Red Art District

Jesse Walker | September 18, 2007

Alexander Zakharov's blog A Soviet Poster a Day is exactly what it sounds like. Some of the posters are quite striking:

Others are kind of creepy:

Actually, they're all creepy, since they're propaganda posters from a totalitarian state. In other words: Great stuff! Collect them all!

Elsewhere in Reason: I stand up for our right to enjoy commie kitsch.

[Hat tip: Jim Gill.]

Comments

Uncle Joe|9.18.07 @ 10:42AM|#

propaganda posters from a totalitarian state. In other words: Great stuff!

So happy you approve, Comrade. The millions, they deserved what they got.

|9.18.07 @ 10:45AM|#

Translations:

1) Must work. Rifle near.

2) Want to be like this - train.

|9.18.07 @ 10:47AM|#

I vote for The First All-Russian Sheep Breeding Exhibition and Congress

Episiarch|9.18.07 @ 10:51AM|#

Doesn't the jacked dude in the second poster look sort of like a young Arnold? Of course, for accuracy, an Arnold picture should have a woman in place of the young boy, but doing the exact same thing.

|9.18.07 @ 10:55AM|#

Add my vote for banning kyle. He just went through and spammed the active threads with identical posts, just like he did yesterday.

|9.18.07 @ 10:55AM|#

Doesn't the jacked dude in the second poster look sort of like a young Arnold? Of course, for accuracy, an Arnold picture should have a woman in place of the young boy, but doing the exact same thing.

Also the Arnold poster would feature a swastika instead of the hammer and sickle...

|9.18.07 @ 10:56AM|#

What is funny is that all of the bad public art done in this country in the 50s and 60s are just knock offs of this crap. There is a fountain where I went law school with a statue of a woman in the center holding this lamp, it looks like it could come right out of some "people's liberation park" in Gorky. It is just horrible. I don't mind the Soviet kitch. I do mind the American knockoffs polluting our public spaces.

|9.18.07 @ 10:56AM|#

You can also buy many here

They really are a good conversation starter, or a good way to scare away hyper-patriots, whichever you prefer.

|9.18.07 @ 11:05AM|#

I went to Riga, Latvia in 2002. In the center of town there was a 'museum of the occupation'. In the Soviet era, it was about the German occupation. After 1990, they started adding stuff from the Soviet occupation. There were a couple walls full of posters like this.

|9.18.07 @ 11:06AM|#

"Feel the power of the people, young Leonid"

Jesse Walker|9.18.07 @ 11:06AM|#

Episiarch: Yes. Also, it looks like he and the boy are wedged into the same pair of pants.

|9.18.07 @ 11:07AM|#

As per custom here, at some point this thread needs to include claims of the superiority of privately made, American propaganda.

You know, Spuds MacKenzie, "Where's the Beef?", etc.

|9.18.07 @ 11:16AM|#

The top poster must be very old - from the mid twenties at the latest. It reminds me of Lissistsky's Beat the Whites With the Red Wedge modernist propaganda painting.

The Soviets started cracking down on abstract art pretty quickly, and they had Socialist Realism for the next 5 decades. You'd think that would have given the artistic community in free countries pause, but no...

skoal|9.18.07 @ 11:16AM|#

You know, Spuds MacKenzie, "Where's the Beef?", etc.

Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!

Episiarch|9.18.07 @ 11:17AM|#

Episiarch: Yes. Also, it looks like he and the boy are wedged into the same pair of pants.

Pants were in short supply in the USSR. Long lines. Sometimes you had to share.

shecky|9.18.07 @ 11:22AM|#

I saw this once on TV during a sleepless night. Proof that the American military would have been woefully inadequate had the Cold War ever escalated, and we would have had our asses kicked in style.

The Artist Formerly Known as T|9.18.07 @ 11:32AM|#

I saw a few on Billary's (Hillary Clinton) campain workers wearing shirts with those very same posters silk screened on em.

Jesse Walker|9.18.07 @ 11:33AM|#

I saw this once on TV during a sleepless night. Proof that the American military would have been woefully inadequate had the Cold War ever escalated, and we would have had our asses kicked in style.

I think that was the original inspiration for Cop Rock.

Edward|9.18.07 @ 12:10PM|#

In the 1960s would you rather have been an American Black in Alabama or, say, a teacher in Moscow? Both Apartheid in South Africa and the Nuremburg laws in Nazi Germany were modeled on American Jim Crow laws.
The Soviet Union was a bad place, but even communism had redeeming features. And not everybody who was moved by Marxist idealism was bad. American communists and socialists made major contributions to the labor and civil rights movements. An American Socialist candidate for president got way more votes than a Libertarian candidate could ever dream of getting. Things are not quite as black and white as Libertarian propagandists like to portray them. Go back to your hymnals.

abu hamza|9.18.07 @ 12:10PM|#

re propaganda, private vs. public, etc.. does anyone know/ever hear what happened to the "mission accomplished" banner? I mean the actual banner itself. Was it from the white house, from the navy press office, or set up by some local outfit?

