'Enemies of the 5-Year Plan'
Art by Viktor Deni 1931.
Poem by Demyan Bedny.
The
Landowner glares like a ferocious watchdog
The
Kulak [rich peasant] snorts through his bulbous nose
The
habitual drunk boozes his woes away
The
[village] priest frantically whoops and and wails.
The
corrupt journalist spits and hisses
The
capitalist sharpens his tusks
The
Menshevik rages like a madman
The
White Soldier effs and blinds.
These
dogs that have not been thrown into jail -
Everyone
defending the bad old ways -
Put
an evil curse on the Five-Year Plan
And
declare war on it.
They
threaten its disruption, realising
That
it spells their utter ruination.
[Poem
translation kindly supplied by Alan Leigh-Richards, Newark.]
This
poster from 1929 attacks eight groups that were frequently scapegoated
(clockwise from top left): landlords, kulaks, journalists, capitalists,
White Russians, Mensheviks, priests, and drunkards. (Mensheviks were the
moderate wing of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party; they
split from Lenin’s Bolshevik wing early in the century.) The poem at the
bottom of the poster was written by Demyan Bedny, one of Stalin’s
favorite poets. The poem harshly ridicules these members of the “old
order,” describing them as “hounds that have not yet been caged.”
The group is condemned for “declaring war” on the Five-Year Plan
because “they understand that it will bring about their final
destruction.”
(Text
courtesy of the Hoover Digest 1998 No.3 - http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/digest/983/hahn.html.)
Click on photo above for a printable 700kb jpg.
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