We have 25 propaganda posters w/ Stalin (look below) but you aren't limited to these. We have over 800 Soviet posters on our website. Stalin's and Stalinism's influence is so deep and profound that you can find his and his comrades' ideas depicted in hundreds of posters. A Stalinism poster is not necessarily one with Joseph Stalin on it. To understand the entirety and totality of the Soviet-Leninist-Stalinist propaganda and poster art you need to have a 360 view. Here are all our 35+ Soviet propaganda poster categories in one place.
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Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, born in 1878, was the longest serving leader of the Soviet Union - he ruled with an iron fist for 29 years. Historians are deeply divided over his legacy. On one side, mostly wrongly in my opinion, he is derided as a brutal bloodthirsty dictator who enslaved or killed in cold blood millions and millions of people, both his countrymen and of formerly independent countries. Let's look at the other side of the story though.
Stalin smoking a pipe | Yalta conference in 1945 - Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin deciding the future of the world |
Firstly, I feel we should judge historical figures in the context of their times. First half of the 20th century wasn't a picnic by any stretch of the imagination. We had two world wars with tens upon tens of millions people killed - soldiers and ordinary citizens alike.
Stalin was a revolutionary who lead a radical revolution to uproot the governing system at the time. He lead an industrialisation and modernisation drive that pulled the Soviet Union from a largely agricultural economy into one that defeated Germany - the most advanced military power at the time.
One can't understate the grave and even mortal danger his country and people were in 1941 when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in earnest. Beyond saving his own country the Red Army saved Europe and maybe even the world at large in a sense. They marched all the way to Berlin by 1945 and had it been necessary they'd reach the Atlantic in one more year.
Stalin expanded Soviet influence throughout the world. You can easily find a Soviet poster here which reaches out to people from throughout the world. Half of Europe fell under Soviet influence and the Iron curtain was erupted. Some say that's tragic and a sign of imperialism. But looking at it from a realpolitik point of view (which Stalin definately professed) and above all the Soviet Union's interests in creating a buffer between them and the hostile West - it makes perfect sense.
Pick a propaganda poster Stalin after the article where you'll find all our Stalin posters |
Stalin's totalitarian rule is not to almost anyone's taste. Many believe he went way too far. Hundreds of thousands or according to some over a million people lost their lives in the Gulags in Siberia and elsewhere. Again, I think it was both a sign of the times, the revolutionary mindset and his personality, hardened by decades facing adversaries both real (The White Army, Hitler) and somewhat imagined (the soviet jews, trotzkists etc). In my opinion his personality was very complex, he was definately haunted by paranoias at the helm of a giant country with unlimited power in his hands.