To hell with the blue dress. That banner is the genuine article of tremendous historical value, and needs to be in a museum somewhere.

Seriously, has there been any reporting done on the basics of the banner, who paid for it/designed it, who made it, who hung it up, and what happened to it afterwards?

|9.18.07 @ 12:13PM|#

I would like to echo the "Uncle Joe" troll above: we have a moral obligation not to enjoy art that glorifies Communism.

And I would like to add to list of banned art, any work done for the purpose of glorifying monarchism, the Divine Right of Kings, or Christianity.

What, you think those peasants and heretics and Jews got what they deserved?

I pity people who can't set aside politics long enough to appreciate art.

:-|9.18.07 @ 12:16PM|#

I pity people who can't set aside politics long enough to appreciate art.

Like lampshades made of human skin?

|9.18.07 @ 12:18PM|#

Er, no, like posters made of ink and paper.

WTF?

|9.18.07 @ 12:19PM|#

Seriously, has there been any reporting done on the basics of the banner, who paid for it/designed it, who made it, who hung it up, and what happened to it afterwards?

IIRC, the Bush administration claimed that the Navy had created and put up the banner and the White House had nothing to do with it.

|9.18.07 @ 12:31PM|#

Dan T.,

That's what they claimed, but it was the White House advance team that produced and hung the banner (just like the do at almost every other event Bush or Cheney attend). Their final claim was that they were doing it at the request of the sailors aboard the USS Lincoln. This was preceded by claims that the Navy produced and hung the banner (later rescinded), and that the White House produced the banner, but Navy personnel hung it (also later rescinded).

Link

Miggs|9.18.07 @ 12:32PM|#

Damn Edward, how many "last" posts are you going to have?

Edward|9.18.07 @ 12:38PM|#

Miggs

That's it. That's the last one. No, wait. This one is.

JMR|9.18.07 @ 1:04PM|#

But will the have the old Brezhnev/Honecker kiss poster?

|9.18.07 @ 1:56PM|#

"In the 1960s would you rather have been an American Black in Alabama or, say, a teacher in Moscow? "

Unless I missed the Gulags that we locked up black Americans in and worked them to death, I would rather be a black in the South. Not that that was a picnic either, but that statemet betreys an unimaginable historical ignorance on your part.

Stupid Girl|9.18.07 @ 3:01PM|#

I just dig those Che T-shirts!
Who was he, anyway?

He has dreamy eyes!

Edward|9.18.07 @ 3:44PM|#

John

Not everybody in the Soviet Union went to the gulags just as not all Blacks in the American South got lynched. Stalin's purges opened up a lot of oportunities for advancement, and even in the worst days of the Stalinist terror, Stalin had his supporters. By the 1960s the worst excesses of the Soviet Union were past, and the average Soviet citizen had a better life by any measure than the average rural Black in the American South.
I'm afraid you're the one who's betraying historical ignorance. But you've got ther articles of faith and main dogmas down.

|9.18.07 @ 4:24PM|#

Now, if John had said "Ukraine in the 1930s," he'd be on stronger ground.

Edward|9.18.07 @ 4:30PM|#

Joe,

You're right. A Ukrainian peasant in the 1930s would probably gladly have gladly traded places with an American Black. So would a Ukranian Jew, of course.

|9.18.07 @ 4:45PM|#

Edward,
You mean the same Soviet Union of the 60's which had Breznev's rise to power?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Brezhnev
During the Khrushchev years Brezhnev had supported the leader's denunciations of Stalin's arbitrary rule, the rehabilitation of many of the victims of Stalin's purges, and the cautious liberalization of Soviet intellectual and cultural policy. But as soon as he became leader, Brezhnev began to reverse this process, and developed an increasingly conservative and regressive attitude. In a May 1965 speech commemorating the 20th anniversary of defeat of Germany, Brezhnev mentioned Stalin positively for the first time. In April 1966, he took the title General Secretary, which had been Stalin's title. The trial of the writers Yuri Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky in 1966-the first such trials since Stalin's day-marked the reversion to a repressive cultural policy. Under Yuri Andropov the political police (the KGB) regained much of the power it had enjoyed under Stalin, although there was no return to the purges of the 1930s and 1940s.

Even the famous thaw during Khruschev's time in the 50's was very limited...look at what happened to Boris Pasternak and his Nobel Prize...

Notice that even during the "thaw," much shitty stuff still happened and continued, the continuation of the INTERNAL passport system:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passport_system_in_the_Soviet_Union
On October 21, 1953 the USSR Council of Ministers decreed the new Passport Statute. It made passports obligatory for all citizens older than sixteen years in all non-rural settlements. Rural residents could not leave their place of residence for more than thirty days, and even for this leave a permit from a selsoviet was required. The notion of "temporary propiska" was introduced, in addition to the regular or "permanent" one. A temporary propiska was issued for work-related reasons and for study away from home.


Hell, at least in the 60's US, the civil right movement picked up speed and destroyed power of that the up-front racism at least providing some hope, while in the USSR sure you could get ok-to-shitty health care/welfare but the insidious hand of the Soviet state was always watching...and if you got it wrong, bam, to the gulag or a mental institution you went.

