Propaganda! Russian and Norwegian posters 1920–1939 by Forlaget Press

PROPAGANDA! Russian and norwegian posters 1920–1939 Daniela Büchten, ed.

Index 6 Foreword 8 Introduction 12

Yelena Barkhatova: “A Picture for the Proletariat”: Russian Posters 1920–1939

Denis Solovev: ROSTA Windows in Petrograd

Vibece Salthe: Read “The Young Guard”! In the Service of Communism: Aleksandr Rodchenko’s Constructivist Language of Advertising

Daniela Büchten: We’re looking to the Soviets! Propaganda and posters in the Norwegian labour movement between the wars

Posters in 1920–1921

NEP: The New Economic Policy, 1921–1928

130

The first Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932

170

The second Five-Year Plan and the Stalin cult, 1932–1939

194

The Norwegian labour movement: propaganda of the 1930s

217 Notes 220

Artist biographies

224 Abbreviations

Index

Propaganda! An introduction Daniela Büchten

Propaganda for the Communist Party; for chocolate and the Five-Year Plan; for galoshes and socialistic competition; for the building of airships, Women’s Day, and green plants at the workplace: in the Soviet Union a whole society was going to be created anew, and posters would play a crucial role in that transformation. They communicated the Party’s message to the general public, presenting complex topics through the use of striking graphics that could be understood by the many illiterates who made up the Soviet population in the 1920s. A society in total upheaval was reflected in innumerable posters about every imaginable social issue. Soviet cities were crowded with posters – which, along with slogans, flags and banners, exerted a constant influence upon the public. At that time, an immense number of posters were produced – the print runs for some of those included in the catalogue were in the vicinity of 30,000 copies. The selection in the catalogue is not intended to be representative, but is meant rather to present a broad spectrum of the various styles and major themes of the period. For the Western viewer of today, this is an alien world – the historical context is unknown to many, and the texts, which are a significant element of the posters, are not easily accessible. In the catalogue, therefore, we have chosen to describe the specific artistic and historical background to each poster. The period from 1920 to 1939 is divided into four chronological parts, each of which is marked by its own set of challenges. During and directly after the civil

Propaganda!

war between the White and Red armies, the so-called ROSTA Windows – posters which were hung up in store windows – played a central role. Included here are ROSTA Windows from 1920 and 1921, which were mainly put up in the big cities and which conveyed the latest news. The artists’ group in Petrograd produced large, impressive posters that employed the language of cubism. The artists often copied their posters by hand, which means that each copy is an original. During the years of the New Economic Policy, which lasted from 1921 to 1928, the Soviet Union began to rebuild industry, and this process was reflected in optimistic advertisements for consumer goods. At the same time, it was important for people to be brought up in the socialist spirit. They should know about the history of the Party and accept their obligation to take part in such actions as the struggle against illiteracy and the efforts to help the countless street children. All these were important topics for posters. Various artistic schools flourished, and the new montage technique that Eisenstein had introduced in the film Battleship Potemkin would come to have great significance for poster artists, who used photo montage to reflect a society in a time of transition. Another characteristic of the 1920s was the establishment of a quasi-religious personality cult around Lenin, which filled the empty space left by the Orthodox Church, once a central presence in Russian society. After the first Five-Year Plan was launched in 1928, posters were largely

devoted to the attainment of its ambitious objectives. The focus was on industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture, which called for qualified workers. Many posters encouraged the public to pursue higher education – a great challenge in a country where most members of the new industrial proletariat had come directly from the countryside. Women were now entering the workforce in significant numbers, and the posters show them filling their new roles as engineers and factory workers. One of Stalin’s best known slogans, “In the reconstruction period, technology is decisive,” figured on many posters, and the belief that technology would lead to a new and better world was palpable. During the period between 1932 and 1939, there was a good deal of propaganda for the second Five-Year Plan and the building up of the socialist society. Stalin carried out large-scale purges of his “enemies,” established himself as the undisputed leader, and basked in the glory of a growing personality cult. The dissolution of all art groups in 1932 put a stop to artistic diversity. Avant-garde forms of expression increasingly lost ground to a more old-fashioned, naturalistic style. It is in the nature of propaganda that it presents an ideal image, and hence the darker sides of Russian history – such as famine, the persecution of the farmers who opposed forced collectivization (the so-called kulaks), and other “enemies of the system” – were only indirectly visible. This manifested itself, in any case during

