Unidentified artist, The Civil War 1918-1920, 1938 Despite ongoing claims to the contrary, Stalin was actually quite active in both the October Revolution and the Civil War. Speaking of the early days of power after the October Revolution, Fiodor Alliluyev noted in his unpublished memoirs:* Comrade Stalin was genuinely known only to a small circle of people who had come across him … in the political underground or had succeeded … in distinguishing real work and real devotion from chatter, noise (and) meaningless babble. Polish Bolshevik Stanislaw Pestkovsky noted:** Lenin could not get along without Stalin for a single day … Our Smolny office was under Lenin’s wing. In the course of the day, he’d call Stalin an endless number of times and would appear in our office and lead him away. During the Civil War, Lenin despatched Stalin to Tsaritsyn (later renamed Stalingrad) in mid-1918, initially to take charge of food supplies. This key strategic city looked likely to fall to White forces. Stalin took military control in July and, with his status raised to commissar, killed off a group of Trotskii’s ex-tsarist specialists, and played a significant part in the victory of the Red Army in that city. Beginning in 1938, with the purges drawing to a close and war brewing in Europe, several posters highlight Stalin’s achievements in the Civil War. The poster titled ‘The Civil War 1918–1920’ (poster no. 6 in the series) features a black-and-white photographic portrait of the young Stalin gazing out at the viewer in military-style jacket. The poster also shows copies of a telegram from Stalin dated 19 July 1918 and the transcript of a recorded phonecall discussing the food situation on 24 July 1918. The telegram and dates are significant, as propaganda in the late 1930s made much of Stalin’s successful intervention in the Civil War at Tsaritsyn and the telegram provides factual proof of the trust placed in Stalin by Lenin. Stalin is depicted as central to the Civil War leadership, as a close and trusted comrade of Lenin, and as associated with the military effort, while Lenin is carrying out construction tasks. In one of the poster’s vignettes, Stalin is shown rallying the first cavalry. In others, Lenin carries a large log during a subbotnik (day of voluntary public labour). Mikhail Kalinin agitates amongst the crowd. Trotskii, who had been instrumental in the red victory in the Civil War, is nowhere to be seen in the poster and had been both demonised and written out of revolutionary history. * Fyodor Alliluyev, quoted in Simon Sebag Montefiore, Young Stalin, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2007, p. 367. ** Bolshevik Stanislaw Pestkovsky quoted in Simon Sebag Montefiore, Young Stalin, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2007, pp. 367-8
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
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
|
|
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 |