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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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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