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
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.
- Date
- 1920
- Period
- Interwar
- Made by
- Kotkowski i Frejlich, Zakłady Graficzne, Łódź (printers; commissioning body not named on the poster)
- Country
- Poland
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Mixed
- Regime
- Second Polish Republic
- Leader
- Jozef Pilsudski
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Demonize
- Event
- Polish Soviet War
- Techniques
- Fear appealName-calling
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons (scan from Mazowiecka Biblioteka Cyfrowa), retrieved October 2, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (published 1920, before 1931; Commons: PD-anon-70-EU)
Kotkowski i Frejlich, Łódź, 1920; scan from Mazowiecka Biblioteka Cyfrowa (Museum of Independence, Warsaw) via Wikimedia Commons.
Text on the object
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
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.
