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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 118 (SPotW118)

10/2/2019

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Vladimir Musinov, Great Stalin is the hope of the world / peace!, 1951

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Vladimir Musinov (Владимир Мусинов), Great Stalin is the hope of the world / peace! (Великий Сталин - надежда мира), 1951

The powerful image of Stalin in Vladimir Musinov’s 1951 poster shows a three-quarter view of the relaxed and friendly vozhd’ in monochrome, set against the brilliant red of the Soviet flag.


The rich red is associated with the Revolution and the Soviet government, with beauty and sacredness in icons, and also with the blood of the sacrifice of Soviet forces in the Great Patriotic War, which by transference is also Stalin’s sacrifice.


Stalin’s sacrifice during the Great Patriotic War was in fact a real sacrifice. Stalin’s son Yakov Djugashvili by his first wife was an artillery lieutenant who on 16 July, 1941 was captured by the Germans during the battle of Smolensk. He did not perform the expected honourable act of committing suicide, and so was imprisoned in a POW camp.


When German Field Marshall Friedrich von Paulus surrendered to the Soviet forces on January 31, 1943 (and also did not commit suicide), the Germans proposed an exchange of prisoners. Stalin refused, stating as his reason that Yakov was not equivalent to a Field Marshall.


When Stalin was asked after the war if the von Paulus story was a myth he replied:


“Not a myth... Just think how many sons ended in camps! Who would swap them for Paulus? Were they worse than Yakov? I had to refuse... What would they have said of me, our millions of Party fathers, if having forgotten about them, I agreed to swapping Yakov? No, I had no right... Otherwise, I’d no longer be “Stalin”... I so pitied Yasha!”

 
Yakov committed suicide in the POW camp, without having co-operated with the Germans in April 1943.*


The simple poster caption in large font plays on the dual meanings of the Russian word 'mir' as both 'peace' and 'the world'. With the Soviet Union conspicuously heading world peace movements in the 1950s, Stalin was presented in propaganda as the shining hope for peace - world peace, the beacon of hope for the entire world.


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What a friendly old fellow is Stalin!

In Musinov's poster, Stalin’s eyes actually sparkle with friendship and joy. His approachability is highlighted by the fact that he is not wearing his characteristic marshal’s uniform, just a simple military-style tunic, without epaulettes or braid, and his sole decoration is the star of the Hero of Socialist Labour.


To be portrayed in the marshal’s uniform might have served as a reminder of the recent war and conquest in Eastern Europe. In official parlance, the nations of Eastern Europe had been ‘liberated’ and for this they owed the friendly avuncular figure of Stalin an unpayable debt of gratitude.


Vladimir Musinov was a well-known Soviet photographer who travelled the USSR from Vladivostok to the Arctic to middle Asia, documenting collectivisation and Soviet development. He was one of four Russian photographers who contributed to the March 29, 1943 special edition of LIFE (vol. 14, no. 13) on the USSR.


* S. Sebag Montefiore. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. London, 2003, pp.394-5.

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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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