---
title: 'Jego program (His Programme): Polish caricature poster'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/jego-program-kotkowski-frejlich-poland-1920/
description: A bloated, red-skinned figure holding a 'WOLNOŚĆ' (freedom) sign and a skull-topped staff sits on a wagon marked 'CZREZWYCZAJKA' (Cheka) and 'СОВНАРКОМ'…
section: Collection
---

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

**Content note:** Caricature of Soviet leaders as a bloated red figure on a skull-topped cart over corpses; the verse names Bashkirs and Chinese as the Cheka's rulers. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Jego program (His Programme): Polish caricature poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/jego-program-kotkowski-frejlich-poland-1920.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/jego-program-kotkowski-frejlich-poland-1920.jpg)

# Jego program (His Programme): Polish caricature poster

A bloated, red-skinned figure holding a 'WOLNOŚĆ' (freedom) sign and a skull-topped staff sits on a wagon marked 'CZREZWYCZAJKA' (Cheka) and 'СОВНАРКОМ' (Sovnarkom), hauled by emaciated workers over corpses, with armed soldiers and a machine gun on the wagon. The verse below puts a threat in the rider's mouth: the people will be harnessed as slaves. A contrast of the word 'freedom' with the cart of terror stages the programme as a menace.

## Text on the object

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

```
WOLNOŚĆ [sign]
CZREZWYCZAJKA [side of wagon]
СОВНАРКОМ [small Cyrillic label on the wagon, left side]

JEGO PROGRAM

„Zaprzęgnę was, paliaczki,
Do bolszewickiej taczki!
Ciągnąć ją, nuże, psy!
Lud będzie moim rabem,
Już jadę z groźnym sztabem,
Aż ziemia wokół drży!"

W czerwonej czrezwyczajce
Baszkiry i Kitajce
Sprawować będą rząd!
Komisarz przy stupajce
Da wolę swej nahajce,
Gdy wezwie was na sąd!

Wio! Ciągnąć, robociarze!
Sowdepski pan wam każe,
By pełzać mu u stóp.
Już droga niedaleka;
Za krew i trud was czeka
Braterstwo — bratni grób!

KOTKOWSKI i FREJLICH, ŁÓDŹ, ZAKŁADY GRAFICZNE, PIOTRKOWSKA 91. TEL. 3-46
```

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

```
FREEDOM [sign]
CHEKA [side of wagon]
SOVNARKOM [small Cyrillic label on the wagon, left side]

HIS PROGRAMME

'I will harness you, wretches,
To the Bolshevik barrow!
Pull it, come on, dogs!
The people will be my slave,
I am already riding with a menacing staff,
Until the earth shakes all round!'

In the red Cheka
Bashkirs and Chinese
Will run the government!
The commissar at the 'stupa'
Will give free rein to his whip
When he summons you to judgment!

Giddap! Pull, workers!
The Soviet lord commands you
To crawl at his feet.
The road is not far;
For blood and toil there awaits you
Brotherhood — a brothers' grave!

KOTKOWSKI and FREJLICH, ŁÓDŹ, GRAPHIC WORKS, PIOTRKOWSKA 91. TEL. 3-46
```

The small wagon label reads 'СОВНАРКОМ' in Cyrillic (Sovnarkom, the Soviet Council of People's Commissars). 'Stupajka' in line 4 of the second stanza is as printed ('przy stupajce'); its meaning is uncertain, so that translation line is tentative. The poem is rendered literally, not metrically.

[← Do broni! Wszyscy na front! (To Arms! Everyone to the Front!)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/do-broni-poland-1920/) ["Jüdischösterreich" forgery of an Austrian 80 Heller stamp (Austria, about 1920) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/juedischoesterreich-stamp-forgery-1920/)

## Using 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)