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We will see how Soviet era propaganda posters re-emerged powerfully in the 1930s following the extensive circulation during the Civil War. We will explore what is referred to as iconography of Soviet poster art.

Here are the other 2 parts of the series:

• Part I - Propaganda Posters of USSR - Why the Bolsheviks needed poster art?
• Part II - The Soviet Union Poster - Soviet Posters During the Civil War 

Here are our most popular Soviet poster categories:

Cold War posters	Communism propaganda posters	Stalin posters
Lenin posters	Soviet space propaganda posters	Soviet anti drinking posters

The Five Year Plan and Re-emergence of Soviet Era Posters

Following the success in the Civil War the Bolsheviks reduced the spread of Soviet era propaganda posters that so far had reached circulation of almost 10 million in total. The New Economic Policy (proposed by Lenin in 1921) placed increased emphasis on the written and spoken word and the role of radio and the Bolshevik press gained more prominence. This trend reveresed by the time of the adoption of the First Five Year Plan in 1928. Soviet era propaganda posters were again in fashion.   

Printing press in USSR, 1923, Ogonek magazine	Professor Bruevich in his laboratory for R&D of radio transmission technologies, 1923, Ogonek magazine

The onset of the First Five Year Plan reversed the decrease in circultion and prominence of the political poster medium. Other forms of visual propaganda also gained momentum. Political visual art once again became central in the party's strategy of mobilising society on a grand scale and project the messaging the Bolsheviks needed to reach the masses. They would use poster propaganda again to implement their vision of the Soviet man as an individual and as part of the social and political fabric.

The Soviet leaders knew that transformation of mass consciousness at the scale required will need extraordinary approaches being taken. The old/traditional ways of thinking were deeply ingrained and hard to influence. New posters were produced to address the new needs of the party, this time around in the era of farm collectivisation and mass industrialisation.

Article on the beginning of the third year of The Five Year Plan, source Ogonek magazine

Soviet Era Propaganda Posters in the 1930s

In the 1930s visual propaganda gradually became more prevelant and extensive. The Art Department of the USSR was now supervising all Soviet era poster production. The State established Publishing house (Izogiz) that was run under the direct supervision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Therefore the poster topics, texts and imagery were dropped to the artists from above and supervised by state censors. Centralisation of party control over the production of posters increased as the volumes printed and disseminated expaned dramatically.

Due to the variety of collectives producing Soviet era posters during the Civil War there were many more designs. An individual poster design would usually not exceed circulation of 25-30 thousand. In the 1930s, with the centralisation of the creative process, some of the posters (seen as important) would be printed from 100 to 250 thousand copies each. Be it in cities and towns or the countryside, on factory floors and collectivised farms, private homes and in schools, virtually every Soviet citizen was confronted with imagery that was essentially there to indoctrinate them in the new world they lived in and motivate them in their work.    

The Great Patriotic War

The Second World War marked another period of large scale societal, military and economic mobilisation. The nation was in a mortal struggle and being so vast and populous it had to be mobilised rapidly, extensively and efficiently. The State turned to visual propaganda once again. Soviet WWII posters were circulated in vast volumes all across the country. Many themes of Tsarist Russia's World War I poster art were reused and redeployed.

Stalinist Propaganda Posters

Following WWII a period of so called High Stalinism (1946- 1953) took place in USSR. Visual propaganda turned more mythical than ever and vision of Socialist society and life bordering a paradise was projected into the public mind. Socialist realism, a visual art genre that is direct and understandable by any social strata, was employed for this goal.  

Soviet Propaganda posters from the 1930s and 1940s

How Propaganda Posters Changed Over Time

By the 1930s many poster artists aimed at creating a new, specifically proletarian culture. The challenge was that artists needed to be able to speak the language of the ordinary Soviet citizen. Therefore they had to use the right images, symbols and styles that their audiences could grasp. Therefore this new message had to draw and formulate art based on pre-existing forms and vocabularies. 

