Stalin poster of the week 124 (SPotW124)

Viktor Deni, With the banner of Lenin…, 1933

Viktor Deni (B. дени), With the banner of Lenin… (со знаменем ленина…), 1933

Viktor Deni’s poster of Stalin and Lenin of 1933 is one of three known posters of Stalin of that year with the lengthy caption:

With the banner of Lenin we were victorious in the battle for the October revolution.
With the banner of Lenin we were victorious in attaining decisive achievements in the struggle to build socialism.
With the same banner we will be victorious in our proletarian revolution throughout the world.

The caption is from the Political Report of the Central Committee of the XVI Congress of the CPSU (b) speech delivered by Stalin on June 27, 1930. The other two posters of that year were by well-established artists Gustav Klutsis (stalin poster of the week 111) and emerging artist Iraklii Toidze (spelled Taidze on the poster – see stalin poster of the week 123).


Deni’s poster features sketches of the head of Lenin, and head and neck of Stalin, almost equal in size, on either side of a radio transmitter that broadcasts the words ‘Long live the proletariat revolution of the whole world’, set against a plain backdrop.


The cream background and sketched heads are readily identifiable as Deni’s signature style.

Lenin is a spectral head, floating in the ether

Lenin’s head, sketched in faint tones, seems to float in the picture plane, while Stalin, anchored by his neck and collar and sketched in darker tones, casts a shadow and appears more solid.

Thus, Lenin, already dead for nine years in 1933, is somewhat spectral, while Stalin is ‘fleshier’ and more terrestrial.

This portrait of Stalin was used extensively in posters of the early 1930s

Although it is Lenin’s inspiration that is invoked in the text, it is Stalin who  invokes it through his quotation. Stalin is depicted as the truest disciple and interpreter of Leninism, carrying on the work of the great revolutionary.