---
title: 'Varokaa! Vakoilija! (Beware! Spy!): Finnish Winter War poster'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/finland-varokaa-vakoilijaa-1939/
description: 'A glass-negative photograph of a Finnish poster that reads ''Beware! Spy!'' in stencil capitals around two dark silhouettes: a bearded figure in a long…'
section: Collection
---

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

[![Varokaa! Vakoilija! (Beware! Spy!): Finnish Winter War poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/finland-varokaa-vakoilijaa-1939.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/finland-varokaa-vakoilijaa-1939.jpg)

# Varokaa! Vakoilija! (Beware! Spy!): Finnish Winter War poster

A glass-negative photograph of a Finnish poster that reads 'Beware! Spy!' in stencil capitals around two dark silhouettes: a bearded figure in a long coat with a rifle slung on his back stands behind a hatted man who leans forward and points. The shadow figures and the bare imperative stage a hidden enemy among ordinary people and ask the viewer to watch for him, without saying how many spies there were or how to recognise one.

- **Date:** 1939
- **Period:** [Second World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwii)
- **Made by:** Finnish authorities (issuer not printed on the poster); photographed by an unknown photographer for the Finnish Defence Forces wartime photo archive (SA-kuva)
- **Region:** [Western and Central Europe](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=western-central-europe)
- **Country:** [Finland](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=finland)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [Mixed](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=mixed)
- **Regime:** [Ryti Government](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=ryti-government)
- **Leader:** [Risto Ryti](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=risto-ryti)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Warn or inform](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=warn-inform)
- **Themes:** [Security and surveillance](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=security-surveillance), [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military)
- **Event:** [Winter War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=winter-war)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)
- **Source:** Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- **Source:** [Finnish Wartime Photograph Archive (SA-kuva), via Finna](https://www.finna.fi/Record/sa-kuva.sa-kuva%2F114075), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** CC BY 4.0 (SA-kuva licence statement on Finna record) SA-kuva (Finnish Wartime Photograph Archive), record sa-kuva.sa-kuva/114075, CC BY 4.0.

## Text on the object

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

```
VAROKAA!

VAKOILIJA!
```

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

```
BEWARE!

SPY!
```

[← 'Askari wetu washinda Wajapani / Smash the Japs!' (British poster for East Africa)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/askari-wetu-smash-the-japs-1939/) ['My Struggle!' by Adolf Hitler, the sculptor (British poster in Arabic) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hitler-sculptor-swastika-arabic-1939/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (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/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [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/) (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/) (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/) (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/) (1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)
- [時局圖 (The Situation in the Far East / Map of the Present Situation), newer version with English labels](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/situation-in-far-east-tse-tsan-tai-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)