According to Hobsbawm the approach was to seek well known historical material and use it to create invented traditions that carried new meaning for novel purposes. Such material is accumulated over time in every society and such familiar langugage of symbolic practice and communication could be easily identified and exploited.  

Sources of Inspiration for Poster Artists

For inspiration propaganda artists explored the rich Russian tradition (among others), here are some of the sources they utilised:

• commercial advertising,
• fine arts,
• religious and folk art,
• classical mythology,
• the imagery of Western European labor and revolutionary movements,
• and political art of the tsarist era

They would use different sources and elements at different periods. A special visual language was created from the amalgamation of the elements of these sources. Therefore, combining political ideology with mythology made Soviet visual propaganda particularly unique and enthralling.  

Political Iconography

Early on Soviet propagandists amalgamated imagery that combined traditional art and the new very particular expressiveness of the Bolshevik message. These novel images were divided into heroes (saints) and enemies (the devil and daemons) and standardised into icon-like art that had a fixed pattern (or the "podlinnik" in Orthodox religious art). Instead of existing old time institutions and relations in society these new icons presented a new system of signs imposed by the Soviet state on the people to transform the consciousness of the masses across the nation. Similarly to other invented traditions in other societies these image-icons were transmitted consistently and repetetively to their audiences and resonated strongly due to their inspiration being sourced from existing mythologies from the Russian past and tradition.  

In Part IV of this series we will look into 3 different categories of iconographic Soviet era propaganda posters:

1. The Icon of the Worker - posters of workers were at the core of Bolshevik ideology. In Marxism-Leninism ideology the proletariat were the chosen people and idealised. With the iconography of the workers the Soviets aimed at asserting their continuity with the past and their ideological vision for the future;
2. Iconography of Women - Soviet women posters evolved over time. In the beginning women were presented as subordinate to workers and peasants and didn't belong to the league of Soviet heroes at the time. Later on, particularly during collectivisation, women were elevated in status;
3. Icon of the Leader (the “Vozhd”) - Stalin posters and Lenin posters as expected idealised the leaders into semi-gods according to their personality cults but also as symbols and examples of the new Soviet man;

Women at a local committee meeting in a Soviet village, 1930s, Ogonek magazine	Workers at a Soviet factory floor during inspection, 1930s, Ogonek magazine

This text is largely based on Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin (Volume 27) First Edition by Victoria E. Bonnell. You can find it on Amazon from this link.

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We will explore why the Bolsheviks picked Soviet Union posters as a main propaganda tool.

Here are the other 2 parts of the series:

• Part I - Propaganda Posters of USSR - Why the Bolsheviks needed poster art?
• Part III - Soviet Era Posters - Soviet Poster Art in the 1930s and 1940s

Here are our most popular Soviet poster categories:

Cold War posters	Communism propaganda posters	Stalin posters
Lenin posters	Soviet space propaganda posters	Soviet anti drinking posters

Posters of Soviet Union - Best Tool For the Job

Around the time of the October Revolution most Russians were still illiterate. Particularly so in the countryside outside of the medium and large towns and cities. There isn't statistical data available for 1917 but in the beginning of the century, according to national cencsus, 83 percent of the rural population and 55 percent of the urban population was illiterate. 

In response the Soviet government launched an extensive literacy campaign under the name Likbez or short for "liquidation of illiteracy". Although successful by 1926 half of the countryside and one fifth of the town and city dwellers still didn't have basic literacy skills. Furthermore being literate in many cases was applied quite liberally - a second or  third grader today would have fallein in this category.

Soviet Union Poster Art Emerges as an Alternative to Written Text

Therefore at the time of the First Five Year Plan a very sizeable part of the population, particularly so the peasants, couldn't read basic texts, like newspapers or even pamphlets. Visual propaganda, which substantially eliminated the need of text, was a very attractive if not the only option to Soviet propagandists who wanted to reach the broadest strata of the population with their messaging. Posters were attention grabbing, easy to interpret and could be repetitive with new ones printed regularly.

