---
title: Stalin's Pipe (Trubka Stalina)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/deni-stalins-pipe-1930/
description: A one-sheet drawing of Stalin in profile smoking a pipe, with three small caricatured men tumbling in the smoke, each tagged with a one-word label…
section: Collection
---

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

**Content note:** Soviet drawing of a wrecker, NEPman and kulak as caricatures blown away by Stalin's pipe smoke. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Stalin's Pipe (Trubka Stalina)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/deni-stalins-pipe-1930.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/deni-stalins-pipe-1930.jpg)

# Stalin's Pipe (Trubka Stalina)

A one-sheet drawing of Stalin in profile smoking a pipe, with three small caricatured men tumbling in the smoke, each tagged with a one-word label: 'wrecker', 'NEPman', 'kulak'. Three different groups blamed for the plan's difficulties are reduced to labels and blown away by a single breath, which is the name-calling and scapegoating tell.

## Text on the object

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

```
вредитель
непач
кулак

„Трубка Сталина“

ДЕНИ 30 г.

ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОЕ ИЗДАТЕЛЬСТВО
Москва 1930 Ленинград

Цена 15 коп.

[illegible: censor, order and print-run numbers in small type at lower left]
Типо-литогр. Госиздата «Красный пролетарий». Москва, Краснопролетарская ул., дом № 16.
[illegible: library stamp at lower right]
```

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

```
wrecker
NEPman
kulak

'Stalin's Pipe'

DENI 30

STATE PUBLISHING HOUSE
Moscow 1930 Leningrad

Price 15 kop.

[illegible]
Printed at the State Publishing House's 'Krasny proletary' litho-typography, Moscow, Krasnoproletarskaya street, no. 16.
[illegible]
```

The catalogue and print-run numbers are too small to read reliably at 960 pixels wide and are left out. 'Nepach' is the colloquial form of NEPman.

[← Bande Mataram (Lahore), commemorative page for Lala Lajpat Rai, 16 November 1929](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bande-mataram-lahore-lajpat-rai-1929/) [Gandhi spins while addressing a crowd (1930) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gandhi-spinning-1930/)

## Using the same techniques

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- [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.
- [Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (the De Witt brothers as devils)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ondersoeckt-de-geesten-de-witt-devils-1672/) (Dutch Republic · 1672 · Scapegoating, Name-calling)
- [The Highlanders Medley, or The Duke Triumphant (A Loyal Song)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/highlanders-medley-duke-triumphant-1746/) (Great Britain · 1746 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [The North Briton, No. XLV, 23 April 1763 (John Wilkes), opening page](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/north-briton-no-45-wilkes-1763/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Apr 23, 1763 · Name-calling)
- [The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/revere-bloody-massacre-king-street-1770/) (Province of Massachusetts Bay · Mar 1770 · Name-calling, Card stacking). Content note: Hand-coloured engraving of bloodied dead and wounded colonists after soldiers fired on a crowd.
- [Marche du Dom Quichotte moderne pour la deffence du Moulin des Abus (March of the Modern Don Quixote in Defence of the Mill of Abuses)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dom-quichotte-moulin-des-abus-1791/) (France · 1791 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [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)