Archive · Interwar

One must work, the rifle is right here

1920 Soviet Union Poster Issued by ROSTA, the Russian Telegraph Agency, Petrograd Artist Vladimir Lebedev 3 techniques annotated
One must work, the rifle is right here 1 2 3

Library of Congress · Public domain · Catalog record

The pins
  1. 1
    Slogan "Rabotat nado" "One must work": three words, set at an angle so that they are part of the swing of the hammer. The sentence and the gesture are one thing.
  2. 2
    Idealized figure The worker No face, no name: a figure built from red, yellow, and black shapes. He is not a worker but Work, which cannot be argued with.
  3. 3
    Oversimplification The rifle The rifle leans within reach. Labor and defense are shown as one act, with no gap in which a worker might prefer one to the other.
Context

A Petrograd ROSTA window of 1920 by Vladimir Lebedev. A worker in a red shirt swings a hammer at an anvil with a rifle leaning beside him. Lebedev's Petrograd windows were flatter and more geometric than the Moscow ones, and this is the civil-war slogan of labor and defense as a single act: the worker who is also a soldier, with no gap between the two.

For discussion
  1. The rifle is within reach but not in use. What is being said about work?
  2. The figure has no face. Who is he meant to be?
  3. Why might a poster with almost no words have been useful in 1920 Russia?
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See also

Same era, or the same techniques.

The whole archive
Six years of the Red Army Six years of the Red Army Soviet Union · 1924 We Can Do It! We Can Do It! United States · 1942 Remember Scarborough! Enlist now Remember Scarborough! Enlist now United Kingdom · 1915 The USSR is the shock brigade of the world proletariat The USSR is the shock brigade of the world proletariat Soviet Union · 1931