Peasant from a village reading Pravda newspaper to his family and friends, 1920s	Russian peasants

The Orthodox Icon - Unlikely Precursor of the Poster of the Soviet Union

In the Orthodox tradition and before that the archaic pageantry visual images had a central role. This provided for the highly visual traditional culture of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Orthodox icon has a very special place in this traditional culture.

Leonid Ouspensky in his study of icons notes that while Byzantium's theology was using mainly words, the Russian theology used imagery. For the Orthodox man "the holy image, just like the Holy Scriptures, transmits not human ideas and conceptions of truth, but truth itself - the Divine revelation". The imagery itself had magical powers for the Orthodox believer. For example, the power of saints was believed to be contained within icons. In time of need people would rely on icons for divine intervention and special blessings. 

Icons were so widespread that nearly every peasant and many urban homes had at least one. Therefore Russians were accustomed to this type of imagery and also believed in its sacredness. 

Orthodox icons: Russian Orthodox visual tradition paved the way for the prevalence of Soviet Union poster art

Propaganda Posters Are the Solution for the Bolsheviks

Therefore the Bolsheviks realised the value of imagery in communicating their messaging to the ordinary folk. Lenin's wife Nadezhda Krupskaya was in agreement with her fellow Commnist party members when in 1923 she said: "Only by visual imagery example can a villager be able to learn how to improve his productivity, at least in the coming years. Peasants, like most workers, think in images rather than abstractions and the written word. Even when we reach high levels of literacy the visual imagery will still be of great importance." 

The Economy and Its Role in the Rise of Poster Art

During those times following the Bolshevik Revolution and the Civil War (1918-1921) the economy was in tatters. There wasn't enough supply of paper, printing factories were being closed, often there were breakdowns etc. Therefore heavy reliance on printed mass media was impossible. The Party turned to visual propaganda and political posters. You could reach more people by hanging posters at the village square or train station instead of realying on a scarce circulation of a few newspapers to hundreds of people.   

The Party Newspaper Pravda - Circulation in Numbers

The main party organ of the Communist party was Pravda. It had a circilation of about 138'000 copies for the whole country of 140 million people Even if you assume that one person read to others that was very unsufficient. One poster on the other hand could reach hundreds of people depending on placement (at the collective farm, factory, town or village square, train station etc.).

Lecture at the Petrograd school of journalism, 1918, source Ogonek magazine	Printing press in USSR, 1923, Ogonek magazine

Printing Presses In Overdrive

There fore propaganda posters placed in public spaces returned much better value on investment than newspapers and other means. They used less paper and ink to reach wider audiences. It's not entirely clear why (beyond the reasons we've already listed) but the Bolsheviks put extreme importance in propaganda with visual imagery during the Civil War (1918-1921).  

Posters of the Soviet Union - Production in Numbers

As the Civil War was beginning in August of 1918 the first political posters started appearing. More than 450 different institutions and organisations would produce over 3100 posters in the next three years. Enormous volumes of posters went into circulation.

• Litizdat (the state publishing house), a major producer working under the Political Directorate of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Russian Union of Federated Socialist Republics (RSFSR) issued a total of 7.5 million posters but also postcards and lubok pictures in the next three years
• Gosizdat (another state publisher) was found in 1919 and printed 3.2 million copies of 75 posters of the Soviet Union. 
• The Rosta (Russian Telegraph Agency) print shops in Petrograd, Moscow and other cities printed out a novel form of poster combining newspaper, magazine and info bulletin. Rosta alone delivered over two million posters during the Civil War

Propaganda posters were everywhere. They had different colours, designs and creative imagery - posters enlivened an otherwise grey society. As American journalist Albert Rhys Williams noted in 1923, a visitor to Russia is struck by the variety of posters on public squares, factories and military barracks, on walls everywhere, train carriages and telegraph and electricity poles. They are everywhere! 

