art posters of war

Crush The Enemy Without Mercy

If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.

Winston Churchill

Kukriniksy – this is an notable creative group of Soviet graphic artists. Mikhail Kupriyanov, Porfiriy Krilov and Nikolay Sokolov managed to draw numerous satirical posters and cartoons over the years shaping the Soviet caricature style.

This is the first work by Kukriniksy in the war years. After the war was declared they immediately took a bus to “Pravda” newspaper office. The bus was all agitated, a woman could not help but crying. In Pravda office all the stuff was there already. The first phrase they heard was: “Hey you three! Now you’ve got oh so plenty of work to do!”

And indeed their input was anticipated. Their first two drawings of that day were immediately approved and went into production. Millions of people remember them as this was the first graphic works reflecting the dread of war and intention to protect the Motherland.

This is one of them. It shows a cartoon image of Hitler sneaking through the Molotov-Ribentropp pact – a treaty renouncing warfare between Soviet Union and Germany among other things. Hitler is throwing away a smiling mask showing his treachery and meanness. Of course the secret protocols of the pact were disclosed, so the dividing of eastern European countries was not known to the public.

There is also a big red figure of a Russian soldier with a star on the helmet which pierces Hitler’s forehead with his  bayonet. The slogan says: “We’ll rout and destroy the enemy without mercy!”

The poster is in black and red – this was an easy printing technique suitable for material-scarce war years and besides it could easily be hand printed using templates.

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Glory to Potemkin National Heroes!

Although the Russian bourgeois revolution of 1905-07 displayed no such “brilliant” successes as at time fell to the Portuguese and Turkish revolutions, it was undoubtedly a “real people’s” revolution, since the mass of the people, their majority, the very lowest social groups, crushed by oppression and exploitation, rose independently and stamped on the entire course of the revolution the imprint of their own demands, their attempt to build in their own way a new society in place of the old society that was being destroyed.

Vladimir Lenin

There were quite a few posters devoted to the famous movie by Sergey Eizenshtein “Bronenosets Potemkin” (“Battleship Potemkin”). It is truly a masterpiece, which was numerously quoted by other movie directors.

The movie (1925)  describes a tragic story of a mutiny on Battleship Potemkin where the sailors rebelled against inhuman conditions; they were fed by worm-eaten meat and were horribly treated by the tsar’s officers. The instigators were to be shot, but the uprising started and the battleship was taken under control of the sailors. The head of the uprising – sailor Vakulinchuk died in the clash. In Odessa unarmed  civilians gather on a huge stairs for his funeral only to be shot by the tsar’s police. Battleship Potemkin hits the sea and is surrounded by squadron of  battleships, which cease fire and let him go, despite the orders.

The poster depicts the heroic Vakulinchuk and has a quote from the resolution put forward by the sailors of Battleship Potemkin on March 20 1905. It is an extract saying: “Our motto… freedom for the whole nation”. The ribbon at the bottom declares: “Glory to the National Potemkin Heroes!”.

This resolution declared support of National Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, demanded termination of war (1905), unleashed by the tyrant Tzar and proclaimed the desire free the Russian nation from the oppression of the capitalists.

That’s why this truly remarkable event became one of the most notable historic events in the Soviet Propaganda.

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Don't Babble!

Talk is cheap, silence is golden. English Proverb

Be wide awake! These days

The walls do even listen.

It doesn’t take too long

From chattering TO TREASON.

The poster was created by the Russian artist Nina Vatolina in 1941. The plot is similar to the number of western posters, calling for prudence and silence during the rigorous period of the World War II. The image of woman is taken from “Motherland calling” poster by Irakli Toidze.  It should be said that the poster was widespread in the Soviet Union not only in the period of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), but even after, in the witch-hunting atmosphere of the last Stalinist years.

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Soviet Industry Poster

To us – in tanks, but back – on sleds.

Russian Proverb – reference to defeat of Hitler, when in winter bodies of Nazi soldiers were carried out of the battlefield on sleds.

From the northern board of the Arctic Ocean to the southern Kazakhstan steppes extend the Ural mountain ranges. The Ural Mountains are not high, but rich of mineral resources. In 1941 – 1942, when the Nazi Wehrmacht occupied the western regions of the USSR, the Soviets lost industrially developed territories, the Soviet government started evacuation of the socialist industry from the near-front area to the East. Within 1941-42 evacuation service moved rearward circa 2.500 factories, millions of workers and specialists. “The Red directors” were supposed to do impossible: to accomplish transportation and deployment of plants, ensuring fulfillment of over-estimated norms. And they did. Totally during the war the Soviet rearward industry produced circa 136.000 warplanes, 102.000 tanks and SP vehicles, 488.000 guns, and sufficient quantity of shells.