the 1920s, in posters that addressed the problems of illiteracy and poverty. But after 1932, as a result of the standardization of art, the challenges that confronted society almost completely disappeared as topics of posters. Now it was socialist realism that mattered, and society was portrayed in its state of “revolutionary development” – in other words, as a utopia that had already been achieved. The fifth part of the catalogue presents ten posters by the Norwegian labour movement. Both their style and content reflect the influence of Soviet posters, which were shown at two major 1930 Oslo exhibitions. Elements of the personality cult, as well as the use of the photo montage, can be traced back to Soviet models, even though the Norwegian posters were also created in dialogue with international currents such as funkis and critical realism. The articles in the catalogue elaborate upon the historical and artistic background of poster art. Yelena Barkhatova describes the way in which the poster developed into a “picture for the proletariat”. She depicts the arguments and conflicts that erupted within various art groups during the 1920s. Some poster exhibitions occasioned agitated debates about the poster’s style and function. Barkhatova underscores the meaning of cinema and of the aesthetics of the film poster for the development of an innovative pictorial language. The fact that poster art was the first artistic genre to be subjected to strict control by the Department of Agitation and Mass Campaigns, however – an event that took place in 1931 – put a full stop to the further development of the avant-garde forms of expression. Denis Solovev has been doing research on the Petrograd ROSTA Windows for years and presents his findings here for the first time. His work provides us with remarkable insight into a fascinating period (1920–21) marked by major transformations, revolutionary fervour, and the ability to find one’s

An introduction

bearings under the most unimaginably difficult circumstances. The artists starved even as they were drawing, and at the same time they managed, with admirable speed, to churn out copies of posters about current events. The fruitful collaboration of Aleksandr Rodchenko and Vladimir Mayakovsky on advertising posters is the subject of Vibece Salthe’s essay. Her analysis of their poster Read the magazine “The Young Guard!” shows how the two artists used constructivist style to create effective advertisements. As members of the Radical Left Art Front, they wanted to contribute to the development of a socialist society by taking part in practical “production work”. Rodchenko and Mayakovsky, who did not want to hand over the promotion of goods to “bourgeois foreigners”, made about fifty advertising posters together. In my article, I study the influence of Soviet posters on the propaganda of the Norwegian labour movement. The concept of propaganda in the 1920s and 30s was broad, and included both political agitation and the advertisement of merchandise. In Norway, the advertising union’s magazine Propaganda wrote repeatedly about Soviet propaganda. The professionals were impressed both by its high aesthetic level and, especially, its impact. When the labour movement decided to alter its strategy after 1933 and become a broad-based popular party, it went in for propaganda on a large scale, following the Soviet model. The designers were inspired by Soviet constructivism and photo montage, and during the 1930s the poster became an important tool in labour-movement agitation. Since the 1980s, Russian posters and Russian design have spread around the world like wildfire. Russian constructivism, which had its heyday in the 1920s, has served as a particularly important inspiration to artists and the general public. Not since the 1930s have Norwegians had the opportunity to view a large selection of

Soviet posters. It is therefore a special pleasure for us to be able to exhibit so many of the Soviet posters that inspired the Norwegian labour movement in the 1930s. We are especially happy to have collaborated with the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg, which has loaned us some of the major works of Russian poster art from the years between the wars. We are also grateful that Hå Old Vicarage, at such an early stage, expressed interest in presenting the exhibition. The labour movement’s archive and library have loaned us beautiful posters for the exhibition and have also given us the benefit of their expertise. For this we are greatly appreciative. In the times and places with which this exhibition is concerned, posters were the art form that was most visible in everyday life. In those days, before audiovisual media became ubiquitous, posters were a crucial means of communicating both political messages and purely commercial advertisements. These posters, then, provide us with an insight into an alien time, into what the artists were preoccupied with and what the people who commissioned their work were thinking about. There was a strong belief that advertising was influential, and many of the promotional methods that were discussed at the time are still in use today. During the years between the wars, the Soviet Union impressed many professionals, including some in the Western world, with its propaganda. “With modern propaganda, nothing is impossible”, wrote Inger Tostrup in 1934 in an article in Propaganda. That it was possible to “transform the Russian people [and] give them a new mentality”, stirred admiration – much of it reluctant. The close connection between the artistic avantgarde and modern mass communication in the Soviet Union of the interwar years was unique. Then, as now, many people were fascinated by the Soviet posters that operated in the field of tension between art and politics.

