Blog 2: Propaganda,Soviet Internationalism and Decolonization

This poster reads “We will not allow anyone to stoke animosities between nations!” c.1942.

This is a time of global unrest in the midst of the Second World War and another surge of nationalism. Devastation in the war causes Empires to simply lose the appetite of empires, for instance the British in the case of the sub-continent.

In reference to this poster, we can see Soviet poster art promoting the internationalism which it espouses. For the Soviet leaders, the work of the revolution was not simply restricted to USSR and the success of the revolution was to be assessed based on how far it could spread in the world. While the capitalist and communist world worked together against Germany and her allies in the Second World War; the formation of polarized blocks was inevitable as the only thing connecting them was the threat of a common enemy.

This poster seeks to portray the spirit of Soviet Russia and Communism in general in a positive light. It seeks to show how ideology is a powerful connection that unites people regardless of their race or ethnicity. There is a deliberate inclusion of 3 different men in this poster to prove that communism makes no distinction between the colour of your skin. 

We learnt that since 1919, Moscow had become a center of study for aspiring communists who wanted to learn to spread revolution in their own homes, or simply came to Moscow for refuge from exploitative regimes or due to an affinity felt with the promises of communism. This point allows me to connect this poster with Dada Amir Haider and Claude McKay’s experiences. Mckay and Dada Amir are both individuals with different life experiences and cultural contexts but they both find themselves in Moscow in the early 20’s.  Bound together by the experience of colonization of their home countries, resigned to the feeling of not belonging, resentful and helpless against racial injustice, Dada Amir and Mckay have more in common than meets the eye. One of the most important ways in which Communism served them (even though Mckay was reluctant to call himself a communist as such) was a sense of dignity that they had been deprived of. Mckay says in his account “For the first time in my life I knew what it was to be a highly privileged personage. And in the Fatherland of Communism.”  He felt he had more rights there as a foreigner than he did in his home country. Dada Amir Haider expresses a similar sentiment when he repeats several times how his opinion always mattered and how open to criticism his peers and superiors were.

These sentiments expressed in the accounts of both Dada Amir and Mckay can be connected to this poster and the message it communicates of Russia as a place of tolerance and acceptance for all people. For the communists, the only difference that is truly divisive is class difference and beyond that all difference can be overcome by a unification of purpose. The strong stance to not “allow animosities” speaks to the international climate of the Second World War which is tense, divisive and allows for exploitation of differences. The poster also reminds me of Martin Luther King Jr.s statement we often refer to, i.e., the importance of the transition from feeling like a ‘nobody’ to a ‘somebody’ as the cause of communism lends so much sense of purpose and identity to people who feel otherwise lost or unaccepted. This again, ties into the theme of dignity and unity of purpose that communism and the USSR offered to people who believed in its ideology and was a message they liked to put across with the use of propaganda art such as the poster attached above. 

However we must caution against seeing this poster as the most accurate portrayal of reality.  Dated 1942, we can also see how this poster could have a practical intention to project communism as a means to base anti-colonial movements on in Asia and Africa. Also,while Dada Amir and Mckay were pleasantly surprised by the environment of the USSR, we must not forget instances of racism they both observed and experienced and interpret this poster while remembering the limitations of drawing meaningful conclusions about reality from propaganda.