Content note: Soviet caricatures of landowner, kulak, priest, capitalist, Menshevik and White officer as 'dogs'. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Enemies of the Five-Year Plan (Vragi pyatiletki)
Eight grimacing caricature heads (landowner, kulak, drunkard, priest, journalist, capitalist, Menshevik, White officer) crowd two panels under the title, with a rhymed caption that calls them 'dogs not yet put in a cage'. A mixed list of old-order groups is named as one pack and blamed for threatening the plan: the name-calling and scapegoating tells.
- Date
- 1929
- Period
- Interwar
- Made by
- State Publishing House (Gosizdat), Moscow and Leningrad; drawings by Viktor Deni, verse by Demyan Bedny
- Country
- Soviet Union
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Soviet Union
- Leader
- Joseph Stalin
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Demonize
- Themes
- Economy and finance, Labor
- Event
- First Five Year Plan
- Techniques
- Name-callingScapegoating
- Leader
- Joseph Stalin
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Duke University Libraries, Russian Posters Collection (via Wikimedia Commons), retrieved October 2, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (published 1929, before 1931); Duke: no known copyright restrictions
Viktor Deni and Demyan Bedny, 1929. Duke University Libraries, Russian Posters Collection, https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r49k47q0j, via Wikimedia Commons.
Text on the object
ВРАГИ ПЯТИЛЕТКИ Помещик смотрит злым барбосом, кулак сопит бугристым носом, пьянчуга с горя пьет запоем, поп оголтелым воет воем, шипит продажный журналист, острит клыки капиталист, меньшевичок во всю ярится, вояка белый матерится, — Псы, не посаженные в клетку, все, кто стоит за старину, зло проклинают пятилетку и объявляют ей войну, Грозят ей срывом, понимая, что в ней — погибель их прямая! ДЕМЬЯН БЕДНЫЙ. [on the newspaper in the right-hand panel:] МЕНЬШЕВИСТСКИЙ ВЕСТНИК ДЕНИ 29 20 коп. [illegible: imprint line in small type along the bottom edge]
ENEMIES OF THE FIVE-YEAR PLAN The landowner looks like a nasty watchdog, the kulak snuffles through his lumpy nose, the drunkard drinks himself into a binge from grief, the priest howls a frenzied howl, the venal journalist hisses, the capitalist sharpens his fangs, the little Menshevik rages for all he is worth, the White soldier swears, -- Dogs not yet put in a cage, all who stand for the old order spitefully curse the Five-Year Plan and declare war on it, They threaten it with wrecking, understanding that in it lies their direct doom! DEMYAN BEDNY. [on the newspaper:] MENSHEVIK HERALD DENI 29 20 kop. [illegible]
Read from the image and checked against the verse as transcribed in the Duke Libraries record reproduced on the Commons file page. Line grouping follows the four columns of the poster. The small imprint line is not legible.