The first Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932 The first Five-Year Plan accelerated industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture. Many posters spread the optimistic message that the plan would be fulfilled within four years. Key themes were socialistic competition, the education of persons to work in the new technical occupations, and the entrance of women into the workforce. There was a strong belief in technological progress, which would make the socialist dream a reality. At the same time, the farmers who opposed forced collectivization, the so-called kulaks, were deported to Siberia, and the changes in agriculture led in 1932– 33 to one of the most catastrophic famines ever. This reality stood in stark contrast to the propaganda about leisure parks, new child-care centres, and the Party’s concern for “green” workplaces.

The first unit of the Dneproges hydroelectric plant is ready for operation, 1 May 1930 © RIA NOVOSTI/NTBscanpix

Cat. 34 Gustav Klutsis 1895–1944

Moscow–Leningrad, GIZ, State Publishing House, 1930 Chromolithograph; 87.2 x 63.2 cm The National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg. Inv. 141439

“The NEP Russia will be transformed into the Socialist Russia!” Lenin Toward the end of the 1920s, the New Economic Policy, which had been adopted under Lenin, was abandoned. Private initiative in industry and agriculture was supplanted by a centralized production and distribution system, and in 1928 the first Five-Year Plan was implemented. To justify the new course, Stalin positioned himself as the faithful student and follower of the Great Leader, Lenin. He did this by using quotations from Lenin’s last public appearance in 1922: “From NEP Russia, socialist Russia will rise!” The poster reflects this line of argument: Lenin, placed at the very top, initiates the building up of the country with a simple movement of his arm, almost like Almighty God. We see huge, active construction sites and a fast-moving train, which represents the important transport sector, as well as a picture of workers performing maintenance work on railroad tracks. In the photograph on the left, Lenin addresses the masses, and proclaims that heavy industry is the only way to save the farmers from need and hunger (as written in the quotation just below). This statement is backed up by photographs of industrial facilities, grain silos and tractors. “Competition,” written twice on the poster, is an important means of achieving Lenin’s objective, which is cited at the very bottom: “Only when the country is electrified, when industry, agriculture and transport are placed on a technical basis of modern large-scale production – only then will our victory be complete.” Thus is the Five-Year Plan tied in with Lenin, in order to lend it greater legitimacy.

132 Propaganda!

The first Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932

133

Cat. 35 Gustav Klutsis 1895–1944 (sign. Klutsis 1930)

Moscow–Leningrad, GIZ, State Publishing House, 1930 Chromolithograph, phototype; 105 x 73 cm The National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg. Inv. 174764

The efforts of millions of workers engaged in socialist competition are turning the FiveYear into the Four-Year Plan The first Five-Year Plan (1928–1933) was an important step on the USSR’s road to becoming an industrial power. The first priority under the plan was the development of heavy industry. Large business and industrial complexes were created and built. Socialistic competition was a mass movement that was used to increase productivity. It first began with the workers at one of the factories in Leningrad, whose challenge to compete was printed in Pravda in March 1929. In May of the same year, the Central Committee of the Communist Party promulgated a special resolution: On Factories’ and Businesses’ Socialistic Competition. The resolution proposed measures that later became “voluntary” initiatives within the ideological system. Klutsis combines photographs of workers in factories with a picture of a large demonstration. In front of the masses, at the very bottom, in the centre, we see some larger figures that are turning seriously and decisively toward the viewer. At the same time, the worker in the large photograph on the left is presented as a role model in his hard and steady work, in this case on an unspecified machine. The first results after a year of the plan – such as a 25% increase in production – are written in white on a red background and set between two gigantic cranes that symbolize the country’s industrial growth. Even though the poster, with its representation of the masses and industry, maintains that this movement originated with the workers themselves, the role of state initiative and institutionalization is clear: in the white ribbon of type on the left, one can read that the competition brigades will now become competition departments in the factories. Thirty thousand copies were made of this poster, which was intended to help increase the workers’ dedication.