The 12th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was held during 17–25 April 1923 in Moscow. The congress elected the 12th Central Committee. It was attended by 825 delgates, representing 386000 party members	Citizens of Petrograd read the latest decree posters, 1918, source Ogonek magazine

Never had before the poster art form been used in such vast volumes. The party and its apparatchiks at all levels were committed to reeducating, inspiring and ultimately shaping the perception of the world and history of the Russian proletariat. As by far more people lived in villages and were uneducated and illiterate visual messaging was key for the ability of the Bolsheviks to reach out to them with a strong message. As the Civil War was raging they badly needed to have the people on their side. The poster of the Soviet Union was a key tool in their epic fight to the death with the Whites. It will remain important in the later years as they were implementing their rule and plans for the USSR and its people.  

This text is largely based on Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin (Volume 27) First Edition by Victoria E. Bonnell. You can find it on Amazon from this link.

END

We will see what situation the Bolsheviks found themselves in following the October Revolution and what necessitated the rapid and extensive development of Soviet poster art.

You can find the other parts of the series here:

• Part II - The Soviet Union Poster - Soviet Posters During the Civil War 
• Part III - Soviet Era Posters - Soviet Poster Art in the 1930s and 1940s

About Our USSR Posters

We have 800+ USSR posters. In order to make it easier to navigate so many Soviet union posters we split the website into 35+ poster categories. It's down to personal taste of course but to maybe make it a bit easier (and faster) we picked around 200 top Soviet posters of the USSR. Our most popular collections are Lenin posters, Stalin posters, Soviet posters of Communism, Cold war posters.

We print on canvas and lux paper and ship internationally to North America and Europe.  

Here are our most popular Soviet poster categories:

Cold War posters	Communism propaganda posters	Stalin posters
Lenin posters	Soviet space propaganda posters	Soviet anti drinking posters

USSR Poster Art - How It Began? Invented Traditions

Soviet workers at a factory canteen with a poster hung behind them, 1927, Ogonek magazine	Poster of the USSR: Without revolutionary theory there can't be a revolutionary movement! Lenin and Marx

The Bolsheviks seized power in 1917 and faced a profound issue to address. They had to warp public consciousness into accepting and believing in a new reality - a new meaning. New meaning of the past, present and future had to be based on this new reality. Later on we will find out what role propaganda posters of USSR played in this.

Lenin and other leaders, now at the helm of a vast nation in crisis, understood that their political survival and the success of their radical project depended on winning over the people of the new Soviet Union and educating them on the new social-political and historical doctrine. Importantly there wasn't agreement on fundamental interpretations of this meaning among the leaders of the revolution itself. Here are our Communism posters that explore topics related to Socialism, Communism and the Communist Party CPSU. 

The October Revolution On Film

Here is an excellent documentary on the Bolshevik October Revolution if you'd like more background on the topic:

Invented Traditions

So at no point during the period the Soviet Union era was this issue of what and how to talk to the nation more accute - they were starting from a blank white board and their political legitimacy depended on it. 

Very quickly immediately following the Revolution, the Bolsheviks tried to gain control over public discourse and transform popular viewpoints and beliefs by utilising new symbols, rituals, and visual imagery. Their aim was to create a new immense message, as accessible as possible to everyone, that would lead to the "liberation" of public consciousness and all social norms.  

According to the British historian Eric Hobsbawm the medium for the message was what he framed as "invented traditions". These are sets of practices that use repetition to inculcate ideas and norms into people's thinking and behaviour. This then creates perception of continuity with the past. Hence invented traditions.

The 3 Functions Of Invented Traditions  

Hobsbawm thought that there are three main functions that invented traditions could have. There were sometimes overlapping with each other.

1. Foundation Of New Social Groups

Invented traditions formed group think and belonging. Including they created the symbols of these social groups and often artificial communities. They established social cohision.

