This is my rifle

Work is essential, the rifle is near.
V. Lebedev, 1920

Colour is a power which directly influences the soul. Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammer, the soul is the strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.

Wassily Kandinsky (1866 – 1944), Russian painter, printmaker and art theorist.

“Okna ROSTA” – “Satirical ROSTA Windows” is a series of posters created in 1919-1921 by a group of soviet artists, who worked for ROSTA or Russian Telegraph Agency, which was the first state news agency in the young soviet republic. In Russian ROSTA is not only an abbreviation but the word has a meaning of its own – ROSTA means growth, giving group’s name a forward-motion flavor.

Working for a news agency implies rapid reaction on the pressing issues on the telegraph tape, so ROSTA posters were always bright, satirical and topical. Often they were done in comics’ manner. The series of posters were created by hand, later replaced with stencil technique, hence 2-3 color scheme and clear-cut images. Stencil allowed the agency to print small quantities of posters (typical circulation was about 150) without publishing houses and additional expenses. After printing the fresh posters were displayed in shop-windows across Saint-Petersburg. That’s why the group had “Windows” in its name. This was a great means of communication and propaganda – few could read and afford newspapers at the same time, and due to the shortages everybody had to spend hours standing in shop-queues.

Okna ROSTA group housed a lot of talented and revolutionary artists and poets like Kazimir Malevich - the pioneer of geometric abstract art, Aristarkh Lentulov - a major avant-garde artist, Ilya Mashkov, Dmitry (Moor) Orlov, Alexander Rodchenko - one of the founders of constructivism movement. The variety of artists resulted in wide scope of techniques used.

The author of the cubist poster above is Vladimir Lebedev (1891—1967) – a famous soviet graphical artist. He was one of the founders of Okna ROSTA group, where he created about 500 posters. Vladimir Mayakovsky – the futurist poet of the Revolution wrote a rhythmic and energetic text: “Work is essential, the rifle is near”. The poster has two meanings: the worker should work hard now, but in case of emergency, he is ready to fight. And another one is that those soldiers who were making the Revolution, were to start working and put their rifles aside.

That's, Grandma, the Yuri's Day!

The First All-Russian Sheep Breeding Exhibition and Congress
A. Komarov, 1912

That's, Grandma, the Yuri's Day
- a Russian proverb

Cultural Background: On St. Yuri(George)'s day (November 26th), peasants were allowed to move from one owner to another at their own will. In 1590s, this right was put on hold, and completely cancelled in 1649. Obviously, the peasants waiting for their freedom day, weren't quite happy when that was announced.

In 1910 Russian wheat constituted 36.4% of the total world export of wheat. At the same time the agricultural efficiency was low, due to the land property contradictions. At the beginning of 20^th century almost 90% of the total Russian population were peasants. And de facto they had no land in their property whatsoever. The two main owners of land were pomezchiki (ground landlords and the Tsar) and the Church. According to the Emancipation Reform of 1861 peasants were not only freed from serfdom but also received the right to cultivate their own land, which was to be alienated from the land owners. Of course land owners did not like the idea, so the payment for the land was established extremely high, and no peasant could buy a plot himself. So the land became a property of peasants’ communities (obschinas) in order to secure the redemption payments for the land. Technically after the reform the land belonged to all peasants in general, but to no one in particular. The plots were distributed between the peasants in community according to the amount of family members and other factors, which were defined at peasants’ meetings. Peasants could not leave the communities in favor of working at a factory, as in this case their plot of land would be redistributed between other community members. Or he had to pay smart-money to leave for a certain period of time. The peasants’ communities were not only killing the industrial development of the country but the peasants' dreams of better living as well.

Before the Revolution Russia was an agricultural state where prosperous land owners were introducing new agricultural techniques, buying machines and tractors to intensify the cultivation. At the same time the majority of peasants were using sickles, wooden plows and a community horse to pull it.

The poster above advertises the First All-Russian Sheep Breeding Exhibition and Congress held in Moscow on September 12-25, 1912. It contained several sections: living exhibits, sheep products, scientific section and on. And although this event was not intended for peasants, a peasant woman in a traditional full dress acts as a central figure on the poster.

I see red!

If you do a pointless chat, you are helping spying rat
Koretsky, 1954

Thank God somebody's doing it.
FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, of McCarthy's investigations.

The Cold War – a global confrontation between the USA and the Soviet Union started on March 12, 1947 with a Truman Doctrine unveiled. The Doctrine shifted American foreign policy as regards the Soviet Union from Detente to a policy of containment of Soviet expansion.

The Cold War was fought not only in diplomat’s cabinets and on the battlefields of Africa, Middle East and East Asia, but also by means of propaganda. In the USA the main speaker of the anti-communist attitude was Joseph McCarthy – a Republican Senator from Wisconsin between 1947 and 1957. He was noted for making unsubstantiated claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the federal government. In 1950 during his public speech on Lincoln Day (February 9), he announced that he got hold of a list of 205 names of those “being members of the Communist Party” and working for the Soviet Union by “shaping policy in the State Department”. This started the unprecedented soviet spy witch-hunt, with private investigations of citizens’ loyalty, shadowing of all leftist organizations, and supervision of every political and publican figure, who ever mentioned anything positive about the Soviet Union. The most notable was a case of Charlie Chaplin – an English comedy actor and a living cinema classic. He had major success in the USA and lived there from 1914 to 1952. During the era of McCarthyism, Chaplin was accused of "un-American activities" as a suspected communist sympathizer. With the Government pressure building up, he decides not to return to the USA after his brief trip to England. He wrote after that: ".....Since the end of the last world war, I have been the object of lies and propaganda by powerful reactionary groups who, by their influence and by the aid of America's yellow press, have created an unhealthy atmosphere in which liberal-minded individuals can be singled out and persecuted. Under these conditions I find it virtually impossible to continue my motion-picture work, and I have therefore given up my residence in the United States."

The situation in the Soviet Union was quite similar. The atmosphere of suspicion was evident with the graphical design playing significant role as usual. The poster above says: “If you do a pointless chat, you are helping spying rat”. On the poster the double faced undercover spy is portrayed with a monocle, which was considered to be a stereotypical accessory of German military officer from the WW2 period. Thus this fascist image was projected on the Western World.

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.

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.

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! ;)