More metal, more weapons!
The pins
Context
For discussion
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1
Oversimplification The slogan "More metal, more weapons!" An equation with two terms. Labor, transport, and the evacuated furnaces are the terms left out.
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2
Plain folks The worker A steelworker in a cap, drawn in charcoal, unposed. The viewer at the furnace is meant to see himself.
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3
Hyperbole The aircraft From the worker's open hand pour squadrons of red aircraft and columns of tanks. One man's shift becomes an air force.
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4
Flag-waving The hammer and sickle The emblem in red on the grey furnace. The only color in the left half of the sheet is the state's.
A Soviet production poster of 1941. Nikolai Avvakumov's steelworker, drawn in charcoal, turns from the furnace and holds out his hand, and from it fly red aircraft and tanks: the slogan drawn as an equation. The autumn of 1941 saw the evacuation of some 1,500 factories east of the Urals, and the posters of that winter spoke to workers in unheated sheds as if they were at the front.
- The slogan is an equation. What is left out of it?
- What does the worker's scale do?
- Compare with the American production posters. What is the difference in tone?
See also
Same era, or the same techniques.