Bolshevik claim to power was based on an ideology. They assigned world-historical importance to the proletaria. It was therefore critically important to elevate the (heroic) importance of the working class and establish their collective idenity in public discourse. The party urgently needed to communicate to the workers the image of the new worker-heroes who were class conscious and who were the chosen heroes of Marxism-Leninism.

Also key was to install "class" as the central epistemological aspect in the new official Marxist-Leninist ideology.

Council of People's Commissars of Soviet Russia, 1920	Peasants of a Moscow region village around the time of the October Revolution

Usually social groups are formed around ethnicity, nationality, gender or religion. The new Soviet rulers instead needed class to serve as the identity of the new proletarian political and social group. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution the party leadership struggled with how to define this new collective identity and conducting policies in line with this novel framework.   

2. Legitimizing Institutions, Status or Relations of Authority

The October Revolution and similar to it destory and replace institutions and authority relations. They create radically new definitions of political power and social order.

The key problem for the Bolsheviks ater the revolution was to legitimise their power which included the new party-state and a the new relations between subordinate and superordinate groups. The former dominanting elites, and the Provisional Government that had ruled for a brief amount of time, ahd lost their power after the October insurrection. 

The new power consisted of the following institutions and entites:

• the Bolshevik party
• the new Soviet state
• the commissars
• the secret police
• the Red Army
• and a small but loud and forceful band of true believers, fellow travelers, opportunists, and henchmen

The new power understood that without legitimising their power they would have a precarious foundation of their new fragile regime. Key in their strategy to solve this issue was the formulation and communication of their extensive and complex narrative of history. It justified the establishment of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" under Bolshevik rule and reinforce the party's authority among the people. 

3. Promote Socialisation, Inculcation of Beliefs, Value Systems and Conventions of Behavior

The Bolsheviks traditionally, under Lenin's leadership, unlike most other leftist radicals in Russia had a deep commitment to a monolithic understanding of the truth. Therefore after the revolution they put considerable effort into reordering social but also individual life according to their ideological ideas.

Due to the complexities introduced by the vast size, population and heterogeneity of Russia, the Bolsheviks couldn't enact a comprehensive indoctrination and socialisation program until the 1930s. But they began the drive immediately after the revolution. Their final goal was to create the new Soviet man who would think, speak and act Bolshevik.

Session of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party in Moscow, 1920s. Source: Ogonek magazine	USSR poster: The proletarian army! Go and vote in the local Soviet committee!

How Did The Bolsheviks Apply Their Invented Traditions

In order to apply invented traditions effectively they have to be homogenous and repeat again and again over time. Their message must be understandable by the target audience. Therefore for a complex country like Russia they mustn't be too sophisticated lyrically. The posters of USSR had to have strong and appealing imagery and relatively simple texts. In 1918 already the Bolsheviks had put in place at scale propaganda production facilities, creative and administration departments.    

This drive surpassed by far anything that had been done before. Only a year into the effort noticable USSR poster and state symbols and emblems like the hammer and sickle, the red star and the symbol of the heroic proletariat member/worker were introduced. These would live on to the present day. Holidays (i.e. rituals) now included October Revolution and May day. Novel mediums of USSR propaganda were introduced, for example agitation trains and ships, village reading in designated rooms and others.     

Additionally, political communist posters, early brutalist sculptures, agit books, newspapers and magazines, film and radio was used to reach large audiences and spread their messaging. Not as far back as the times of the French Revolution political education had been applied by any nation to form the new Soviet man.

Villager family listening to the radio at home, Ogonek magazine, 1927.	Soviet printing shop, Ogonek magazine, 1927

This text is largely based on Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin (Volume 27) First Edition by Victoria E. Bonnell. You can find it on Amazon from this link.

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We orgnised SPP.com into 35+ categories and subcategories of Russian propaganda posters. Each category has its own topic, for example Cold War propaganda posters contains many works on the struggle between the Eastern and Western blocs. Soviet women posters is a placeholder of all posters on emancipation, life and achievements of women in the USSR.

