Content note: Two workers shake hands over the body of a fallen officer. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Мы воюем с панским родом, а не с польским трудовым народом! (We Are Fighting the Lordly Breed, Not the Polish Working People!)
Two workers in red shake hands over the body of a fallen officer in a peaked cap, one holding a bayoneted rifle, with factory chimneys behind; the headline says the war is against the 'lordly breed', not the Polish working people. The caption splits the enemy into a blamed class (the 'pany') and a spared one, parking responsibility for the war on the former.
- Date
- 1920
- Period
- Interwar
- Made by
- ROSTA (Russian Telegraph Agency), Moscow; artist Ivan Malyutin, text by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Country
- Soviet Russia
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Soviet Russia
- Leader
- Vladimir Lenin
- Audience
- Mixed
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- War and the military, Labor
- Event
- Polish Soviet War
- Techniques
- Scapegoating
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons, retrieved October 2, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (published 1920; Commons: PD-Russia-expired; artist and poet both died before 1950)
Ivan Malyutin (artist), Vladimir Mayakovsky (text), ROSTA, Moscow, 1920; via Wikimedia Commons (Russian State Library copy).
Text on the object
МЫ ВОЮЕМ С ПАНСКИМ РОДОМ А НЕ С ПОЛЬСКИМ ТРУДОВЫМ НАРОДОМ ! РОСТА
WE ARE FIGHTING THE LORDLY BREED AND NOT THE POLISH WORKING PEOPLE! ROSTA
'Панский род' is rendered 'lordly breed' (pan = Polish lord or landowner; род = kin, stock, breed).
