‘Dinosaurs Who Are Communist For Some Reason’ t-shirt, by MJ:
“What killed the dinosaurs? Capitalism. Only through a keen understanding of the theory and praxis of class struggle can any species hope to break the free market’s brutal cycle of boom and extinction.”
A selection of Polish matchbox designs of the 1950s and early 1960s, originally put online by Jane McDevitt of Maraid Design (her Flickr set of matchbox designs has more from around the world).
Matchboxes were used in communist Poland (and elsewhere in the eastern bloc) as a cheap method of disseminating information — sometimes commercial, sometimes propagandistic, sometimes just practical.
“A radio in every home – battery-powered Barbara radios”
“The Sixth Soviet Film Festival – A Roundup of the World’s Leading Cinematography”
“Reduce water use – in industry and the home”
“Emulsion paint from Chemifarb Gliwice”
“Children + Matches = Fire”
“10 Years of the People’s Republic of Poland”
“Death favours careless people”
“Hospital. Prison.” (An anti-drink-driving campaign)
“Obey the laws on right-of-way”
“Get to know the road signs”
Germany has a strong socialist and social-democratic heritage and tradition. The main German social-democratic party, the SPD, is one of the oldest in the world, and its history mirrors much of the grim history of Europe in the twentieth century. East Germany, after its foundation in 1949, was built in part on a doublethink of simultaneously recognising and denying this heritage of preexisting worker’s movements.
One of the familiar tactics of the GDR’s ruling party, the SED (itself a product of a forced marriage between the east german communist and social-democratic parties) was to assume control of existing worker’s institutions and other popular social institutions and transform them into loyal stalinist organisations. This happened to trade unions, professional organisations, church-related groups, youth organisations and more, but one of the most obvious places where this change took place — obvious because of the very nature of the institutions being transformed — was with newspapers. Overnight, previously social-democratic media became party mouthpieces, giving the official line and standing loyally by the SED leadership.
Volksstimme is one example of this phenomenon. This paper, founded in 1890 in Magdeburg, was social-democratic in outlook and became the main daily newspaper of the Saxony-Anhalt region in the early twentieth century. After being banned by the Nazis in 1933, it did not publish again until 1947, when it emerged as a proxy of the SED. Their front page from December 1st, 1979, looked like this:
The status of the paper as the voice of officialdom is captured in the masthead’s perfunctory slogan, “Organ der Bezirksleitung Magdeburg der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands” — “Organ of the Magdeburg leadership of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany”. It seems to have been a pretty dreary read, as many eastern-bloc papers of the era were. However, historical hindsight sheds some light on some of the editorial choices.
It leads on a story about George McGovern, the US senator regarded — then and now — as a left-liberal democrat, objecting to the stationing of NATO missiles in western Europe. At the dawn of the Reagan era, this seems to have been an attempt by the Volksstimme editors to praise their enemy’s enemies.
The other stories range from similarly ‘ideological’ stories (‘Meeting of the Supreme Soviet ends’, ‘Communist delegation from the Netherlands’) to more mundane fare (‘Japanese rail-speed record of 304 km/h’).
Volksstimme went through another fundamental change of direction after the Wende, when it was bought by the Bauer Media Group and relaunched as a mid-market regional tabloid. It still exists today as one of Saxony-Anhalt’s main regional papers (with numerous local editions) and if you feel like it, you can talk to their staff on Twitter right now.
Logo and insignia designs of European violent left-wing groups of the mid- to late-20th century. Five-pointed stars seem to have been mandatory.
Rote Armee Fraktion (aka the Baader-Meinhoff Gruppe, Germany, 1970-1998). Features a stylised Heckler & Koch MP5 machine gun.
Revolutionäre Zellen (Germany, 1973-1993). Curious typography.
Partido Revolucionário do Proletariado -Brigadas Revolucionárias (PRP-BR, Revolutionary Party of the Proletariat – Revolutionary Brigades, Portugal, 1970-2002). The only ones without a five-pointed star.
Grupos de Resistencia Antifascista Primero de Octubre (GRAPO, First of October Anti-Fascist Resistance Groups, Spain, 1975-2007). Nice colour scheme.
Forças Populares 25 de Abril (FP-25, Popular Forces 25 April, Portugal, 1980-1987). Diagonal design similar to the flags of Tanzania and Namibia.
Devrimci Halk Kurtuluş Partisi-Cephesi (DHKP/C, Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front, Turkey, 1978-present).
Cellules Communistes Combattantes (CCC, Communist Combatant Cells, Belgium, 1984-1986).
Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades, Italy, 1967-1988). This insignia appears to be a digitised version of the banner that was shown in the famous photograph of Aldo Moro taken during his kidnapping and murder in 1978.
Action directe (Direct Action, France, 1979-1987).
Epanastatiki Organosi dekaefta Noemvri (17 N, Revolutionary Organization 17 November, Greece, 1975-2002). Similar to the flag of Vietnam.
The first in a possibly-ongoing series of the best Orwellian institutional names: the Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia’s Interests. Initiated by President Dmitri Medvedev two years ago. Thankfully, it hasn’t been up to much since.
From a 2004 report about Estonia’s inventive requests for compensation for damages from Soviet occupation:
“Russia was no doubt particularly perturbed by Salo’s suggestion that it compensate Estonia some $104 billion in damages for the war and occupation, and that the best way to repay would be to hand over an entire Russian region such as Novosibirsk Oblast.”
It’d make for some interesting maps.
The question of what to do with Lenin’s body is still something that can arouse impassioned debate in contemporary Russia. One indication of the depth of feeling involved is that the dominant political party, the Putin/Medvedev-aligned United Russia, has no definite policy on the question.
Rather, in a strange combination of historical reckoning and modern political campaigning, they have sought to turn the question into a carefully-curated online debate (complete with instant polling, Twitter feeds and Facebook link-sharing buttons) at GoodbyeLenin.ru.
There is an initial irony in the use of the title of a German film with an English name as the domain name for a website run by Russian nationalists about an ardently internationalist revolutionary. The site itself, however, keeps it simple. “Do you support the idea of burying the body of V.I. Lenin?” it asks, below the bear-and-flag logo of United Russia and a quote from party bigwig Vladimir Medina. Once you submit your vote, you can take a look at the results to date. At the moment, by a roughly-two-to-one ratio, the internet wants Lenin to be buried. If you feel like it, you can add your vote, too.
25 years ago this week: the first television report on Soviet TV mentioning the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, on Вре́мя (Vremya – the Russian word for ‘time’), the main news program of the First Programme of the Central Television of the USSR. April 1986.