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stalin poster of the week

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This blog was first published on the properganderpress website https://properganderpressblog.wordpress.com/category/stalin-poster-of-the-week/

Stalin poster of the week 107 (SPotW107)

25/11/2018

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V. Reshetnikov, Glory to Lenin, glory to Stalin, glory to great October!, 1952

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V. Reshetnikov (Решетников, В.), Glory to Lenin, glory to Stalin, glory to great October! (Слава Ленину, слава Сталину, слава великому октябрю!), 1952

This 1952 poster of Stalin was published in a small edition of 3000 by Latgosizdat, the Latvian State Publishing House, one year before Stalin's death.


Resplendent in his marshal's uniform, Stalin sports the Gold Star Medal. Established in 1939, the medal was awarded to 'heroes' of the Soviet Union (formerly awarded the Order of Lenin and a special certificate).


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The heads of the two legendary thinkers are merged into the hyphenated identity of Lenin-Stalin

Behind Stalin is the banner of Lenin. The heads of the two are merged (making a Lenin-Stalin) as they both gaze to the viewer's right - the direction of the future.


So visionary is Stalin that he seems oblivious to the crowds behind him, who hail him in greeting and wave bunches of flowers in the air. The crowds line the City Canal, which was the site of the declaration of Latvian independence in 1918.


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A nice play on words identifies Stalin with world peace and hints at his omnipresence

The banner on the gate has a double meaning: Stalin is the world/Stalin is peace. The poster coincides with the time at which Stalin was striving to be seen as the leader of the world peace movement.


1952 was also the time at which the so-called Latvian cultural wars erupted. After the 19th CPSU Congress and the 12th Latvian Communist Party Congress in September 1952, culture became the battleground for the question of nationalism versus internationalism among the Latvian communists.


The culture wars hinged around the question of whether Latvia's allegiance was nationalist in nature, a form of 'national communism, or to the Soviet Union.* The situation was exacerbated for the Latvian leadership by the fact that their attempts at recruiting the populace were largely unsuccessful.


The setting of the poster on the City Canal is, perhaps, a perfunctory nod to the nationalist sentiments of many of the Latvian communists. However, the poster depicts the Latvian people as being firmly behind Stalin and Lenin - the Bolshevik/Soviet model of communism, which will ultimately lead the world to peace.


*For more on this, see an interesting chapter on 'Sovietization, Russification, and Nationalism in Post-war Latvia' by William D. Prigge in the book The Baltic States under Stalinist Rule, edited by Olaf Mertelsmann.

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    Dr Anita Pisch

    Anita’s new, fully illustrated book, The personality cult of Stalin in Soviet posters, 1929 -1953, published by ANU Press, is available for free download here, and can also be purchased in hard copy from ANU Press.

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BLOG ARCHIVE - STALIN POSTER OF THE WEEK
SPotW1 Toidze 1947
SPotW2 Klutsis 1930
SPotW3 Chronicle 1938
SPotW4 Podobedov 1940
SPotW5
Deni 1930
SPotW6 Klutsis 1933
SPotW7 Efimov 1933
SPotW8 Govorkov 1936
SPotW9 Koretskii 1949
SPotW10
Foreign policy 1940
SPotW11 Pravdin 1950
SPotW12 Karpovskii 1948
SPotW13 Mizin 1934
SPotW14 Klutsis 1931
SPotW15
Koretskii 1943
SPotW16 I.V. Stalin 1930
SPotW17 Volkova/Pinus 1938
SPotW18 Toidze 1941
SPotW19 Stalin's affection 1949
SPotW20 Berezovskii 1947


SPotW21 50 Years 1929
SPotW22 Petrov 1948
SPotW23 Arakelov 1939
SPotW24 Ivanov 1952
SPotW25 Solomyanii 1952


SPotW26 Belopol'skii 1952
SPotW27 Kaidalov 1940
SPotW28 Mytnikov 1950
SPotW29 Yang 1938
SPotW30 Golub' 1950


SPotW31 Vorontsov 1951
SPotW32 Belopol'skii, 1951
SPotW33 Deni 1931
SPotW34 Madorskii 1938
SPotW35 Leader, teacher, friend 1941


SPotW36 Al'menov 1951
SPotW37 Deni 1937
SPotW38 Cheprakov 1941
SPotW39 Enemy, 1941
SPotW40 Zotov, 1934

SPotW41 Grinets 1937
SPotW42 Vatolina 1939
SPot
W43  Zhukov 1940
SPotW44 Fedotov 1943
SPotW45 Golub' 1949

SPotW46 Vatolina 1950
SPotW47 Solov'ev 1950
SPotW48 Mel'nikova 1951
SPotW49 Kokorekin 1951
SPotW50 Ivanov El'tsufen 1952

SPotW51 Unknown 1952
SPotW52 Klutsis 1932
SPotW53 Printing 1950
SPotW54 Lukhtein 1951
SPotW55 Toidze 1946

SPotW56 Litvinov 1949
SPotW57 Serov 1942
SPotW58 Pinchuk 1943
SPotW59 Petrov 1952
SPotW60 Podobedov 1939

SPotW61 Babitskii 1944
SPotW62 Pen Varlen 1942
SPotW63 Bayuskin 1942
SPotW64 Belopol'skii 1950
SPotW65 Belopol'skii 1952

SPotW 81 Koretskii 1950
SPotW 82 Pravdin 1950
SPotW83 Vatolina 1938
SPotW 84 Deni 1938
SPotW85 
Koretskii 1945


SPotW66 Dlugach 1933
SPotW67 Zhitomirskii 1942
SPotW68 Toidze 1949
SPotW69 Mikhailov 1937
SPotW70 Cheprakov 1939

SPotW 86 Kazantsev 1944
SPotW 87 Civil War 1938

SPotW 88 Kun 1937
SPotW 89 Spirit 1941
SPotW 90 Ryvkin 1939

SPotW71 Deni 1935
SPotW72 Deni 1935
SPotW73 Defence 1938
SPotW74 Elkin 1939
SPotW75 Zarnitskii

SPotW 91 Moor 1938
SPotW 92 Ivanov 1948
SPotW 93 Govorkov 1951
SPotW 94 Denisov 1941
SPotW 95 Ledby 1942

SPotW76 Toidze 1943
SPotW77 Futerfas 1936
SPotW78 Mukhin 1945
SPotW79 Golub' 1948
SPotW80 Karpovskii 1948

SPotW 96
SPotW 97
SPotW 98
SPotW 99
SPotW 100

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