Soviet Poster art emerged powerfully after the October Revolution during the Civil War between 1918 and 1921. The Bolsheviks needed a medium that would reach the widest part of the population. Soviet propaganda posters were based on the traditions and heritage that ordinary people, large majority of whom were illiterate and couldn't read newspapers or proclamations, already knew. That's why posters relied on visual imagery resembling Orthodox iconography. Around 10 million Russian propaganda posters were printed during the war. Soviet posters reached deep into the entire Soviet Union and influenced tens of millions of Russian citizens. Later Soviet propaganda poster tradition will build on the success of this initial drive. The Soviet propaganda posters genre would become renowned internationally.  

Soviet Propaganda Posters - Categories 

First category is Soviet Society. Here you'll find various posters to do with life in the Soviet Union - sports, drinking/alcoholism, Russian-Soviet women and others 

Soviet Arts and Culture posters

Here you'll find posters of cultural events, movies, theatre plays, exhibitions and propaganda to do with the cultural sphere.

Moscow ballet advert	Soviet movie posters collage

👉Go to all arts and culture posters

Family and Children posters

Among others the goal of these USSR posters was to educate parents on how to raise their children as examplary socialists and address various societal ills to do wth the family and children. Russian propaganda posters on the family hailed the role of the mother and  encouraged children to study hard and be virtuous.

Glory to the heroic mother!	Pioneer! Study and fight for the cause of the working class!

👉Go to all family and children posters

Social Posters

This category contains topics to do with fightin various societal ills. For example attitude and treatment of elderly people during the Perestroika period of the late Soviet Union, warning against healers, ignorance, alcohol abuse and such.

Out the parasites on wam places! Ones who don't work shouldn't eat!	Healers outs! They don't heal but rob and hurt!

👉Go to all social posters

Soviet Anti Alcohol Posters

Drinking offered a solace for common people during the hard years following the October revolution and throughout the Soviet Union era. Here's how the state on one side fought it and on the other - advertised alcohol. 

STOP! Last warning! Anti alcohol poster	NO! I refuse (alcohol)! Anti drinking poster

👉Go to all Soviet anti alcohol posters

Soviet Education Posters

Be it at school, the workplace or the fields Soviet people were encouraged to study and increase their qualifications.

Knowledge for everyone (in the world)!	Lessons in painting, music and singing increase the culture of the pupil, without a doubt!

👉Go to all Soviet Education posters

Soviet Women Posters

Emancipation of women, their role in society, family and even during war among many others were popular topics for poster art during the Soviet Union.

Go to the collective farm, peasant woman!	Women workers! Grab the rifles!

👉Go to all Soviet Women posters

Sports and Physical Training posters

The health and well being of its people is an important task for every nation. USSR wasn't any different, here is how that translated into poster art.

Be ready for work and defending the country!	USSR The Soviet Union - a mighty sporting nation!

👉Go to all sport and training posters

Anti Smoking and Tobacco Adverts posters

Curbing smoking, including amongst the under aged, was a priority for the Soviet state. At the same time there were many tobacco products advertised on the streets of the country's towns and villages.

Every child is our child - don't allow children to smoke!	Tobacco factory brand from Vladivostok

👉Go to all anti smoking and tobacco products posters 

Soviet Political Posters

This main category houses topics like the drive to build Communism, the leaders through the history of the Soviet Union era like Lenin and Stalin and the Cold war era posters. 

Communist Party of the Soviet Union CPSU, Communism and Socialism posters

Needless to say the political dimension of the Soviet Union, building up the trust in the system, it's institutions like the CPSU and striving towards Socialism and Communism are key topics for the propaganda poster art at the time.

For the happiness of the nation! Stalin votes, elections poster	Communist Party of the Soviet Union CPSU

👉Go to all communism posters

Cold War Propaganda Posters

The Cold War was an antagonistic era between the two most developed areas of the world - the Soviet Union and its satellites pitied against the USA and Western Europe and their spheres of influence. The two sides were known as the Eastern and Western bloc. It lasted from 1947 to 1991 when the USSR disolved during Gorbachev and Eltsin.

