Workers of the World Unite!

The inscription on the bottom of this poster blares out, "Workers of the World Unite!”. In the poster, a wide and diverse range of characters all hailing from different regions of the world - from Africa, to China, to Korea, to the Middle East - and all of them armed in some manner appear to march against a common foe, united in their desire to vanquish it. Behind them, the red flag of communism, waves proudly and appears to almost drive them on. 

What is profoundly arresting about this poster is the spirit it invokes. A spirit composed of unity, solidarity and purpose. While it is blatantly obvious that the poster supports and encourages internationalism and transcending regional and ethnic boundaries, it is important to note that it also implicitly conveys an overarching purpose; a purpose that binds this diverse group together and creates the aforementioned spirit which pervades throughout the entire poster.

It is precisely this spirit and purpose that struck me when reading Dada Amir Haider Khan’s account. Khan when he arrives in the Soviet Union writes about how he had nowhere else seen, despite having travelled the world as sailor, “people of so many diverse races and nationalities”. This diverse collection of people much like those in the poster was present at Khan’s university for specific purposes. Whereas, he writes, the people at the University that were “Eastern Soviets” were tasked with consolidating socialism, the people from the colonized world were gathered for one simple purpose: “ to assist national liberation movements against the imperialist powers and to organize the communist parties in their countries.”

This ties in to the discussion in class regarding how the success of the Russian revolution sent a signal to the masses of the colonized world that the present need not belong to Europe and that the colonial powers could indeed be overthrown.

Khan’s account speaks of a tremendous moment where it was possible to realistically conceive of people from a truly extensive range of backgrounds uniting in order to overthrow the power of colonial empires. Moscow and the socialist experiment, specifically at the time period described in Dada Amir Haider Khan’s account, proved this. It is a testament to the wide appeal of this sentiment and message that the poster under examination here is of Chinese origin, but one which holds true to the same spirit of unity and rebellion.

Moreover, what is apparent in both the poster and in Khan’s account is the equality of all the people present. All are equal in their rebellion and struggle against oppression and domination. All are equally committed to their common purpose of liberation and all are equally supported by the triumph of a socialist experiment in Russia, by its “red flag”.

The poster then, and the account both convey this moment of freedom and its promise as well as the thought that common oppression and domination at the hands of colonizing and imperialist powers was sufficient as a uniting force, and that the solidarity of the oppressed people was enough to overthrow it.