Still on duty

Our forces are innumerable
V. Koretsky, 1941

Victor Koretsky is the author of this poster. He is one of the most noted Soviet poster artists. His trademark technique was combination of black and white photos with pencil graphics and bright gouache fillings. This highly impressive technique was also quite practical in printing.

This poster was created in 1941, when the German forces were rapidly moving on the Soviet territory to capture Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev according to the “Barbarossa” Operation devised by Hitler’s generals. The situation was critical so all resources had to be combined to stop the offensive.

The poster was aimed at strengthening of morale of the citizens and soldiers, as the news they were hearing on the radio at that time were mostly cheerless.

In the foreground there is a soviet soldier – a private or most likely a partisan as his uniform is not buttoned up and he has got a beard. In his hand he is holding a 7.62 mm Mosin-Nagant magazine rifle, which was a standard issue weapon to Soviet troops due to its sturdiness and manufacturability. The man’s stare is full of determination and courage, but it’s the monument in the background which gives the poster gravity.

This is the monument which commemorates the deeds of trader Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, who were heroes of the Polish-Muscovite War (1605–1618). In 1611 Minin organized a fund collection among the people of Nizhniy Novgorod and together with Prince Pozharsky led the militia to Moscow kicking out the Poles.

It was Minin’s personal cunning and charisma which allowed him to unite Russians in order to free the country from invaders. And like always it was no holds barred event: all citizens were to give away one third of their property, otherwise all the belongings were confiscated and people with their families became bond slaves. Reportedly Minin gave all he had.

Minin’s words were: “We’d like to help the Moscow State, so no property should be spared, nothing should be spared – sell houses, pledge wives and children, and bless the one, who’s going to fight for the saint Orthodox church and would lead us!”

Minin and Pozharsky monument was set up in Moscow in 1818. Now it is situated on the Red Square right near the most beautiful Saint Basil's Cathedral (see it on Google Maps). On the pedestal there are words: “To citizen Minin and Prince Pozharsky. Grateful Russia. 1818”. And Russia is grateful indeed as even 300 years after his life Minin did not resign from being an inspirer for those protecting the country.

If we don't end war, war will end us

Victory!
O. Savostjuk, B. Uspenskiy, 1969

This poster was created in naive manner which resembled children’s drawings. Hammer and Sickle on the red flag above celebrates the victory over the fascist regime in a form of thrown down black German banners at the bottom of the poster. The soldier holds his hand high in a gesture of joy because the long lasting War is finally over. He is not an ordinary private – on his chest there is a Hero of the Soviet Union star medal meaning that he obtained the highest honorary title after performing a truly heroic deed. Also he is holding a sub-machine gun PPSh-41 – the predecessor of AK-47. The famous war slogans and mottos written in chalk form the five-pointed Red Star – a symbol of communism. During the War people were often putting chalked notes and slogans on walls of the places they were passing by.

The slogans say (counter clock-wise, starting from 5 o’clock): “Have gone from Moscow to Berlin” (the Germans managed to get 30 km near Moscow and only after the Battle of Moscow in 1942 were thrown back), “The war way from Leningrad was complete on May 9, 1945” (The Siege of Leningrad, also known as The Leningrad Blockade of 1941-1944 is one of the most dreadful events of the WW2, with more than 1.2 mln of Leningraders starving to death there), “Kursk-Berlin” (The Great Battle of Kursk in 1943 won by Soviets despite the outnumbering Germans and leading to the final counteroffensive), “1945 – we have won”, “From Volga to Berlin” (The Battle of Stalingrad on Volga River, which being the bloodiest battle in human history exhausted the Germans and led to the Victory) . The soldier’s head is crowned with “Hurrah! Victory” words. And the last phrase to the right is written with no inclination and is actually the message of the poster: “Be free and happy – forever”.

When the train left the station

Beware of the wheels!
Unknown artist, 1926

Tramways were always popular in Russia. The first tramway line in Saint-Petersburg was built in 1894 – the rails were put on the ice of Neva River, so it was operational only in winter. Moscow received the first tramways in 1899, which replaced the omnibuses and horse-cars in no time. Tramway’s main rivals - cars and buses were expensive and unreliable, so until the WW1 tramways ruled the Russian cities.