134 Propaganda!

The first Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932

135

Cat. 36 Yakov Guminer 1896–1942 (sign. Ya. Guminer)

Moscow–Leningrad, IZOGIZ, State Publishing House for Art, 1931 Chromolithograph, phototype; 90.7 x 62.3 cm The National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg. Inv. 141762

The arithmetic of the economic Counter-Plan for industry: 2+2=5 thanks to the workers’ enthusiasm The success of the first Five-Year Plan at meeting the economic goals that were set for it would have been impossible had the people of the Soviet Union not exhibited genuine enthusiasm. The socialistic competition to fulfill the Five-Year Plan in a shorter time, by whatever means it took, was intensified by encouraging pioneers to “voluntarily” and selflessly exceed the Plan’s objectives. Workers who were seen as insufficiently productive, especially heads of companies that didn’t manage to achieve the objectives, risked serious punishment. The poster implies that state planning, in combination with the workers’ enthusiasm, can make an impossible equation possible: 2+2=5. At the end of 1932, it was declared that the goals of the Five-Year Plan had been fulfilled in four years and three months. The mechanic in the upper left corner of the poster works at his machine with intense concentration, and thus represents the individual effort that is required to meet the Plan’s objectives. Inside the number five we can see the results: new homes, cranes, factories, and, not least, a number of tractors, which played a key role in improving agricultural efficiency.

136 Propaganda!

The first Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932

137

Cat. 37 Sergei Senkin 1894–1963

Moscow–Leningrad, OGIZ, Union of the State Book and Magazine Publishers, and IZOGIZ, State Publishing House for Art, 1931 Chromolithograph, phototype; 138.5 x 95.5 cm The National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg. Inv. 179669

We’re making our factories green!

The key objective of the first Five-Year Plan was to develop heavy industry – fuel, metallurgical, chemical and mechanical industries that, owing to the chemical processes that took place in their plans, represented a challenge to a healthy working environment. Countless businesses, factories and industrial complexes were built. Establishing a positive working culture – in other words, showing concern for the members of the working class who were employed in the new businesses – was also one of the Party’s goals. The poster’s motto – “We’re turning the departments in our factories green!” – challenges the viewer to create healthful environments in workplaces. A smiling worker – typically enough, it is a woman who is chosen to represent the “soft values” of the workplace – works at a machine, alongside a large areca palm, known for its ability to cleanse the air of toxic gases and to release a great deal of moisture. The red ribbon of type that is mounted on a drawing of a clean, clear, roomy and large-windowed factory space reads: “With the enthusiasm of the masses, new socialistic work conditions are being created.” Beside photographs of industrial workers posted at various machines are large green plants. Under such pure, idyllic conditions, work seems like a game. Senkin, one of the leading constructivist poster artists, underscores the message by using the colour green, while he uses red to accentuate and bind together the worker’s headscarf, the machine, and the central message on the ribbon of type.

138 Propaganda!

The first Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932

139

Cat. 38 Gustav Klutsis 1895–1944 (sign. G. Klutsis. 1929 g.1)

Moscow, GIZ, State Publishing House, 1929 Chromolithograph, offset; 72.8 x 50.7 cm The National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg. Inv. 151561

The development of transport is a key part of the Five-Year Plan

The constantly accelerating pace of industrial production demanded a well-developed transport system, but in 1930 it became clear that the railway network was not keeping pace with the growing stream of freight. The entire transportation system of the USSR was in desperate need of an upgrade. The struggle to rebuild, modernize and equip the railway system continued. Klutsis’s poster is dominated by a gigantic locomotive with a Soviet star on it. Several smaller locomotives headed in the same direction represent the major results of the first year of the Five-Year Plan – such as the increase in investments from 1.5 to 1.9 billion rubles and a rise in the amount of freight transported on the railways from 177.7 to 215 billion tons. At the bottom we see a picture of train tracks that end in the heart of the steppes. It is here that the challenges lie, and that the work will continue. The Asian riding the camel symbolizes the old days, which must be overcome in the name of progress.

“G” stands for “god”, which means “year”.