Glory to the Stalin falcons - conquerors of the air elements!	I will never forget the friends I made in Moscow!

👉Go to all Cold War propaganda posters

Leaders of the Soviet Union posters

This category includes soviet era posters of the leaders (ideological and political) of the USSR. These are Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev and Eltsin.

Brezhnev: We want durable peace! This is the fundamental basis of our foreigh policy! XXVI congress of the Communist party	Disarmement is an ideal for Socialism! Lenin

👉Go to all posters of leaders of the Soviet Union

Lenin Posters

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov commonly known as Lenin was one of the most influential thinkers, military leaders and political figures of the 20th century. He himself and his work are regarded as the reason for the rise of the Soviet Union, socialism and the Cold War.

Lenin - 1870 to 1980!	Lenin: Peace decree! We now have the power of the Soviets, this power comes from the people themselves, it puts the foundation for peace for all peoples!

👉Go to all Lenin posters

Stalin Posters

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin with a birth sirname Jughashvili ruled the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953. He's a controversial figure due to the millions of deaths caused by his rule but also remains one of the utmost statesmen of the 20th century, having lead his country to modernisation, industrialisation and ultimately to defeating Nazi Germany and expanding the USSR to in effect rule over half of Europe.   

We shall achieve plentiness!	Stalin - at the end of the five year plan the farm collectivisation should be mainly completed!

👉Go to all Stalin posters

Soviet Economy posters

The Soviet economy included many sectors out of which we picked the most popular ones, which got the most posters. These are Industry, Agriculture, Soviet Space program, Aviation and labour and work place.

Industry and Technology posters

Following the rapid industrialisation of the Soviet Union USSR after Stalin took power the Soviets prevailed in the WWII. After that en emphasis was put on gradually catching up economically with the Western bloc. After rapid progress and high growth rates of the 1950s and 60s the economy stalled significantly. That utlimately lead to the demise of the Soviet era.

Development of transportation is one of the key goals of the five year plan!	The Communist party's plan is my plan!

👉Go to all industry and technology posters

Agricultute posters

Key developments of the agricultural sector of the Soviet Union were the collectivisation of farms from their private owners in the 1920s and 1930s. This lead to inefficiencies, lower yields and some cases to famines. Later on productivity improved but never to the level the state desired. The poster art of Soviet agriculture are fascinating though.

The bread of the homeland!	Join us in the collective farm, comrade!

👉Go to all soviet agriculture posters

Soviet Space Program Posters

The space program of the Soviet Union USSR was world leading in many accomplishments. The Soviets launched the world's first satellite, had the first human spaceflight with Yuri Gagarin and the first space station.

Glory to the first astronaut in space Yuri Gagarin!	Cosmos/space is a friend of the Soviets!

👉Go to all soviet space program posters

Soviet Aviation Posters

The Soviets  had very well developed both civil and military aviation. Challanging the skies was a topic of fascination among young and grown up alike, hence the rich variaty of aviation posters.

Glory to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War! Glory to the Stalin falcons!	We shall be airplane pilots!

👉Go to all aviation posters

Soviet Work, Workplace and Labout posters

The working class was was supposed to be the Soviet Union's ruling class. However workers' say over production and policies decreased over the lifespan of the USSR. Nevertheless there was always a focus on the workers' wellbeing and productivity, including culture of the workplace.

I will too become a mechaniser!	We are the young working class!

👉Go to all work, workplace and labour posters

Soviet Perestroika Posters

Perestroika was a reform drive within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in the second half of the 1980s. The main initiator and advocate of Perestroika was the then relatively young Mikhail Gorbachev. It also included a somewhat free speech part called glasnost or transparency. Literally perestroika stands for "restructuring" of the economy and political areas of Soviet society.

