Content note: This 1919 poster uses antisemitic caricature (a demonic Trotsky wearing a Star of David) and depicts extrajudicial killing. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Миръ и свобода въ Совдепіи (Peace and Freedom in Sovdepia)
A White Army cartoon titled 'Peace and Freedom in Sovdepia' shows a giant red, horned figure of Leon Trotsky wearing a Star-of-David pendant crouched over the Kremlin walls above an order signed in his name, while soldiers in queues and conical hats execute a prisoner over a heap of skulls below. The soldiers reflect the small Chinese contingents that did serve in Bolshevik units during the civil war; the demonic caricature of Trotsky, marked as Jewish, draws on the antisemitic 'Jewish Bolshevism' trope to cast Soviet rule as a foreign, monstrous occupation.
- Date
- 1919
- Period
- Interwar
- Made by
- White movement propaganda (Russian Civil War); artist unidentified
- Region
- Eastern Europe and Eurasia
- Country
- Russia White Movement
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Mixed
- Regime
- White Movement
- Leader
- Anton Denikin
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Demonize
- Themes
- War and the military, Race and ethnicity
- Event
- Russian Civil War
- Techniques
- Name-callingScapegoatingFear appeal
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons, retrieved September 28, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (per Wikimedia Commons)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/photo/t1919b.htm or http://historydoc.edu.ru/catalog.asp?cat_ob_no=12438&ob_no=13597
Text on the object
МИРЪ и СВОБОДА ВЪ СОВДЕПІИ. Р.С.Ф.С.Р. РАБОЧ. КРЕСТ. ПРАВИТ. ПРИКАЗЪ. [illegible — several lines of small printed order text] [illegible title] Левъ Троцкій
PEACE and FREEDOM IN SOVDEPIA. R.S.F.S.R. WORKERS' AND PEASANTS' GOVERNMENT. ORDER. [illegible — several lines of small printed order text] [illegible title] Leon Trotsky
'Sovdepia' is a hostile coinage from 'Sovdep' (Soviet of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies), used by anti-Bolshevik propaganda for Soviet Russia. The body paragraph of the 'Order' document on the Kremlin wall is too small and low-resolution in this scan to read; the signature beneath it is legible as 'Lev Trotsky' but the official title before the name is too blurred to transcribe with confidence.
