By Comrad Amanda Hallayski
If a picture paints a thousand words, then what can a whole gallery devoted to SOVIET PROPAGANDIST ART do?! Well, it can do a few things, actually:
a) It can reference my totally misbegotten and somewhat offensive Marxist leanings.
b) It can aggravate people who send me hate-mail for making the occasional caustic remark about weapons of mass destruction (or lack of) like ‘The Jackways@cox.net’. Jackasses, more like (And what the hell is ‘cox.net’, anyway? NEVER ‘EARD OF IT! Crap ISP – crap family.)
c) It can alert you all to the fact that (whilst Soviet Communism went a little awry), those guys did some kick-ass art.
d) But most of all, it can (hopefully) encourage those of you who are able to get to London to visit the temporary exhibition of Soviet Graphics at The Tate Modern. It’s fantasticski!
Or, as our Russian friends would say…
“Let me buy your Levis,man.”
(And check out the titles of these posters; they’re so dramatic! Also, please note the very Hallay-esque overuse of the exclamation mark (!!!), which I believe to be terribly effective in igniting the Red flame. Well, it did in me, anyway; I’m very easily led.)
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“Lenin was, Lenin is great!”
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“Lets send million of qualified workers
to the 518 new factories and production units!”
(Oh, LET’S!)
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“8 Million Tons of Pig Iron!”
(8 million tons of pig iron? What is it for? What does this MEAN?!)
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“Female deligates, stand to the fore!”
(I’m THERE!)
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“Help build the great factories!”
(Okay!)
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“Under Lenin’s Banner for the Second Five Year Plan”
(I’m under it, I’m under it!)
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“The USSR is the crack of the world proletariat!”
(Do you think the word ‘crack’ has the same slang meaning over there?)
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“We must strictly follow the standards as it is the highest way to achieving anything!”
(Ey?)
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“We shall not yield Petrograd to the enemy!”
(No way, Jose!)
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“Join the Red forces to get a better life!”
(If a better life entails corn on the cob, you can count me in!)
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“Civilised life, Productive Work!”
(I don’t really understand this one.)
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“Grow Vegetables!”
(I understand this one, though)
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“December 5th!”
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“The Motherland Calls!”
And I have answered, by giving you The Kittens in Underpants Soviet Propagandist Art Gallery!
Hope you’ve enjoyed it !
(And don’t forget to grow vegetables.)
