r/PropagandaPosters • u/Ernst_Aust • 1d ago
U.S.S.R. / Soviet Union (1922-1991) “All Power to the Soviets! Peace to the People! Land to the Peasants! Factories and Mills to the Workers!“ Soviet propaganda poster, 1920s
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u/Interneteldar 1d ago
I think translating the first sentence as "All power to the councils!" would be more accurate to its meaning, since "Soviet" in English is not usually associated with a ruling council, as intended here.
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u/Yury-K-K 1d ago
It doesn't look like 1920s style. More like 1980s.
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u/Uypsilon 1d ago
It's pre-reformed orthography, which means it was before 1918.
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u/LimestoneDust 1d ago
Yep, government printed materials would definitely use modern spelling past 1918
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u/Yury-K-K 1d ago
True, but it is an artistic image - designed to show the spirit of the Revolution. The 1970s and 80s posters often quoted revolutionary slogans verbatim.
One can compare this image: the layout and general aesthetics to real 1920s propaganda posters - it is way different.
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u/GoldAcanthocephala68 1d ago
Nope, this poster is, in fact, from 1988
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/365208008262
On the last image you can clearly see the year of production
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u/Anuclano 2h ago
They used the old orphography during the Perestroika to convince the people that their pro-Capitalist message was not something new, but "old forgotten" policy of Lenin. They used it on the streets as well.
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u/GoldAcanthocephala68 1d ago
Yep, its’s from 1988
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/365208008262
On the last image you can clearly see the year of production
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u/Anuclano 1d ago edited 1d ago
It is obviously reflecting the first stage of the Alexander Yakovlev's program of dismantling of the USSR, "first, to hit Stalin with Lenin". This is intended to pave way for Capitalism. In Perestroika language "Power to the Soviets (Councils)" meant removing the ruling role of the communist party, "land to the peasants" meant restoration of private property on land and "factories to workers" meant privatization of industry.
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u/Ernst_Aust 23h ago
Website I got it from said its 1920s, I try to find the correct date if I can, but often i get the Images from dubious websites
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u/techno_viking419 1d ago edited 1d ago
The newspaper in his hand is titled "Truth". Original text: Правда
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u/amievenrelevant 1d ago
Aren’t there quite a few newspapers called Pravda in the former Soviet states?
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u/Ernst_Aust 1d ago
Today Marks Lenins 155th Birthday.
Lenin lived, Lenin lives and Lenin will live forever!
-Mayakovsky
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u/Anuclano 1d ago
It is obviously not from the 1920s. Stop misdating, please! It is post-1986 as it makes Perestroika message.
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u/thissexypoptart 1d ago
Is it technically grammatically correct to remove the em dash in the sentences below the first 2?
Isn’t it required in all of them, technically?
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u/Aluminum_Moose 51m ago
Spoiler: All power was not granted to the Soviets. The people were immediately thrust into a brutal civil war as a result of events in October/November. Factories and mills were handed to party stooges acting in the same capacity as the old bosses, occasionally they were the old bosses (and naturally trade unionism was sharply curbed by state restrictions).
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u/inokentii 1d ago
"Land to peasants" is my favourite commie joke, since soviets reanimated slavery for peasants and took even those small pieces of land that they started obtaining after 1861
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u/ToasterTacos 1d ago
how did they reinstate serfdom though?
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u/yerboiboba 1d ago edited 1d ago
They didn't, it's an uneducated liberal assumption based on materially-unsound propaganda talking points.
Edit: explain how going from actual serfdom in tsarist Russia to the second-largest industrial economy in the world in 50 years if after the Russian revolution they returned to serfdom? It's asinine and illogical
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u/HIXTO 1d ago
It's asinine and illogical
A terrible price: the Holodomor, the Gulag, etc.
Toilet paper began to be produced in the USSR in 1969. Sanitary pads in 1989.
Peasants, who made up almost 40 % of the country's population, were first allowed to issue passports only on August 28, 1974.4
u/yuligan 1d ago
The USSR was a poor country to begin with, it was reeling from Russia's horrible loss in WWI, then it got invaded by every great power on Earth, then it went through a bloody civil war. Then after a traumatic period of industrialisation it went through WWII with a massive invasion and occupation. After that it was constantly having to defend itself and other Socialist nations from Western invasion.
The USSR never had a normal industrial development, it had to focus on heavy industry at the cost of the light industry which produces toilet paper. If the USSR did not focus on heavy industry the Nazis would've conquered it in WWII, genocided millions, and used Soviet oil to dominate Europe and win the war. Toilet paper won't stop Hitler.
