Boris Belopol’skii, Peace to all nations!, 1952 This is Boris Belopol’skii’s second 1952 poster on the theme of peace. The poster is captioned ‘The world will be saved and enhanced if people take responsibility for maintaining peace into their own hands and defend it to the end. I. Stalin’, with the words ‘Peace to all nations!’ inscribed in the background at the top of the poster. The caption quotation comes from ‘A conversation with the Pravda correspondent of Pravda on 17th February 1951.* In this interview, Stalin labels as slanderous the declaration of British Prime Minister Clement Attlee that the Soviet Union has actually increased its military forces since the end of World War II. Stalin also discusses the Korean War, labelling the Americans as the aggressors and calling the United Nations decision to declare China the aggressors as ‘scandalous’. He concludes the interview by championing the Soviet Union as the vanguard of the world peace movement on behalf of the international masses. In the poster, a human, almost humble Stalin stands at a podium and makes a speech. Stalin appears in his old-style tunic, rather than the uniform of Marshal of the Soviet Union. In this poster, the warrior archetype is not being emphasised. In contrast to the other 1952 Belopol’skii poster (stalin poster of the week 26), there is no background – no banner, no crowd, just white light. Stalin is more ‘real’, greyer in skin and hair, and softer and more rounded than in the other poster. His left hand, in a loose fist, rests on a copy of Pravda (the source of the quote, which is not from an actual publicly delivered speech) and his right hand points loosely in the direction of the future, on which his transcendent gaze is also focussed. The podium is not real. Stalin leans on a text box or banner bearing his own words. This is a quieter, softer Stalin, the teacher or wise man. He neither commands nor exhorts. In this poster he persuades and appeals, on an intimate, almost one-on-one level. *I.V. Stalin. ‘A conversation with the Pravda correspondent.’ Pravda, 17 February 1951, accessed at http://www.marxists.org/russkij/stalin/t16/t16_29.htm on 04/08/2013.
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Dr Anita PischAnita’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. Archives
April 2019
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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 |
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 |