Stalin poster of the week 87 (SPotW87)

stalin poster of the week 87: *SPECIAL EDITION: 80TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MOSCOW CANAL* gleb kun, vasilii elkin, and konstantin sobolevskii, greetings to great stalin. the moscow-volga canal is open!, 1937

Gleb Kun, Vasilii Elkin, Konstantin Sobolevskii (Глеб Кун, Василий Елкин, Константин Соболевский), Greetings to Great Stalin. The Moscow-Volga Canal is Open! (привет великому Сталину), 1937

1937 saw the opening of the Moscow-Volga Canal, which connected the Moscow and Volga rivers and thus gave Moscow access to five seas (the White Sea, Baltic Sea, Caspian Sea, Sea of Azov, and the Black Sea), as well as supplying the water needs of about half the population of Moscow. In 1938, the February issue of USSR in Construction featured a 40-page spread on the construction of the canal.

The 1937 poster, ‘Greetings to Great Stalin. The Moscow-Volga Canal is Open!, by Gleb Kun, Vasilii Nikolaevich Elkin and Konstantin Sobolevskii, announces the opening of the canal for business and features a sleek, elegant graphic design in a striking colour scheme of red, white, black and blue , in which the canal is portrayed as the hub of modern transport.

The Moscow-Volga Canal is a transport hub: planes, ships and automobiles.

Aeroplanes, trains, cars, buses and motorcycles feature alongside the canal which provides a waterway for transport of passengers and goods, as well as for recreational activities such as sailing, and strolling along the banks.


While the aircraft, train, and working boats are depicted in subtle greys and whites, passenger vehicles stand out in strong, bold colours, and the eye is particularly drawn to the tiny figure in red on the yacht – the red of her costume picking up the solid band of red on the flag, and the text box at the base of the poster.

Yachting was only accessible by the Soviet elite – and certainly not to the slave labour from the gulags who actually built the canal

Thus, although the poster illustrates the advantages to the State of the industrial and technological achievement, the image draws particular attention to consumer benefits, and promises opportunities for more joyous and abundant life.


In fact, to have access to an automobile or yacht was out of the reach of all but the very top echelon of Stalin’s magnates.

Stalin’s huge head obscures most of the scene

The construction achievement of the canal, which was built by slave labour from the gulags, is laid at the feet of Stalin, both through reference to him in the text, and through the use of his sketched image, which adorns the red flag that comprises almost half the image of the poster.


Stalin’s image on the flag not only hovers god-like above the scene, looking protectively down over the ant-like human activity below, but actually obscures much of the scene.