Perestroika and Fall of the Soviet Union USSR

Poster art from this period is very rich indeed and even more fascinating. These are the artworks of a country in deep turmoil where people are looking for answers and sense of optimism in the midst of huge political and societal change.

For the deeds and worries - comrade, don't forget who you are! Refers to the party aparatchiks	Why are you wandering so much, is your path changing?

👉Go to all Perestroika and fall of the USSR posters

Soviet Military Posters

The Soviet Army, also known as the Red Army, was established in 1918 by Leon Trotzky and became one of if not the world's most important fighting force during World War II which it won with the support of the western powers. Following the Great Patriotic War the size of the army decreased from 14 million down to around 3 million soldiers and remained a leading military force in the world. 

Soviet Great Patriotic War (WWII) posters

The Great Patriotic War is a terms used by the Russian people to refer to their decisive involvement in the Second World War. The conflict in the eastern front lasted for around 4 years and Russia and the Soviet union are projected to have lost tens of millions of civilians and milions of soldiers in the Nazi onslaught and subsequent Red Army march to Berlin. It's easily one of the most important events in Russia's 1000 year history.

You will live happily!	Glory to our victorious homeland!

👉Go to all Great Patriotic War WWII posters

Soviet Pacifist Posters

Soviet Union pacifist depict the desire of the Comunist Party CPSU and the state to portray the Western bloc, the US and NATO as the ones causing conflict and wrecklessly threatening the peace. Socialism and Communism are seen as forces for good and peace, in contrast with Capitalism. The threat of nuclear war and its consequences are propogandised in particularly stark terms. Most posters we have are from the later stages of the Soviet Union.

Voice of the earth - No to the nuclear madness!	We demand peace!

👉Go to all soviet pacifist posters

Soviet Military Posters

The Soviet military or the Red Army has always been a source of great pride to the ordinary Soviet people. Particularly after its soldiers defeated Hitler and Nazism. Post WWII party propaganda officials continued the tradition of elevating the image and strengthening the trust in the army and military industrial complex.

Glory to the Red Army! On the poster next to him it says: We shall go to Berlin!	Long live the Red Army! Military wing of the proletarian revolution!

👉Go to all soviet military posters

Soviet Union USSR against NATO poster

NATO or the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is a defence pact formed by multiple European and Western countries under an American umbrealla to defend against the perceived threat from the Soviet Union and its satellites. The Easter bloc defence pact was the Warsaw Pact. Needless to say, given that these were the armed military institutions of the two adversarial sides, the poster art related to their relationship was quite heated.

Stop militarising space!	Hiroshima atom bombing poster

👉Go to all USSR vs NATO posters

Various Soviet Posters

This placeholder main category includes funny posters, old soviet and pre-revolution posters, nature and environmentalism, Soviet advertising/commercial posters.

 Funny Soviet Posters

Given how radically was intended to intervene in people's lives and the experimental nature of the Soviet system and doctrine as a whole, no wonder many posters of the time were not only interesting and revealing but also quite funny and entertaining at times.

How hard did you work this year?	Women at the collective farm - great strength!

👉Go to all funny soviet posters 

Old Russian Posters Before The Soviet Union USSR

We thought it would be of interest what poster art was like immediately before the formation of the Soviet Union. Here are some examples of such posters.

Moscow's 800 years - glory to you invincible Moscow, beauty and proud of the Russian people!	To the rescue of the  casualties of the war!

👉Go to all old Russian posters from before 1917

Soviet Nature and Environmental Posters

Here is how the Soviet artists and the Communist party propogandised nature and environmental causes.

Tourism is the best way to rest!	Citizens of the USSR, take care of nature, guard its riches!

👉Go to all Soviet nature and environmentalism posters

Soviet Advertising Posters

As in every economy products and services needed to be advertised. Here is how it was done in the Soviet Union USSR. 

Stolichnaya classic Russian and Soviet vodka advert	Smoke Captain's cigarettes advert

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