No Racism

НЕТ РАСИЗМУ! - No Racism! by Veniamin Briskin, 1972

During the Cold War, Soviet posters often depicted racism as a problem in the liberal democracies.

We found this poster interesting in it's image of a white worker beating a Klansman while the black worker looks on - it could possibly be interpreted as an ironic juxtaposition.

Veniamin Markovich Briskin was born in 1906 in Ukraine and studied art at the Kharkov Institute of Fine Arts, where he specialised in book illustration and poster design. He moved to Moscow in 1932 and worked on the satirical journal Krokodil (Crocodile). In 1934 he started working at Komsomolskaya Pravda and in 1956 he joined the national Soviet newspaper Pravda where he produced caricatures and illustrations. During World War 2 and after he created posters covering a variety of foreign policy themes and demonising capitalist values.

In 1967 he was awarded the title of Honoured Artist of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic and in 1970 he was awarded the Soviet Peace Fund Gold Medal. He wrote many books about art and poster production. He died in Moscow in 1982.

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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.