Poster Plakat
Poster of the Week
"We are organizing the threshing in a Bolshevik fashion."
This 1934 poster highlights the USSR's campaigns that abolished private farmland by turning it into government-run collective farms ("kolkhoz" in Russian). The man on the poster with the beard wears a medal noting he is an “Inspector of quality” and the young guard behind him suggests the omnipresent Soviet authority that placed private farm holdings under state control.
Collectivization campaigns were plagued by high costs, lack of quality control, and disorganization of farm machine output. In some areas of the USSR, farmers tried to withhold their harvest, as was reported at the time. The government responded by recruiting “shock troops” to forcibly collect grain. Punitive measures were aimed at citizens who failed to achieve harvest goals and/or who were found to have confiscated grain. A hostile climate developed in the countryside between government agents and collective farmers. In Ukraine, for example, Josef Stalin called on the Red Army to intervene in the harvest campaign of 1932.
Collectivization campaigns ultimately caused an agricultural crisis for the USSR and sparked a famine in 1933 that killed millions of people across the North Caucasus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and the Volga-Ural Region of Russia.
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About The Collection
Poster Plakat is a private collection of Soviet and Eastern Bloc political ephemera spanning 1916 to 1991. The collection contains over 1,000 original posters and poster maquettes. Sizes range from windowpane posters up to large, multi-panel broadsides. Numerous artists are represented such as Gustav Klutsis, Victor Deni, Nikolai Dolgorukov, Vladimir Stenberg, the Kukryniksy, Viktor Koretsky, and hundreds more. All posters are linen backed and ready for display.
If you are interested in using images from the Collection or exhibiting posters from it, please visit the Contact Us page for more information. You can also email info@posterplakat.com and include the name of your organization, the name of the contact person and provide your phone number. In addition, please provide a general description of the exhibit you are considering or the poster you would like to use.