After the Revolution tramways were still the main means of city transportation. The development of tramways networks was carried out at a fast pace – buses, although offering much more flexibility for the passengers, were far less affordable for the Soviet government. Above all the disadvantages of tramways were evident: the tracks occupied too much road space and the infrastructure was quite expensive to build and maintain. So the Government decided to solve the transportation problem once and for all: in 1935 the first Metro line was opened in Moscow. This was the beginning of the end of tramways: from now on they were moved from all the avenues to the suburbs and small streets. Today there are only a few lines still operational in Moscow.

The poster above says: “Beware of the wheels! In 1925 there were 200 people run over by tramways”. The deadly scull adds dramatic effect to the image. Nowadays the poster has new life, as “wheels” or “kolesa” also stand for drugs in tablets in slang, giving the whole artwork a new meaning. And bearing in mind the drug death statistics in Russia it is probably even more dreadful.

How to raise a child like Lenin

Don’t you lie – ever!
G. Shubina, 1965

Truth will triumph. It always does. However, I figure truth is a variable, so we're right back where we started from.

Galloway Gallegher, in "The Proud Robot" by Henry Kuttner

What a wonderful water-color poster it is! It gives a perfect opportunity to understand what Soviet educational system was about. Education is not only a social institution with kindergartens, schools, colleges and universities. These are the places where knowledge is passed on, but schoolbooks can not give an impression of what ideas all young soviet citizens were absorbing from the youngest age.

Honesty was one of the basic virtues. According to the point 7 of Moral Codex of Communism Builder approved at the 22 Soviet Party Convention in 1961, every Soviet Citizen was to be “Honest and sincere, was to be moral, was to be plain and modest in social and private life”.

In 1940 a talented Soviet writer Mikhail Zoschenko published his “Stories about Lenin” – a set of fiction short-stories abridged for children, with Vladimir Lenin as the main character. Every short-story was illustrating a virtue – kindness, courage, will, intelligence. The very first short-story called “Decanter” went back to Lenin’s child years. Once young Volodia went to his aunt where he occasionally broke a decanter. When asked neither Lenin nor the children he played with admitted the fault. Fortunately no punishment followed but Lenin’s remorse was torturing him for the next two months until he finally confessed to his mother. And only after that he managed to have a good sleep. A naive story told in a language simple enough for the young to read and comprehend it. So after the War “Stories about Lenin” became obligatory reading in all schools of the Soviet Union. The message was quite clear – Soviet leaders are the most honest and sincere people of the world and every Soviet child should do his best to be like them. Unfortunately in those schoolbooks there was no mentioning of the author of the “Stories”, as in 1946 Zoschenko was called the “most vulgar writer of all the Soviets’” for the humorous short-stories he was brilliant at writing, and got in disgrace. Again the bright fiction had loose connection with reality. Zoschenko was exonerated only after Stalin’s death in 1953.

Plowed ground smells of earthworms and empires

Break virgin lands!
V. Livanova, 1954

There was a time they loved an accordionist, and now the time has come when they love a tractor driver.
A Russian proverb

Here is another poster which proclaims developing of virgin land as main means of agricultural boosting declared by Nikita Khrushchev . The slogan says: “Break virgin lands” and is accompanied by a short quatrain:

These lands are priceless.
Year by year
We should raise more and more
Grain for people.

Before the Revolution tractors were scarce as peasants did not have property rights on land they were cultivating and could not even dream about mechanization. And after the Revolution another problem occurred: the horses were all confiscated for army needs during the WW1 and the Civil War and the cows were all confiscated as a result of the War Communism policy. So when the whole thing settled down a bit, there were no draught means to plow and the peasants could not physically pull the plows themselves as during the war years the land became virgin. So in 1923 the first Soviet tractor “Zaporoshets” was built. It was an unsophisticated machine with three wheels, no cabin and torque engine, which worked on crude oil. The tractor was very simple to service and operate and it did play a great role in agricultural development of the country.

The caterpillar-tractor on the poster is the most popular model of the fifties called “Stalinets – 80”. It was named after Stalin like many other things in the Soviet Union. The women behind are “plugary” – plow-operators. They were lifting the plow at turnabouts or in case there was a stone. This was an extremely hard work because of the huge clouds of dust and exhausts from the pulling tractor. Stalinets’ production started in 1946 right after the War. For Soviet workers and peasants this was a machine from heaven – it had a full metal cabin with folding canvas roof, tilting windows and a powerful diesel engine which was capable of 92 horsepower at 1000 rpm. It could pull 8800 kgf at a speed of 10 km/h. In 1946-1958 there were built more than 200 thousand of S-80 tractors which were working at construction of Volgo-Baltic Waterway, during Antarctic exploration, on Karakum’s channel, at Bratsk hydroelectric plant, BAM and many other ambitious Soviet projects not to mention regular duties like plowing and towing.

