Central Academy of Fine Arts Woodblock Print Combat Group, “Smash the Old World. Establish the New World” People’s Republic of China, 1967 courtesy University of Chicago Press “The mobilization of art for revolutionary aims is a defining feature of communism,” writes Mary Ginsberg in the introduction to Communist Posters, out next month from Reaktion Books with distribution by the University of Chicago Press. The former British Museum curator adds that these posters “have served as vehicles of persuasion, instruction, damnation, and social discourse in every communist nation.” Cover of Communist Posters courtesy University of Chicago Press While there have certainly been enough communist art publications to fill a small library, from Fuel’s recent book on Soviet anti-alcohol posters, to photographer Stefano Cerio’s monograph of off-season Chinese amusement parks, Ginsberg states that this is the “first survey across the history and diversity of communist poster art.” The posters of the People’s Republic of China, with their bright-eyed workers and Mao’s ubiquitous face, are the most familiar and account for all the images provided for this post. Communist Posters also examines the graphic design of the Soviet Union, Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, Mongolia, and communist countries in Eastern Europe through over 300 illustrations. Each section has an in-depth essay by Ginsberg and other authors on the artistic inspirations, policies, and politics that guided these distinct propaganda poster legacies. Of course, propaganda art is far from confined to communist revolutions; see, for instance, the broadsides of the American Revolution. Yet as international influences combined with traditional visual expression, and 20th-century printing technology allowed for mass-produced lithographs, these nations’ outputs represent the height of propaganda posters. Going back to 1914, artists such as Kazimir Malevich worked on propaganda art that skewered Kaiser Wilhelm II, and that avant-garde style would later fuse with references to Russian religious icons that used the color red to symbolize salvation and faith. In one Soviet poster, Lenin hovers in a red orb like a saint of future industry. In Vietnam, artists who studied in French colonial schools combined those painting practices with folk art and the aesthetics of American comics, while artists in Cuba left out the superhero laborers that dominate Chinese and Soviet posters, and experimented with vibrantly colored, sometimes abstract graphics, from the 1960s to early ’80s. Pages from Communist Posters photo of the book for Hyperallergic Pages from Communist Posters photo of the book for Hyperallergic Cheap and quick to create, posters could spread messages on education, hard work, modernization, the glories of the revolutionaries, and the importance of recycling, conveying that information even to those who could not read. A 1958 poster coinciding with China’s Great Leap Forward, an initiative that aimed to propel the nation ahead in agriculture and industry, has bundles of grain wrapped in bright red bows shooting like rockets out of a field. A chart in Communist Posters shows that over 13 million posters were produced by the Tianjin Fine Art Publishing House in 1958, compared to 144,000 the year before. Rather than blurbs, the back cover of Communist Posters has quotes from figures including Joseph Stalin “Print is the sharpest and the strongest weapon of our party” and the Fourth National People’s Congress of China “Speaking out freely, airing views fully, holding great debates and writing big character posters are a new form of carrying on social revolution created by the masses”. Television and the internet eventually made the poster obsolete as a propaganda medium, but for several decades it was an effective tool for guiding a mass identity and purpose, especially when those were both in flux. Anonymous artist, “Long Live the Victory of Chairman Mao’s Line on Revolutionary Literature and Art” People’s Republic of China, 1972 courtesy University of Chicago Press Zhang Yingxue, “Welcome Liberation” Republic of China, 1948, woodblock print courtesy University of Chicago Press Mo Pu, “Settling Accounts” People’s Republic of China, 1949, colored woodblock print courtesy University of Chicago Press Dong Xiwen, “The Founding of the Nation” China, 1990, reprinted poster from oil painting courtesy University of Chicago Press Jin Zhaofang, “A Glorious Production Model” People’s Republic of China, 1954 courtesy University of Chicago Press Liu Jiyou, “Everyone Get to Work Eliminating Sparrows” People’s Republic of China, 1956 courtesy University of Chicago Press Yang Keyang, Dao Mouji, Ding Hao, and Qian Daxin, “Smash the Rightists’ Furious Offensive, Defend the Socialist Construction” People’s Republic of China, 1957 courtesy University of Chicago Press Shen Lin and Lu Xingchen, “Celebrate Surpassing the Steel Production Target of 10,700,000 Tons” People’s Republic of China, 1958 courtesy University of Chicago Press Jin Meisheng, “The Vegetables Are Green, the Cucumbers Plump, the Yield Is Abundant” People’s Republic of China, 1959 courtesy University of Chicago Press Ha Qiongwen, “Long Live Chairman Mao” People’s Republic of China, 1959 courtesy University of Chicago Press Communist Posters, edited by Mary Ginsberg, is out next month from Reaktion Books, distributed by University of Chicago Press. Allison C. Meier is a former staff writer for Hyperallergic. Originally from Oklahoma, she has been covering visual culture and overlooked history for print... More by Allison Meier

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