So no Edward, I still say the USSR was worse.

|9.18.07 @ 4:52PM|#

and if you got it wrong, bam, to the gulag or a mental institution you went.

Bah, I went hyperbolic there. Sorry.
But even if that line was redacted, the USSR was a shitty place to live in...

|9.18.07 @ 4:54PM|#

hyperbolic?
Man, just forget that...
Tell you what, just forget the last post and the last 2 paragraphs of that first post of mine...or something...
I dunno, the USSR sucks.

Jesse Walker|9.18.07 @ 4:57PM|#

Edward seems to think the most banal historical facts are bold truths that somehow challenge the libertarian worldview. Some people supported Stalin! Life under Brezhnez was bearable! Communists were active in the civil rights movement! Eugene Debs got a lot of votes! Uh...no shit.

|9.18.07 @ 5:08PM|#

Actually, Jesse, he seems to think that certain banal historical truths challenge the worldview of some of the denser libertarians.

Which they do.

|9.18.07 @ 5:33PM|#

Looks like one more time to thank goodness we have random Blues around to defend the good name of left-wing totalitarians.

|9.18.07 @ 5:51PM|#

Looks like one more time to thank goodness we have random Reds around to defend the good name of Jim Crow segregation.

The difference is, I'm kidding.

|9.18.07 @ 6:20PM|#

As per custom here, at some point this thread needs to include claims of the superiority of privately made, American propaganda.

You know, Spuds MacKenzie, "Where's the Beef?", etc.

Ah, yes. I still remember when the propagandists of the Coca-Cola regime forced New Coke upon us.

We groan beneath its foul-tasting yoke to this this day.

Shall classic Coke never return?!

|9.18.07 @ 6:23PM|#

In Soviet Russia ... was really not so bad after all!

I do not have punchline!

|9.18.07 @ 6:26PM|#

In Soviet Russia, Vaseline-on-the-lens Communist nostalgia remembers you.

|9.18.07 @ 6:57PM|#

On da otha han' ... ain't nobody a-gwyne to make a fuss ifn I 'preciates a good old Uncle Remus story fum awr ol' days, is dey? Dey wairn all dat bad neither. Fair be fair.

Zippity doo dah!

ed|9.18.07 @ 7:25PM|#

Damn, those commies did cool art!

Now, if we can somehow separate the human suffering (that made those propaganda posters possible) from the artistic merit of the committee-sanctioned collaborators, we'll have something to enjoy these many years later.

But why fret over the past?
Hell, it's art!

SIV|9.18.07 @ 9:08PM|#

the average Soviet citizen had a better life by any measure than the average rural Black in the American South

No....not even close.

Edward|9.18.07 @ 10:08PM|#

"Actually, Jesse, he seems to think that certain banal historical truths challenge the worldview of some of the denser libertarians."

Denser libertarians are what the Stalists called the masses. Wacko Aaron Russo is a convenient hero to hold up for the masses to admire. 9/11 truthers are nuts, but objectively good for the movement. The Libertarian vanguard is shamless.

|9.18.07 @ 10:17PM|#

The only caption I can think of for the second poster would make Pat Robertson's head explode.

With respect to Soviet Era art in general: There was much innovation in the early 1920's, when I think the first poster dates to. A great deal of very interesting work was done by artists who truly believed in the Communist regime. However, once "Socialist Realism" became the official line in Soviet Art, it quickly degenerated into the sort that the second poster represents. It is really indistinguishable from the art of [Godwin edit] or the "public health" posters produced in the 1950s promoting vaccinations or washing your hands after going to the toilet.

The comparison with early advertizing art is not out of line. Most advertizing art was (and is now) incredibly bad.

|9.18.07 @ 11:28PM|#

John: "Unless I missed the Gulags that we locked up black Americans in and worked them to death, I would rather be a black in the South. Not that that was a picnic either, but that statemet betreys an unimaginable historical ignorance on your part."

Parchman Farm was a Cotton Curtain Kolyma.

See http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=22500870194459 "During the Cold War years an article of faith that distinguished the West from the 'Evil Empire' of Soviet Communism was the latter's Siberian gulag, a vast network of prison camps where inmates faced unspeakable brutality and horrors from both nature and man. Of course, nothing of that kind could flourish here. According to David Oshinsky, the U.S. did indeed have its own gulag, and it went by the name of Mississippi. Parchman Farm was its 'first circle.'"

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_State_Penitentiary

"In 1970 the Civil Rights lawyer Roy Haber began taking statements from inmates, which eventually ran to fifty pages of details of murders, rapes, beatings and other abuses suffered by the inmates from 1969 to 1971. In 1972 in the case of Gates v. Collier decided in federal court, federal judge William C. Keady found that Parchman Farm violated modern standards of decency."

|9.19.07 @ 11:47AM|#

ed,

Time heals all wounds.

People look at the lovely painting of knights and battles from Europe a few centuries back without their consciences bothering them.