---
title: Between the Hammer and the Sickle poster, PO-17-VN (Vietnamese poster distributed in Saigon)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/between-hammer-and-sickle-po-17-vn-saigon-1951/
description: A Vietnamese-language poster. Four hands wearing the flags of the Viet Minh, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China wield a cleaver.
section: Collection
---

1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/)
2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. Between the Hammer and the Sickle poster, PO-17-VN

[![Between the Hammer and the Sickle poster, PO-17-VN, 1951 US poster: A Vietnamese-language poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/between-hammer-and-sickle-po-17-vn-saigon-1951.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/between-hammer-and-sickle-po-17-vn-saigon-1951.jpg)

# Between the Hammer and the Sickle poster, PO-17-VN (Vietnamese poster distributed in Saigon)

A Vietnamese-language poster. Four hands wearing the flags of the Viet Minh, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China wield a cleaver, a sickle and hammers marked 'VM' against a map of Vietnam that cracks and bleeds. The headline asks whether a 'general counter-offensive' means destroying the country, and the foot urges resistance. The tell is fear-appeal with scapegoating: one named side is cast as foreign-backed destroyers of the nation.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Scapegoating](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/scapegoating/)

## Text on the object

Original (Vietnamese) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
TỔNG-PHẢN-CÔNG ! TỔNG-PHẢN-CÔNG ?
NGHĨA LÀ TIÊU-HỦY NON SÔNG CƠ-ĐỒ

[on the weapons:] VM
[on the map:] VI ... T ... N ... A ... [letters of VIỆT-NAM broken across the map]

Triệt để chống cuộc Tổng-phản-công !

[signature, lower right, illegible]

PHÒNG THÔNG-TIN TRUNG-ƯƠNG
QUÂN-ĐỘI CAO-ĐÀI
```

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

```
General counter-offensive! General counter-offensive? It means destroying the homeland and its heritage. [...] Resolutely oppose the General Counter-offensive! [Imprint:] Central Information Office, Cao Dai Army.
```

Diacritics read from a printed display face; the third headline word is uncertain. Letters on the map spell VIỆT-NAM in fragments.

[← Just Borrow An Old Soviet Saying!](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/berryman-just-borrow-an-old-soviet-saying-1951/) [For a Free World / Victims of Communism (English poster distributed in Asia) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/for-a-free-world-victims-of-communism-english-1951/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)