Join the Red Cavalry

ВСТУПАЙТЕ ДО ЧЕРВОНОЇ КІННОТИ! - Join the Red Cavalry by Boris Vasil’evich Silkin, 1920

Recruitment poster published in Ukrainian from Kiev. The text reads: “The Red Cavalry fought against Mamontov, Shkuro, Denikin. They fought against Pans and Petlyura. Now it’s Wrangel’s turn. Workers and Peasants – Join the Red Cavalry.” 

Silkin designed posters for the Bolsheviks during 1919 and 1920. He joined the Kiev trade union Tvorchestivo and may have been a founding member of the Society of Artists in Kiev. In 1920 he was listed as a member of the Political Directorate of the Kiev Military District. He is mentioned in Ukrainian magazine articles as having been a popular poster designer and book illustrator during the 1920s and 1930s.

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The distinctive helmet of the Red Cavalry, known as the “budenovka”, is named after Semyon Budenny, the Red First Cavalry commander. 

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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.