Page 22 - All About History - Issue 38-16

Dictators

Day in the life

A PROPAGANDA ARTIST

IN THE WAR ON CAPITALIST AGGRESSION,

THE PENCIL IS THE SWORD OF THE

WORKERS, USSR, 1924 53

Every dictator needs a propaganda machine to keep their regime
popular. Political propaganda arguably reached its zenith during
the troubled years of World War II, and one of the frontrunners of
this ministry of misinformation was the Soviet Union.
Unlike the printed posters of Nazi Germany, Great Britain
and Fascist Italy, the USSR made use of a dizzying array of
craftsmen, technicians, artists and writers to produce striking
and sophisticated glorifications of Stalin, denunciations of
Hitler and appeals to socialist values. And they did most
of it by hand in a specialist studio run by TASS, the
Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union.

CATCH UP WITH THE NEWS

When the artists arrived at their desks at TASS’s
in-house art studio, the first thing on their agenda
was to read through the official reports and
directives from Moscow’s numerous ministries
to get abreast of current affairs. Speeches given
recently by Stalin were also approved fodder for
artistic inspiration.

START PLANNING
From his propaganda machine Stalin
desired ‘windows’ – which were
stencilled comic strips that had
become popular during the civil
war – and posters, which were
typically designed in the heroic
Socialist realist style. The former
lampooned the enemies of the people
while the latter reflected the true A heroic young female partisan
glory of the Soviet Union. Each resists the invading Germans in this
project would have had a two-man TASS window
team at least, as well as one poet to
finesse and refine the message.

SEEK APPROVAL
What an artist thinks is a good idea might actually
not be so good if it doesn’t toe the party line. Before
any work could begin on a project, each concept
had to be scrutinised by a representative of the
People’s Commissariat of Education to ensure it
was thoroughly on-message and something that
Stalin himself would approve of.

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