---
title: Protect Yourself Against Communist Threat (Burmese poster distributed in Rangoon)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/protect-yourself-against-communist-threat-burmese-rangoon-1954/
description: Burmese-language version of a poster. The poster shows a screaming child in a shirt with a large star ringed by five small stars.
section: Collection
---

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3. Protect Yourself Against Communist Threat

[![Protect Yourself Against Communist Threat, 1954 US poster: Burmese-language version of a poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/protect-yourself-against-communist-threat-burmese-rangoon-1954.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/protect-yourself-against-communist-threat-burmese-rangoon-1954.jpg)

# Protect Yourself Against Communist Threat (Burmese poster distributed in Rangoon)

Burmese-language version of a poster. The poster shows a screaming child in a shirt with a large star ringed by five small stars, sitting on a mat before a hammer-and-sickle outline, while a bloodied bayonet marked 'Communist' points at the child's face. Red Burmese headline text and a bottom line, which NARA's title renders as a call to protect oneself against the Communist threat. The tell is fear-appeal: an endangered child and a bloodied blade stand for what the poster says Communism does, and the bayonet label 'Communist' is the name-calling.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/)

## Text on the object

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

```
[red headline, first word:] ကွန်မြူနစ် [remaining words illegible]
[on bayonet:] ကွန်မြူနစ်
[bottom:] ကိုယ့်ကိုယ်ကာကွယ်လော့
```

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

```
Communist [rest of headline not reliably legible]. [On bayonet:] Communist. [Bottom line, approximate:] Protect yourself!
```

Stylised red script only partly legible; reading of the bottom line is approximate and should be checked by a Burmese reader.

[← Protect Yourself Against Communist Threat (Kachin poster distributed in Rangoon)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/protect-yourself-against-communist-threat-kachin-rangoon-1954/) [How to Plant Trees (Arabic poster distributed in Tripoli, Libya) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/how-to-plant-trees-arabic-libya-1954/)

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- [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)
