And very often also the best graphic design.
Foreign Policy magazine has a stunner of a slideshow up of images from David King’s Red Star Over Russia: A Visual History of the Soviet Union.
This particular propaganda poster exhorts workers in the Azeri Soviet Socialist Republic to build airships for the Soviet state.
The slideshow includes: war photography from the Russian Civil War; an infographic of the first Five Year Plan; a colour photo of Stalin lying in state – and a haunting prison mugshot of Zinoviev before his show trial during the Great Purge.
Because, after all, only the best graphic design will do if you are aiming to hide the ugliest truth.
PS
Given that the poster was made in 1931, I’m surprised at the iconographic prominence of Lenin over Stalin: Lenin had died in 1924, and by 1931 Stalin had long since outmanoeuvred his main opponents for the Soviet leadership.
Was Stalin’s position still too vulnerable to roll out the infamous personality cult of his later years in power? Were Soviet national minorities like the Azeris still too wary of Stalin’s takeover? Or maybe Azeri graphic designers just hadn’t got the memo from Moscow yet.
