Stalin poster of the week 112 (SPotW112)

Unknown artist, 6 conditions of Stalin, 1938

Unknown artist, 6 conditions of Stalin (б условий сталина), 1938

This 1938 poster by an unknown artist is one of the later of several posters outlining 'Stalin's six conditions'. Posters were published on this theme as early as 1931, the year in which Stalin gave the speech from which they are extracted, New Conditions — New Tasks in Economic Construction, delivered at a conference of business executives on June 23.

Each poster features a large body of text to spell out the six conditions:

A new way to work in a new direction.
... Recruit manpower in an organised way, by means of contracts with the collective farms, and mechanise labour...
... Put an end to labour mobility, do away with wage equalisation, organise the payment of wages properly, and improve the living conditions of workers ...
... Put an end to the lack of personal responsibility at work, improve the organisation of work, arrange the proper distribution of forces in our enterprises.
... See to it that the working class of the USSR has its own industrial and technical intelligentsia ...
... Change our attitudes towards the engineers and technicians of the old school, show them greater attention and solicitude, and enlist their cooperation in work more bravely ...
... Introduce and reinforce financial accountability and increase the accumulation of resources within industry...

Stalin is the centre and the solid rock behind Soviet innovation and progress

The poster shows Stalin as central to, and actually melded to, Soviet industrialisation and agriculture. He is surrounded by grain silos and scenes of construction. Industrial products are moving above his head, along with an aircraft and a dirigible. 

Tatars ride tractors instead of horses and send their grain off to the state

Towers and a massive dam flank the text, while scenes of agriculture run across the bottom of the poster. The banner on the tractor reads 'Bread to the state'. Collectivisation meant that tractors replaced horses and that produce became the property of the state.

Education is the key to further progress. It is no longer okay to kill people in traditionally bourgeois occupations.

The bottom left shows a scene of a teacher giving instruction to children at a board, while on the bottom right is a charming little country schoolhouse. Thus, all areas of Soviet achievement under Stalin are graphically represented and the need for an educated citizenry is highlighted.

In earlier times, the Bolsheviks had waged class war against the bourgeois and the wealthier farmers (kulaks). In his speech, Stalin now suggests that the intelligentsia, the educated and the highly skilled worker be embraced into the socialist fold as the new leaders in the push forward to catch up the western world.

The poster was published by the mid-Volga Regional Council, League (Union) of Militant Atheists.  The League of Militant Atheists was an atheistic and anti-religious group of workers and intelligentsia that formed in 1925.

The league, which had a presence in work places, collective farms, educational institutions and youth organisations, aimed to extinguish religious belief in the Soviet populace and to replace it with an emphasis on science.

The League of Militant Atheists was disbanded in 1941 when Germany invaded the USSR and Stalin opened the churches, allowing believers to flock back to religion in their millions.