Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge Fridge Magnet

КЛИНОМ КРАСНЫМ БЕЙ БЕЛЫХ - Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge by El Lissitzky, 1919, during the civil war following the October Revolution.

Lissitzky's original artwork was printed slightly off register so the red and black didn't quite match up correctly.

Lissitzky made new versions later, but no copies of the original correctly registered have been found. We have tried to recreate the original poster as it might have looked if it was correctly registered.

This is the version we made first, based on the version that was printed off register in 1919:

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In 1917, after three years of devastating war, food shortages and government corruption, the workers and peasants of Russia rose up to overthrow the ruling elite and attempted to create the world’s first communist society under the slogan “All Power to the Soviets”.

Throughout the year there were riots, mutinies and strikes, influenced by and involving Mensheviks, Anarchists, Social Revolutionaries and Bolsheviks.

By October, the Bolsheviks, who promised to end Russia’s involvement in the war, were able to overthrow the provisional government, which had been established after the abdication of the Tsar in February.

As the Bolsheviks centralised power and tightened their control over the new state, civil war broke out across Russia as monarchists and liberals (known as the Whites), supported by Western capitalist democracies, fought back against the Bolsheviks.

At the same time, various non-Russian independence movements, anarchists and anti-Bolshevik socialist parties rebelled against Bolshevik imposed terror.

By 1923 the Bolsheviks had defeated the White Army and suppressed internal dissent. The Civil War concluded with a Bolshevik victory.

Before the Revolution and throughout the period of the existence of the Soviet Union, visual propaganda was considered a significant means to inform, educate and motivate people.