Dr Anita Pisch
  • Home
  • About
  • stalin poster of the week
  • Publications
  • Contact

stalin poster of the week

Picture

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

Stalin poster of the week 14(SPotW14)

25/3/2017

0 Comments

 

Gustav Klutsis, The reality of our program is living people, you and I, 1931

Picture
Gustav Klutsis, (Густав Клуцис),The reality of our program is living people, you and I (Реальность нашей программы – это живые люди, это мы с вами), 1931
The reality of our program is living people, you and I (Gustav Klutsis, 1931) is an early and somewhat unusual poster in that Stalin appears to be the same size as the marching coal miners he strides alongside.Stalin frequently appeared in posters in gigantic proportions – in traditional Russian art, the relative size of a figure was commensurate with that figure’s importance or status relative to others.


According to Victoria Bonnell,* one of Klutsis’s sketches for this poster depicted Stalin as much larger than the coal miners. By ultimately choosing to depict Stalin as the same size as other people in the poster, the message is given at this time that Stalin is a leader who can still regarded as one of the people, walking alongside them in their struggles, standing in their shoes.

Picture
Stalin is the same size as the workers, but his image is more clearly defined
Although Stalin is the same size as the workers, his image is distinguished by being sharper and clearer than those of the workers, and although he wears a worker’s cap and boots, his dress is still distinct from that of the miners, with their helmets and lamps. Thus Stalin at this time is regarded as ‘first among equals’.


The caption of the poster is taken from Stalin’s speech delivered at a conference of business executives on June 23, 1931 in which he announced the recent changes in the conditions of industrialisation in the USSR.

Picture
The six conditions for the development of Soviet industry summarised in the poster text are taken from Stalin’s speech to business executives on 23 June 1931
In the speech, Stalin outlined the six new conditions of development of Soviet industry, which are given in summary form on the poster:


  1. We can no longer count, as of old, on an automatic influx of manpower. In order to secure manpower for our industries it must be recruited in an organised manner, and labour must be mechanised. To believe that we can do without mechanisation, in view of our tempo of work and scale of production, is like believing that the sea can be emptied with a spoon.
  2. We cannot any longer tolerate the fluidity of manpower in industry. In order to do away with this evil, we must organise wages in a new way and see to it that the composition of the labour force in the factories is more or less constant.
  3. We cannot any longer tolerate lack of personal responsibility in industry. In order to do away with this evil, work must be organised in a new way, and the forces must be so distributed that every group of workers is responsible for its work, for the machinery, and for the quality of the work.
  4. We can no longer manage, as of old, with the very small force of old engineers and technicians that we inherited from bourgeois Russia. In order to increase the present rate and scale of production, we must ensure that the working class has its own industrial and technical intelligentsia.
  5. We can no longer, as of old, lump together all the experts, engineers and technicians of the old school. In order to take into account the changed situation we must change our policy and display the utmost solicitude for those experts, engineers and technicians of the old school who are definitely turning to the side of the working class.
  6. We can no longer, as of old, manage with the old sources of accumulation. In order to ensure the further expansion of industry and agriculture we must tap new sources of accumulation; we must put an end to inefficiency, introduce business accounting, reduce production costs and increase accumulation within industry.

The full text of the speech was printed in the newspaper Pravda, No. 183, July 5, 1931. Stalin concluded by emphasising that fulfilment of the new conditions is not an unrealistic goal:

There are certain near-Party philistines who assert that our production program is unrealistic, that it cannot be fulfilled. They are somewhat like Shchedrin’s “sapient gudgeons” who are always ready to spread “a vacuum of ineptitude” around themselves. Is our production program realistic or not? Most certainly, it is.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    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.

    Picture

    Archives

    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017

    RSS Feed

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

Copyright © 2015
  • Home
  • About
  • stalin poster of the week
  • Publications
  • Contact