Viktor Deni and Nikolai Dolgorukov, Results of the First Five-Year Plan, 1933 This 1933 poster by graphic art duo Viktor Deni and Nikolai Dolgorukov shows a worker joyfully holding a copy of the newspaper Pravda announcing the results of the first five-year plan. The worker and the industrial construction and agricultural silos surrounding him, are all coloured the sacred red of the Bolshevik revolution. Sporting a Stalin-like moustache, the worker's broad smile is emphasised by the contrast of his white teeth against the red fill of his figure. Pravda reports Stalin's speech of January 7, 1933 in which he revealed the results of the first five-year plan and discussed future directions for industry, agriculture and class struggle. The first two sections of the speech are reproduced in full under the two section headings: I. International significance of the five-year plan II. The fundamental task of the five-year plan and the way to its fulfilment. Beneath this 'socialist' section of the poster is a dividing band containing a paragraph of text in red. The text is a highlighted quote from the speech by Stalin: The results of the five-year plan have shown that the capitalist system of economy is bankrupt and unstable; that it has outlived its day and must give way to another, a higher, Soviet, socialist system of economy (I. Stalin) Filling the bottom quarter of the poster beneath this is a segment illustrating this divide between the capitalist and socialist systems. An overweight and ugly white male capitalist in top hat reels backwards, away from the encroaching banners of the red front. Buildings appear to be collapsing around him and a skull with the word 'crisis' emblazoned across its forehead looms menacingly. The Great Depression had begun in the West in 1929 and in 1933, just days before the inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the United States was gripped by a banking crisis. The banks were closed for a period extending from March 2 to March 13th, halting panicked withdrawals by customers. Although ultimately preserved, the capitalist system was unstable and appeared to be under threat. Thus, Stalin had some evidence to back his claims that the socialist system was in the ascendent.
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Dr Anita PischAnita’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. Archives
April 2019
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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 |
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 |