialism and communism. To Sri Lanka’s credit they got the most of the situation: without making firm commitments on ideology they purchased some of the soviet arms and established very profitable trade relations.

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.