140 Propaganda!

The first Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932

141

Cat. 39 Nikolai Dolgorukov 1902–1980 (sign. N. Dolgorukov 1931)

Moscow–Leningrad, OGIZ, Union of the State Book and Magazine Publishers, and IZOGIZ, State Publishing House for Art, 1931 Chromolithograph; 103.7 x 73 cm The National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg. Inv. 170815

Transport worker, improve your technical skills, struggle for the reconstruction of transport! The poster shows an engineer, made up of a photograph of a head and a drawn upper body, who is working out details on a diagram of a machine. In the background, a completed locomotive is lifted up in a huge factory space under a ribbon of type featuring a quotation from Stalin: “During the reconstruction period, technology determines everything.” Under the factory’s roofbeams, a slogan proclaims that there are no fortresses that the Bolsheviks cannot conquer – a suggestion that the major challenges posed by the transport sector will be surmounted. One can already see the first results down in the factory, where the production of several trains, including both passenger cars and boxcars, has been completed. The main slogan, “The FiveYear Plan in Four Years”, which we see behind the engineer’s head, also anchors this production segment in the Party’s politics. The motto “to master technology” was one of the main themes of the first Five-Year Plan, and the motto was retained throughout the 1930s. The low scientific and technical competency of professionals, technical workers and specialists, about 65% of whom had been farmers the day before yesterday, was a serious problem for the country, and the state made many efforts to address this problem. Hence the engineer was presented as a role model, even though it was not exactly desirable to idealize an academic upper class – which made it necessary to emphasize the proletarian angle, as represented here by the red army and the rolled-up sleeves.

142 Propaganda!

The first Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932

143

Cat. 40 Gustav Klutsis 1895–1944 (sign. Klutsis 30)

Moscow–Leningrad, IZOGIZ, State Publishing House for Art, 1930 Phototype, chromolithograph; 104 x 74.6 cm The National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg. Inv. 141420

We are doing our job and supplying the nation with coal

One of the preconditions for developing heavy industry and building new industrial complexes was an increase in the extraction of coal. To accomplish this, coal mines were dug in Donbass, Kusbass and Karaganda. Klutsis himself had travelled to the Donbass region, where, dressed as a coal miner, he had taken a number of photographs that he later used in various posters. The worker in the middle of this poster is the artist himself, who, with a younger and an older worker, steps forward in a decisive manner. Thus does Klutsis represent several generations. The photographs are taken from a frog’s-eye view, which turns the figures into worker-heroes. The poster also exists in other versions, in which the figure in the middle is orange while the others are blue. In the final version, however, the artist sticks with his preferred combination of black-and-white and red. Klutsis was one of the artists who took photo montage further, and he used the technique in many posters.

144 Propaganda!

The first Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932

145

Cat. 41 Yuri Pimenov 1903–1977 (sign. 1928. Yo P Moskva)

Moscow, Publishing “Truth and the Poor”,1 1928 Chromolithograph; 107.7 x 73.5 cm The National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg. Inv. 141647

Everyone to the festival!

Four workers in a steel mill shove a rod that is used to pour the iron. The muscular men are in a state of fierce concentration, and all individual attributes are obliterated to produce a stylized, classical look. Together they work as a machine. Further back in the factory, two women push a coal bin on tracks to supply the blast furnace, and in the far background one can see a ship waiting to be loaded with completed iron products. The new man, who is needed to build up industry, must be like the women and men in the poster: concentrated, purposeful and coordinated. Since most of the new proletariat came directly from the farms, they had to be instructed in industrial and rational thinking. In a 1931 commentary, S. Mileyev wrote that Pimenov “sees the human body as that of a similarly perfect machine, one that works as precisely as the steel work benches that surround the worker.”2 The comparison of men with machines, which builds upon an uncritical belief in technology and the future, and a mechanized understanding of the world, can also be found in other countries at this time, for example in the work of the Bauhaus artist Oskar Schlemmer. The poster’s text promotes participation in a nationwide competition for production meetings that was announced in Pravda. The idea was that workers would hold meetings at which they would share ideas about improving the efficiency of their businesses. Usually, however, this didn’t work out, and the decisions taken at the meetings were not implemented.

Izdatelstvo “Pravda i bednota”.

