---
title: Bolszewicy mordują bezbronne kobiety! (The Bolsheviks Murder Defenceless Women!)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bolszewicy-morduja-kobiety-poland-1920/
description: A colour lithograph shows a bearded soldier in a red-starred cap, a knife between his teeth and a bloodied blade in his hand, advancing on two women and…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

**Content note:** Graphic atrocity imagery: a blood-covered soldier with a knife menaces women and a child (Polish anti-Bolshevik poster, 1920). This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Bolszewicy mordują bezbronne kobiety! (The Bolsheviks Murder Defenceless Women!)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/bolszewicy-morduja-kobiety-poland-1920.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/bolszewicy-morduja-kobiety-poland-1920.jpg)

# Bolszewicy mordują bezbronne kobiety! (The Bolsheviks Murder Defenceless Women!)

A colour lithograph shows a bearded soldier in a red-starred cap, a knife between his teeth and a bloodied blade in his hand, advancing on two women and a child in front of a burning building. The headline asserts as fact that Bolsheviks murder defenceless women; the threatened women and child are the staged harm of the fear appeal, and the snarling, blood-covered figure is the loaded label made visible.

## Text on the object

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

```
BOLSZEWICY
MORDUJĄ BEZBRONNE
KOBIETY!

[signature, illegible] 20

LITOGRAFIA A. [illegible], LWÓW
```

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

```
THE BOLSHEVIKS
MURDER DEFENCELESS
WOMEN!

[signature, illegible] 20

LITHOGRAPHY A. [illegible], LWÓW
```

Words in the headline are separated by raised dots on the sheet. The vertical imprint at lower right is very small and the surname is not reliably legible; the year in the signature is faint. Library shelf mark at top right omitted.

[← Bohaterowie frontu i kawiarni (Heroes of the Front and of the Café)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bohaterowie-frontu-kawiarni-poland-1920/) ["Kärntner Volksabstimmung, 10. Oktober 1920" postcard →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/carinthian-plebiscite-postcard-1920/)

## Using the same techniques

- [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)
- [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)
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (Qing China · 1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (United Kingdom · Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Venezuela · Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)
- [劉永福懸賞抓拿日本奸細告示 (Liu Yongfu's notice offering rewards for capturing Japanese spies), Taiwan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/liu-yongfu-reward-notice-japanese-spies-1895/) (Qing China · 1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)