How to rob a nation

Safe, Profitable, Convenient! Deposit in savings-bank!
Unknown artist, late forties

In Soviet times there were no banks available for public except for the Sberkassa. Here is a quote from Wikipedia: Sberkassa in Soviet Union is a financial institution to store the savings of the population. The term is traditionally translated as "savings bank", however sberkassas in the Soviet Union were not banks in common sense.

A personal document for keeping track of person's savings is a kind of a bankbook (Russian: "savings booklet", usually translated as savings book or savings-bank book). The track of deposits, withdrawals and accrued interest is written into the bankbook by a sberkassa clerk.

The man on the poster is holding this savings-book in his hand. But why to promote the one and only banking institution if there is no alternative whatsoever?

The thing is that after the war the money stock in the country was huge due to the military expenses of the WW2. And the rationing system seriously limited the consumption ability of the soviet citizens resulting in possible hyperinflation, which could completely destroy the weak financial system of the recuperating Soviet Union. So in 1947 the rationing system was abolished and a currency reform took place. It implied the exchange of all the old banknotes at a rate of 10:1 and the bank deposits at a rate of 1:1 for accounts below 3 thousand of rubbles, and at a rate of 3:1 for accounts with 3 to 10 thousand of rubbles. The reform significantly decreased the amount of money in circulation and hit hard those who were keeping savings at home. The only way for the people to avoid such personal finance crises in future was to keep money in sberkassa, hence making them available for governmental investments in heavy industry projects and agriculture.

Good Morning, Vietnam!

Vietnam Lives, Fights and Will Finally Win!
Suryaninov R., 1970

According to Geneva Accords which granted Indochina independence from France in 1954, Vietnam was partitioned into two states – the North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and the South Vietnam. The Northern part has got the communists in power, and the Southern, which was to remain under temporary protectorate of France, was governed by political forces supported by the USA. The situation in the split country was far from peace and quiet. Between 1963 and 1967, South Vietnam was extremely unstable as no government could keep power for long. So in 1965, the USA with its president Lyndon Johnson made a fatal mistake of sending troops to South Vietnam to secure the country from the communist influence. The USA generals had very limited experience of guerrilla warfare in the jungle. Also the North Vietnamese partisans were armed with latest arms provided by Soviet Union and China, like loads of sturdy AK’s-47 and soviet aces on MIG-21 “Fishbed” jet fighters. In 1975 the South Vietnam regime fell and the country was united under the communist government. Of course in Russia this was considered to be the victory of Soviet arms over the Evil Empire of the USA.

The poster above celebrates the 25 anniversary of Democratic Republic of Vietnam proclaimed by Ho Chi Minh in on September 2, 1945.

PS. I have just started another blog, which may be of some interest for you. It is totally devoted to Videos of Unusual Musical Instruments - like strange bongs, giant saxophones and every other thing which can sound in skillful hands. Hope you'll like it. ;)

Everybody goes to BAM!

Baikal-Amur Mainline is the construction project of the century!
1977, Babin N. S., Ovasapov I. T., Jakushin A. B.

The Baikal-Amur Mainline (unofficial website) is the second largest railroad in Russia, with a length of 4,234 km (2,305 mile). BAM traverses Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East and runs about 600 km (450 miles) north of and parallel to the Trans-Siberian railway (the largest railroad in the world, covering over 1/3 of the circumference of the Earth with its 10,000 km (6 000 miles) tracks).

BAM was built in the course of 20^th century as an alternative to the Trans-Siberian Railway, especially along the vulnerable sections close to the border with China. It has special durable tracks which are capable of supporting soviet rocket trains, equipped with nuclear warheads, which were designed to be a Soviet response to SDI.

BAM construction started in the thirties by Bamlag – a corrective labor camp and a part of notorious Gulag. During WW2 some of the BAM’s partly built tracks were disassembled to form strategic route to Stalingrad, where the biggest and the bloodiest battle in the history of human kind took place – the Battle of Stalingrad.

After Stalin’s death in 1953 the works on BAM stopped as there were no more Gulags with its free labor force and the project turned out to be too expensive. Only in 1974 when the Cold War was in full swing and there was increasing tension between China and the Soviet Union, the project was given a green light.

Huge funding was provided for BAM. It was called the “komsomol construction project of the century”, with numerous young komsomol members sent there to work for decent wages. The poster above was a part of BAM recruitment campaign.

The main part of the BAM was declared open in 1984, with some of the areas (like the ending bridge and the station in Yakutsk) are still being built.

BAM is a fantastic engineering project. It traverses 11 major rivers and seven mountain ridges. There were 8 big tunnels cut through the mountains. One of them is the Severomuyskiy tunnel (15 km), which is the longest tunnel in Russia (18^th longest in the world). Also check picture of the “Chertov bridge” (Devil’s bridge), which shows the scale of the obstacles had to be overcome during the construction.

What do you think of these my man?

Do you look after your breasts?
Unknown artist, 1930

This is a very famous poster, which shows the versatility of topics covered by the Soviet poster art.

It says: “Do you look after your breasts? Temper your breasts in cold water daily!” In the late twenties industrialization in heavy industry and collectivization in agriculture forced many peasants to migrate to cities and to become workers at factories and plants. Rural habits were useless in industry centers, so peasants had to adjust themselves to new customs.

Hygiene was one of the most acute problems in the cities with rapidly expanding population. Nicolay Semashko (1874-1949) was the first Narkom (minister) of Health Service (1918-1930), who defined the principles of water supply provision, disinfection, personal hygiene and other social services necessary for healthy development of the society. During his life time Semashko wrote more than 250 of works covering these topics, established a chair of hygiene in Moscow State University, organized a separate Hygiene university later, and did a great job of improving social and hygienic conditions in underdeveloped and traditional regions of Chuvashia, Bashkiria, Tataria, Dagestan and other North Caucasus areas. His invaluable input was one of the reasons, why in the thirties he was not repressed like many other officials, but was promoted to become a member of All-Russian Central Executive Committee, with his main assignment to organize orphanages and to make maternity care system.

This poster was a part of the maternity care campaign, which not only promoted personal hygiene, but was also aimed at tempering of female organisms before delivery. At that time it was believed that cold water strengthens mammaries and makes them ready for breast feeding. And today this vintage artwork looks nothing but amazing.

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.