Quoted in Hubertus Gaßner, Eckhart Gillen, “Vom utopischen Ordnungsentwurf zur Versöhnungsideologie im ästhetischen Schein”, in Agitation zum Glück. Sowjetische Kunst der Stalinzeit, Bremen 1994, p. 56, rev. 46.

1 2

146 Propaganda!

The first Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932

147

Cat. 42 Valentina Kulagina 1902–1987 (sign. V. Kulagina 1930 g.1)

Moscow–Leningrad, GIZ, State Publishing House, 1930 Chromolithograph, phototype; 107 x 71.6 cm The National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg. Inv. 166466

International Day of Working Women. A day for the inspection of socialist competitiveness

Valentina Kulagina’s poster for International Working Women’s Day, or Women’s Day, shows a worker in a textile factory who is working with spools of thread. A demonstration in the lower part of the poster, made up of photographs of many women, many of them smiling, marches toward the viewer. The banners read “Working Women’s Day” and “Day for the Parade for Socialist Competition”. Women’s Day was founded at the Socialist Second International Women’s Conference in Copenhagen in 1910. Russian women demonstrated against war on 8 March 1917, and thereafter the struggle for women’s rights and international peace was commemorated on that date. Kulagina, with her husband Klutsis, Rodchenko, Stepanova and Lisitsky, belonged to the October group. Even though she also used photo montage in her posters, she believed more strongly in a sober, graphic means of expression: “Drawn posters are much more interesting to make than montages.”2 1

“G” stands for “god”, which means “year”. Margarita Tupitsyn, Gustav Klutsis and Valentina Kulagina: Photography and Montage after Constructivism, New York, Göttingen 2004, p. 209.

148 Propaganda!

The first Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932

149

Cat. 43 Unknown artist

Moscow–Leningrad, OGIZ, Union of the State Book and Magazine Publishers, and IZOGIZ, State Publishing House for Art, 1931 Chromolithograph; 71 x 96 cm The National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg. Inv. 151087

With funds from millions of workers, invested in loans during the third and decisive year of the Five-Year Plan Under the first Five-Year Plan, the problem of financing industrial development was acute. One attempt at a solution was the sale of government bonds to the general public. This concept was first introduced in 1926. At first it was a voluntary arrangement, but eventually, as the demands of the Five-Year Plan became ever more intense, it became, in practice, virtually compulsory to buy such bonds. The poster emphasizes that the loans help to build socialism and to maintain the workers’ standard of living. The unknown artist has placed the slogans at angles and upside down on this purely typographical poster. Such a complicated means of conveying the message, which brings to mind German Dada montages, would already be strongly criticized a year later, and eventually condemned as “formalistic”, a term of abuse used to describe avant-garde modes of expression.

150 Propaganda!

The first Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932

151

Cat. 44 Brigade KGK 2 Viktor Koretskij 1909–1998 Vera Gitsevitsj 1897–1976 Boris Knoblok 1903–1984

Moscow–Leningrad, OGIZ, Union of the State Book and Magazine Publishers, and IZOGIZ, State Publishing House for Art, 1931 Chromolithograph, phototype; 101 x 71 cm The National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg. Inv. 141296

State-farm and collective-farm construction made the USSR the world’s leading agriculture nation After the 1917 revolution the farmers were given land, and now cultivated their own plots themselves. The Bolsheviks, however, believed that the way to increase production was through large enterprises and increased mechanization. Eventually they decided that most of the agricultural areas should be collectivized. In 1929, the authorities began to force farmers into the collectives, or “kolkhozy”. The farmers were required to hand over their livestock and their agricultural equipment. Those who refused to join a collective voluntarily had their land and property expropriated, while they themselves were sent to remote regions of the country. These “kulaks” were declared the number-one enemy. The opposition and the tensions culminated in a violent rebellion which resulted in the liquidation of activists, the slaughter of livestock, and other such actions. In 1930 the farmers’ rebellion endangered the sowing campaign. In March of the same year, Pravda ran an article by Stalin entitled “Dizzy from Success”, in which he admitted mistakes. But after the harvest, the Party returned to the idea of mass collectivization. In 1931 about 53% of farming households were collectivized, and automated state tractor stations were established to serve the “kolkhozy”. The poster shows an industrially worked farm, where rows of tractors plough immense fields. Women and men come in a steady stream from work, clearly identified as agricultural labourers and no longer as independent farmers. The savings in time are illustrated by a photograph in the upper right corner in which a lonely farmer struggles with his plough behind his emaciated horse. Directly below this we see an American farmer next to the sign “Farmer Bull”: even though he is clearly riding a tractor (though a considerably smaller one than his Soviet counterpart), he is alone on his patch of earth and thus plainly inferior.