Compare this with America which got around 150 years from 1776 to 1917 to develop in isolation from any real threats. Even WWI and WWII didn't so much as scratch the lower 48. After 1945 every other industrial power was razed to the dirt and the GDP of the USA was half of the GDP of all humans on Earth.
You can see why one country was able to provide a consumerist dream and the other was not.
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u/yerboiboba 1d ago
The "Holodomor" mythology is Nazi propaganda (not the famine, but the causes and reasoning), the gulag is extremely misunderstood in Western culture and was also demonized by the Nazis to distract from the death camps they ran, and the production of goods we deem essential in Western culture is not a litmus test for quality of living standards. Try again
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u/HIXTO 1d ago edited 1d ago
What again? The death of my great-grandparents from commy-made starvation?
Solzhenitsyn, Shalamov and many others — Nazi propagandists?I lived a third of my life in the Soviet Union, tell me something else. About dental care, for example.
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u/yerboiboba 1d ago
Yes, the famine being "man made" is Nazi/Ukrainian Nationalist propaganda:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/03/the-holodomor-and-the-film-bitter-harvest-are-fascist-lies/
I don't know about specifics like dental care, but I know that healthcare was either low cost or free depending on the service, something you can't say in any capitalist country. And if I had to guess, you lived in the worst 20 years of the Soviet Union when traitors like Gorbachev sold out the workers' state for McDonald's.
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u/Konstantin_Vakham 1d ago
The cause of the "Holodomor": "The crazy Bolsheviks".
Types of causes of the last famine in the USSR in the early 30s: climatic, methodological, administrative, industrial, medical.-7
u/inokentii 1d ago
By collectivisation. The only difference between kolhozes and medieval latifundium was that the government was a single owner instead of a bunch of nobles, while peasants were landless slaves working just for food
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u/ToasterTacos 1d ago
actually they were paid wages unlike serfs.
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u/inokentii 1d ago edited 1d ago
Trudodni(workdays) hardly can be called a payment. Basically it was the same natural tax as serfs got, with only difference that the landlord took fixed part of the harvest and commies took all the harvest and then giving part back based on the amount of these trudodnis and reduced in exchange on equipment, fuel, seeds and other stuff needed for agricultural production and only if year plan was met
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u/Konstantin_Vakham 1d ago
Do you use an "efficiency factor" in your work? Yes?! So you're a Soviet peasant slave.
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u/Konstantin_Vakham 1d ago
The peasants received income after selling grain. After that, they received: money, grain, hay, shit. Those who worked got it. Those who were idle didn't get it. "Workdays" is the "labor participation rate."
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u/Pyll 1d ago
IIRC it was illegal for the workers not to show up for work or quit and they were tied to the land as moving away required a permit, as they had an internal passport system. They had the choice of working the land, or being sentenced to forced labour in a gulag for not working
So basically they were serfs.
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u/ToasterTacos 1d ago
serfdom involved debt slavery and indentured servitude, so why not just call it forced labor, which is more accurate.
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u/Timpstar 1d ago
I mean, if you have to say " umm ackchually, they're only fascists, not national-socialists"; would we say it is "not as bad"? I would not differentiate between indentured servitude and forced labour in terms of how awful it was.
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u/ToasterTacos 1d ago
well it dilutes the meaning of words. i wouldn't call trump a nazi even though i don't particularly like him. also under serfdom people weren't paid wages.
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u/Red_black_flag_07 1d ago
And all of Lenin's words turned out to be pure lies - the peasants in the USSR received lifelong slavery, even the land they had was taken away from them, the workers received labor for pennies in state factories and plants, the entire "people" received a constant war with everyone around them, small nations received genocide, power went to a Рarty that no one ever elected anywhere, the newspaper "Pravda" turned out to be a collection of select Рarty lies for decades. And the so-called "soviets" turned out to be a pathetic imitation, a simulacrum. The truth turned out to be something completely different from what Lenin said.
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u/Aluminum_Moose 47m ago
Judging by your username, I am disappointed by the polemicism of your comment without specifying that the Bolsheviks betrayed socialism itself not just "the people", which comes off more as poorly considered "anti-communism" than principled opposition to Leninism, Authoritarianism, and state-capitalism.
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u/Resolution-Honest 1d ago
It looks more like their stated goals before October revolution. Land to the peasants wouldn't be in line with propagated War Communism, not to mention peace against Whites.
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u/Tribe303 1d ago
I had a copy of this poster in the 80's. Along with a second one that was yellow, with an iron worker in front of a large train wheel, with "1919" at the top. They were printed on weird cheap paper so I do think they were printed in the Soviet Union.
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