Many factories were deployed in the southern Urals, near the mineral resources and the local metallurgical plants. The biggest factory was called “Tankograd” (“The Tank-City”). The Urals industry contributes much in the allied victory.

The message of this WWII poster says: «From Urals to the front». It was created by the Russian artist Pyotr Karachentsov (1907—1998). He is not so famous in Russia, as his son, the popular Russian actor Nikolai Karachentsov.

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Spain Republic Fight Poster

One thing that I am sure of, and which I can answer truthfully, is that whatever the contingencies that may arise here, wherever I am there will be no Communism.

Francisco Franco

As we know, the World War II started the 1st September 1939. But the Nazi Wehrmaht (and especially Luftwaffe) had its training ground before the year 1939. Adolf Hitler had an opportunity to try his warplanes in Spanish skies, when a Spanish general Francisco Franco raised a coup d’état against duly elected socialist government of Spain (07.18.1936). On the contrary, Stalin sent arms, war specialists and propagandists to the republican government to help like-minded socialists. Many volunteers throughout the world came to Spain to stand for the republic. The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was the first conflict between the far-right regimes on the one side (Nazi Gegmany, Fascist Italy, Frankists), and the Antifascist communist-liberal coalition on the other (Communists, Socialists, Liberals). The western democratic states stood aside the conflict.

The poster by a Spanish artist Tomás depicts the crucial moment of the conflict – the siege of Madrid. The 7th November 1936 the Republicans managed to repulse the Frankists from the Spanish capital. Simultaneously, the 7th November 1936 is the 19th anniversary of the October Socialist revolution in Russia.

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Let’s Fight the False Shock-Workers!

One day work is hard, and another day it is easy; but if I had waited for inspiration I am afraid I should have done nothing. The miner does not sit at the top of the shaft waiting for the coal to come bubbling up to the surface. One must go deep down, and work out every vein carefully. Arthur Sullivan

The beginning of 1930-s is marked by enormous shift in the soviet economy – creation a national heavy industry. Traditionally the light industry and the agricultural sector dominated over heavy industry in Russia. In the end of 1920-s the ambitious soviet government decided to transform Russia into an industrial superpower, and – not least important – to mechanize the soviet “Red Army” corps, bringing them up-to-date. Soviet economists drafted an impossible “Five-Year Plan”, moreover, Stalin demanded to fulfill the first “Five-Year Plan” within four years. So, the realization of industry busting plan became next to almost impossible.

In order to increase labor efficiency the soviet authorities inspired the approach of the shock-workers, so-called “A Movement of the Socialist Competition”. The workers must have elaborated enormous quotas in extra-hours. It is needless to say, that labor was hard and exhausting. Soviet propaganda promoted the idea of “the Socialist Competition”, and the top shock-workers were placed on the top of newspapers. Undoubtedly, the most famous shock-worker in the USSR was the coal-miner Alexei Stakhanov, who elaborated an enormous coal amount without exceeding the usual working-hours.

This poster, created circa 1931 by an unknown artist, appeals to unmask the false shock-workers, i. e. the people who say they are the top performers, but in reality don’t elaborate their working norms.

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What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone? Winston Churchill

On the poster we can see the image of Sir Winston Chirchill, the Prime-Minister of Great Britain (1940-1945, 1951-1954). The dignified British leader says that the British should reunite to fight the Nazi Germany and the militarist Japan. But do you really think that the people of Britain needed further propaganda to understand an obvious fact of German or Japanese threat? Obviously this World War II propaganda poster is aimed at not encouraging the people of the British island, but to put a message across the people of the whole British Empire, the Canadians, the Australians, the South-Africans, the Indians, the Arabians, the Asians, etc. In the first half of the XX c. the British Empire was so broad, that the Britons kept saying that the sun never goes down on the Empire. Nevertheless during the World War II the Arabian intelligentsia sympathized with the Nazi Germany, and the Malaysians leaned towards Japan (being unaware of Nazy and Japanese atrocities). There are also a lot of evidence of the Axis powers influence within the “pax Britannica”. This propaganda poster message is to reunite the anti-Axis forces throughout the peoples of the British Empire. On the poster you can see the Spitfire aircrafts and the infantry Matilda tanks, which might should certainly help in strengthening of the people’s belief in the future victory.

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