152 Propaganda!

The first Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932

153

Cat. 45 Gustav Klutsis 1895–1944 (sign. Klutsis 30)

Moscow–Leningrad, IZOGIZ, State Publishing House for Art, 1931 Chromolithograph, phototype; 104.5 x 74.7 cm The National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg. Inv. 142242

Komsomol for crash sowing!

Profound changes in the USSR’s economy were not possible without efficient farming. The main problem was low production of seeds and other agricultural products from the small farms. The decision to implement collectivization, that is, to establish large, socialistic agricultural units, was made in 1927. Collectivization was supported by poor farmers and farm workers. In 1929 the Party decided to send 25,000 workers from the cities out to the countryside “to lead the established ‘kolkhozy’ (collective farms) and ‘sovkhozy’ (state farms)”. Most of these workers were Communists and members of the Komsomol – the Communist youth organization – and thus representatives of the new generation. On the poster these happy young people ride tractors straight towards us. Red flags wave in the wind and turn the march into a political demonstration. These are the young people from the city who will help automate the farm, and thus improve efficiency. Two of them, the young men in front of the two red flags furthest in the background, may be self-portraits of Klutsis.

154 Propaganda!

The first Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932

155

Cat. 46 Vladimir Stenberg 1899–1982 Georgy Stenberg 1900–1933 (sign. 2 Stenberg 2)

Moscow–Leningrad, OGIZ, Union of the State Book and Magazine Publishers, and IZOGIZ, State Publishing House for Art, 1932 Chromolithograph; 106 x 74.3 cm The National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg. Inv. 17050

Exhibition “The Poster in the Service of the Five-Year Plan”

This poster was made for the exhibition The Poster in the Service of the Five-Year Plan, which opened in the Tretyakov Gallery in 1932, after the publication on 11 March 1931 of the Central Committee’s Resolution On Poster Literature. At this exhibition more than 300 works were shown. Not only were the best posters presented, but in a special discussion section, “examples of serious ideological errors, low artistic quality, the artist’s inability to explain a picture and fill it with the correct political content” were displayed. This means of structuring the exhibition reflected the change in political course from a greater liberality to greater restrictions. The exhibition opened in early April, and on 23 April the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party passed the Resolution On the Restructuring of Literary and Artistic Organizations. In accordance with this Resolution, various groups of authors, composers, architects and artists were abolished and replaced by trade unions. From now on, “socialist realism” was to guide the creation of all kinds of art, and the focus was to be on the positive hero. Even if constructivist approaches and the photo montage were not banished all at once, naturalistic and more painterly forms of expression won more and more ground.

156 Propaganda!

The first Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932

157

Cat. 47 Gustav Klutsis 1895–1944 (sign. Klutsis 31)

Moscow–Leningrad, IZOGIZ, State Publishing House for Art, 1931 Chromolithograph, phototype; 146 x 105.5 cm The National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg. Inv. 58809

The USSR is at the front lines of the international proletariat

A gigantic demonstration, consisting of many different photographs of demonstrations, marches toward us with Stalin at its head. Groups from Germany, China, Spain, Britain, and elsewhere follow, and carry their own banners bearing slogans such as “All power to the world revolution” and “To the defence of the USSR”. That the “USSR is the pioneer brigade for the world proletariat” is written in both Russian and German against the red background. The poster is a typical example of Klutsis’s use of photo montage, which after the change in Soviet cultural policy in 1932 was no longer smiled upon. In the article “October’s Photo Montage and Mechanical Errors”1 in the magazine For Proletarian Art, the artists’ group October was chastized for its use of photo montage. This poster, as well as the rest of Klutsis’s works, was criticized. Gustav Klutsis’s wife, Vera Kulagina, tried at this time to talk her husband into giving up photo montage and shift to drawing posters. Klutsis did not want to do so, however, and continued to employ a modified photo montage style for several more years, right up until 1938, when he was arrested and then killed in a prison camp.

