Work is the curse of the drinking classes

Let’s thrash it!
V. Deni, 1930

This is a beautiful anti-alcohol poster created by Victor Deni – who was one of the brightest soviet poster artists of the first half of the century.

The poster shows a Red Worker standing in front of steaming factory pipes. He is about to smash a big bottle of alcohol. The giant hammer has words “The Cultural Revolution” written on. Unlike the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the sixties, which was a political struggle, the Soviet Cultural Revolution implied elimination of illiteracy, foundation of educational system, changing of private and social life of the citizens, development of science, literature and art under the supervision of the Party. Of course alcohol was considered to be the enemy of these reforms.

Below there are verses by Demian Bedny, who was one of the most noted poets of the Soviet times:

You, there, don’t trifle with booze
D’rather thrash it
Culturally,
Roughly,

Powerfully, wrathfully,
Smash daily,
At your every step,
Give no rest to the enemy.

An impressive artwork, indeed.

Check Alcohol Posters at Allposters:

Leningrad is calling up

Leningrad is calling up
Unknown artist, 1930

The telegraph tape stuck to the poster says (note the absence of punctuation marks):

ATTENTION EVERYBODY
THE WORKERS OF LENINGRAD FACTORIES
FULFILL THE FIVE YEAR PLAN ON
MAIN PRODUCTS
IN THREE YEARS
PROLETARIAT OF THE UNION
FOLLOW THE CITY OF LENIN

The background of the poster is occupied by the silhouette of Lenin with his famous gesture, showing the way to the bright future. He stands behind a massive red factory building; its workers standing in front of it, with their hands rose as if they are openly voting for the message on the tape.

Saint Petersburg was capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred years (1712-1728, 1732-1918). In 1914 it was named Petrograd, as Saint Petersburg sounded too German. In 1917 it became the heart of Bolshevik’s uprising during which the city workers assaulted the Winter Palace (the Tsars’ residence). The city's proximity to anti-Soviet armies forced Vladimir Lenin to move his government to Moscow on March 5, 1918. Three days after Lenin’s death Petrograd was renamed Leningrad and remained until 1991, when the original name was restored to kill its connotation with the Soviet times.

Check masterpieces from Hermitage (Saint Petersburg), the biggest museum of Russia:

There and back

To The West!
Ivanov V.S., 1943

Our strength consists in our speed and in our brutality. Genghis Khan led millions of women and children to slaughter—with premeditation and a happy heart. History sees in him solely the founder of a state. It’s a matter of indifference to me what a weak western European civilization will say about me. I have issued the command—and I’ll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad—that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formation in readiness—for the present only in the East—with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks to-day of the annihilation of the Armenians?

The “Armenian quote” from a speech by Adolf Hitler to Wehrmacht commanders at his Obersalzberg home on August 22, 1939, a week before the German invasion of Poland.

Drang Nach Osten (German “Drive towards the East”) is a conception of German expansion on the eastern lands. The idea goes back to the campaigns of Charles the Great. The term was widely used in 19th century by the German intellectuals. But only in the 20th century it matured in the works of Karl Ernst Haushofer – a German geopolitician, who laid grounds for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany. Drang Nach Osten was an essential part of Lebensraum (or living space), needed for the growth of the German population, so that to create a Greater Germany. This living space should have been found in the East where the traditional inhabitants of Russia, Poland, Ukraine and other Slavic states had to be exterminated.

The poster shows a sign with Drang Nach Osten slogan, nailed to the tree by the Germans during their offensive. After fighting the Soviet territory back a Russian soldier knocks it down by the rifle butt. In the background Soviet fighters attack and artillery men fire field-guns. The Battle of Kursk (July 4 – July 20, 1943) heroically won by the Red Army led to massive counteroffensive. So the slogan on the poster forms exact antithesis to the Drang Nach Osten saying: “To The West!”

Check WW2 posters at allposters!

Dramatic Transformation

Transformation of fritzes (The TASS Window №640)
Kukriniksy, 1942

The poster verse says:

These are not the animals with wild howl
Crossing stormy river flow.
This is Hitler kicking
Troops eastward.

Here where all the windows are loop-holes,
And the bushes hide death,
Here after tasting the foreign ground,
The fooled fritzes
Transform into grave crosses.

And this death of German bastards
Have no magic whatsoever.
This is military triumph of
The Red Army

This poster is a great example of Okna “TASS” art. These series of posters drawn always on acute topics, were created during the WW2 by Kukriniksy – a group of three brilliant cartoonists.

The poster shows German lines marching under direct command of Hitler and transforming into swastikas and then into white birch grave crosses. This poster is a very significant artwork of the War as this is the first time German soldiers (pejoratively nicknamed “Fritzes”) are portrayed as being fooled by its rulers – namely Hitler. The first row of soldiers is archly pictured with red noses and in cowardly poses, but certainly not evil. The second row has undergone partial transformation in swastikas. The final transformation is death in a form of grave crosses. Such separation of the ordinary executors and organizers became possible when in the beginning of 1942 Soviet Army performed successful counteroffensive - the Battle of Moscow. This operation eliminated the direct threat to the Russian capital, made the blitzkrieg impossible and strengthened Soviet confidence in final Victory.

Check the tank images at allposters:

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.

Check these beautiful woman photos:

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!