Stalin poster of the week 54 (SPotW54)

P. Lukhtein, Glory to great Stalin!, 1951

P. Lukhtein (П. Лухтейн), Glory to great Stalin! (слава великому сталин!), 1951

In the very last few years of Stalin’s life, his image was treated like an icon less frequently than in the immediate postwar years, except in posters published in some of the constituent republics.


Estonian Izdatelstvo published a poster by Lukhtein, which would have been commonplace  in Moscow and Leningrad just a few years hence, but which now contrasts sharply in style with the contemporaneous posters from Russia.

A military portrait of Stalin portrays him as a strong visionary leader

A black-and-white portrait of Stalin in Marshal’s uniform is enclosed in an oval mandorla on a red field that is bordered by an elaborate folk motif of stylised crops and the Soviet state emblem at the top. Underneath Stalin’s portrait, in huge gold letters, is written ‘Glory to great Stalin!’


Estonia was one of the Baltic States reabsorbed into the USSR after the Great Patriotic War, as part of the carving up of Europe between the Allies. Much work was needed to sell the cult of Stalin to the largely unwilling population.

Golden letters on a rich red background proclaim Stalin’s glory to the Estonian people. The addition of a border of decorative folk motifs provides local flavour.

The continuation of production of this type of poster in the Baltic states and some of the other outlying republics of the USSR, when it had virtually been discontinued in posters produced in Moscow and Leningrad, suggests that the propagandists may have felt that the work of building a personality cult for Stalin was largely completed in the central regions.