This is why tractors were always a kind of a fetish for Soviet propaganda - it were these simple machines which paved the way to the Gagarin’s launch in space.

God exists, but we do not recognize him

“Atheist at the machine sit” magazine. 1925 subscription.
D. Moor (Orlov), 1924

During the War Communism years the Communist Party was fiercely fighting with the Orthocox Church. The Church had always been a part of the state and was actively supporting monarchy. And above all before the Revolution the Church had been the second greatest landlord in the country after the Tsar having great influence on rural population. So not only the temples were confiscated for common needs like warehouses and orphanages but also the minds of the citizens became the arena for ideological battle.

On the forefront of anticlerical propaganda was “Atheist at the machine sit” Magazine. It was published in 1923-1928. Its editor-in-chief was appointed Dmitry Moor (Orlov) – one of the best graphical artists of the time. Very soon the magazine turned into a general edition which covered a great variety of topics like socialist society problems, new life, international news, medicine, agriculture, history of the revolution. It became very popular among all Soviet social groups. In every library and village reading room there was always a copy of the “Atheist” available. In 1925 the supporters of the magazine founded a “Society of militant atheists” with 3 mln members by 1939.

The Magazine artwork and articles were so impressive and high quality that the Magazine quickly got famous abroad. “The Morning Post” even appointed a journalist who was attacking the “Atheist” articles on a regular basis. Catholic Church hated the magazine and got it banned in several European countries. The Archbishop of Canterbury - leader of the Church of England - even condemned it at a sitting of English Parliament.

The main fictional hero of the Magazine was Antipka (Antip – a traditional Russian name) – a lively revolutionary-tempered boy who appeared in almost every issue of the “Atheist”. His image is on the poster above. Antipka has a budenovka on his head – a military cap, which was a part of Semyon Budyonny cavalry uniform. On his chest there is a badge with Lenin’s image. The bright slogan says: “I am an atheist”. Amazingly Antipka had a living prototype: once Moor met a ragamuffin who said a brilliant phrase - “God exists, but we do not recognize him”.

I call architecture frozen music

The advertisement of GUM
V. Mayakovskiy, A. Rodchenko, 1923

Another classic constructivist poster. Again Mayakovsky wrote the rhymed text and Rodchenko did the graphics. The poster says: “Guests from cities, towns and villages, do not waste your soles on searching – go to GUM, where you’ll find everything – fast, neatly and cheap!”

This poster advertizes the GUM (Gosudarstvenniy Universalniy Magazin) – the State Universal Store in Moscow. GUM was a common name for the biggest department stores in the Soviet Union. The GUM in Moscow is actually a shopping mall with unique architecture.

Before the revolution the GUM building was known as the Upper Trading Rows. They were built in 1893 by Alexander Pomerantsev (responsible for architecture) and Vladimir Shukhov (responsible for engineering). Shukhov was an engineering genius – some compare him to Edison and Eifel. He developed practical calculations of stresses and deformations of beams, shells and membranes on elastic foundation, which allowed him to build the first Russian oil pipeline, various oil tanks and refineries. But he was most famous for his architectural projects including about 200 original towers (hyperboloid towers) all over the world, the most famous being the 160-meter-high Shukhov Tower in Moscow (1922); about 500 bridges; the Kievskiy Railway Station in Moscow (1912-17); several constructivist projects, designed in collaboration with another world-renown architect Konstantin Melnikov, notably the Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage (1926-28) and Novo-Ryazanskaya Street Garage (1926-29).

The Upper Trading Rows received Sukhov’s trade-mark feature – the giant glass-roof. This is a firm construction made of over 819 tons of metal with a diameter of over 14 meters. Illumination is provided by huge arched skylights of iron and glass, each weighing some 820 tons and containing in excess of 20,000 panes of glass.

In 1928 Stalin turned the store into office building but right after his death in 1953 the building’s original function was restored. During the soviet times it was one of the main sources for consumer goods with queues long enough to quit the building and reach the Red Square. All visitors from all over the country had the same list of Moscow places of interest – the Mausoleum, the Bolshoi (the big) Theatre and the GUM.