Situating El Lissitzky; Quotes

"Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge" (1920) - agriprop - although probably too abstarct for many of the public.


Quotes:

Without question, the role of the propaganda publication was less the winning of new converts than it was the affirmation of belief and loyalty of the elect, among whom, of course were the artists themselves. This closed system aligned neatly with the fusion of experiential levels suggested by the designs of 1934 and 1935: the merging of author, subject, and reader into one vector of enthusiastic approval of the Soviet Union and its glories.

Peter Nisbet Essay p228

Let me sum up. First, with regard to agitprop. I believe we are not doing all we could in this area, and I think I should set out the tasks we need to assign to Glavpolitput and Tsekprofsozh. We shall not be able to manage without cooperation from the trade unions.Glavpolitput and Tsekprofsozh ought to start straight away organizing agitation about work on the railroads the railroads and the fight against labour deserters. We need to organize this fight with the help of posters - popular ones - which will show the deserters as the criminals they are. These posters should eb hanging in every workshop, every department, every office. Right now transportation is the the lynchpin. And therefore there should not be a single theatre, a single public spectacle, a single movie-show, where people are not reminded of the harmful role of the labour deserter. Wherever the railroad worker goes, he should find a poster which mocks the deserter and puts the shirker [progul'shchik] to shame.... We need to use gramophones for agitation purposes. Posters are all very well for the city, in the village they are not much use. Let us make ten or so records against shirking and desertion. Lists of deserters should be printed and circulated. Even if we do not get the deserters back by these means, at least we shall shame and frighten anyone who is leaning in that direction.... Besides, we have to instill the awareness that labour conscription (part of Trotsky's general dream at this time of the militarization of the economy) means staying at one's post as long as the circumstances demanded it.... The courts should likewise be a might engine of agitation and propaganda. Their role is not only to mete out punishment to the guilty but also to agitate by means of repression. We should organize a show trial (literally, a loud trail) of one or two doctors who give out phony certificates.... If we put the trial on in a theatre in one of the cities and invite representatives from all the workshops, and have the trial reported in all the papers and broadcast on the radio - that will really do some educational work.

Leon Trotsky, Khooviastvennoe stroitelstvo respubliki (Moscow: Gosizdat, 1927) 374-76. See the discussion of the speech in William H. Cahmberlin, The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921 (new York: Macmillan, 1935 reprint, New york: Macmillan, 1952), 2:294.