Za proletarskoje izkusstvo 7-8,1932, pp.18-21

158 Propaganda!

The first Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932

159

Colophon

Abbreviations

Propaganda! Russian and Norwegian Posters 1920–1939

AEF: Workers’ Drug and Social Policy Association AKH: The Academy of Arts (in St. Petersburg) AKhR: The Association of Artists of the Revolution AKhRR: The Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia Arbark: The Labour Movement Archive and Library AUF: Workers’ Youth League AOF: Workers’ Educational Association in Norway GINKhUK: The State Institute of Artistic Culture in Leningrad GSKhM (or SKhM): The State Free Art Studios INKhUK: The Institute of Artistic Culture KGB: The KGB; The Committee for State Security LEF: The Left Front of the Arts LO: The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions MUZVZ: The Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture Narkompros: The People’s Commissariat for Education Okno Peterburg ROSTA: ROSTA Windows from Petrograd OMKh: The Society of Moscow Artists OPKh: Imperial Society for the Promotion of the Arts OST: The Society of Easel Painters PGSKhUM: The Petrograd State Free Artistic Educational Workshops RKP(b): The Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) RKP M: The Russian Communist Party, Moscow division ROSTA: The Russian Telegraph Agency RSFSR: The Russian Socialist Federative Socialist Republic SDI: The Arts Union SKh SSSR: The Union of Artists of the USSR STsKhPU: Stroganov Central College of Technical Drawing SVOMAS: The Free State Art Studios TASS: The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union TsK VKP: The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union UNOVIS: The Champions of the New Art VKhUTEIN: Higher Artistic-Technical Institute VKhUTEMAS: Higher State Artistic-Technical Workshops VKP Ms: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Moscow division VLKSM: Komsomol, The All-Union Leninist Communist Youth Organization VOKS: The (Soviet Union) Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries VSNKH: The Supreme Soviet of the National Economy VTsJK: Cheka; The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Profiteering and Corruption

editor :

Daniela Büchten Krystyna W. Andersen, Eva H. Rogneflåten, Grete Stang texts about russian posters : Denis Solovev, Daniela Büchten texts about norwegian posters : Daniela Büchten translations from russian to norwegian , transliteration : Anne-Marie Gjølme, Hå Old Vicarage translations from norwegian to english : Bruce Bawer translations from norwegian to english , vibece salthe ’ s article : Arlyne Moi editorial assistants :

The catalogue uses the Library of Congress’s transliteration system, except in cases where other forms are commonly used in English, such as Mayakovsky, Tolstoy, or Brodsky. In the translation of the poster titles, we have attempted to retain the original punctuation as much as possible. cover illustration : Vladimir Mayakovsky and Aleksandr Rodchenko (signed Mayakovsky, Rodchenko) Read the Magazine The Young Guard!, Petrograd, [1924]

Henrik S. Haugan, Form etc.

printing and picture reproduction : isbn :

Elanders Fälth & Hässler

978-82-7547-644-7

The material in this publication is covered by the Copyright Act. It is prohibited to make copies of the material contained herein without the express consent of the copyright owners and without the sanction of law or agreement with Kopinor. The editors have done everything in their power to track down the copyright owners of the intellectual property included in this publication. If you have information that can enable us to identify the copyright owners, we ask you to contact the National Library. published in connection with the exhibition

Propaganda! Russian and Norwegian Posters 1920–1939 National library of Norway 28 February–23 May 2013 Hå Old Vicarage 8 June–25 August 2013 curator :

Daniela Büchten

working group , national library of norway :

Eva H. Rogneflåten (coordinator), Krystyna W. Andersen (curator of poster collection), Nina Hesselberg-Wang, Chiara Palandri, Wlodek Witek (conservators), Fred Moermann (web exhibition), Tom Erik Ruud (photographer), Annette Lia, Tank (exhibition graphics), Elin Tinholt, Sondre Larsen (audioguide produksjon) working group , the national library of russia , st . petersburg : Yelena Barkhatova (Director of the Print Department), Denis Solovev (Senior researcher, curator of poster collection), Aleksandr Tarasov (curator of poster collection, photographer) local project management , hå old vicarage :

Eva Watne (Director/conservator), Anne Marie-Gjølme (consultant)