---
title: '"Lenin, prebuď sa, Brežnev sa zbláznil": wall slogan after the Warsaw Pact invasion, Slovakia'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/slovak-wall-slogan-lenin-wake-up-1968/
description: 'Hand-painted lettering along the base of a cracked plaster wall in a Slovak town: ''Lenin, wake up, Brezhnev has gone mad.'' It calls the Soviet leader mad…'
section: Collection
---

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

[!["Lenin, prebuď sa, Brežnev sa zbláznil": wall slogan after the Warsaw Pact invasion, Slovakia](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/slovak-wall-slogan-lenin-wake-up-1968.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/slovak-wall-slogan-lenin-wake-up-1968.jpg)

# "Lenin, prebuď sa, Brežnev sa zbláznil": wall slogan after the Warsaw Pact invasion, Slovakia

Hand-painted lettering along the base of a cracked plaster wall in a Slovak town: 'Lenin, wake up, Brezhnev has gone mad.' It calls the Soviet leader mad and appeals to Lenin's founding authority against him, turning the Soviet party's own icon on its current head.

- **Date:** 1968
- **Period:** [Cold War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=cold-war)
- **Made by:** Anonymous author of the wall slogan; photograph by Tamás Konok id. (Fortepan donor)
- **Region:** [Eastern Europe and Eurasia](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=eastern-europe-eurasia)
- **Country:** [Czechoslovakia](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=czechoslovakia)
- **Medium:** [Signs and banners](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=sign-banner)
- **Issuer type:** [Mixed](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=mixed)
- **Regime:** [Czechoslovak Socialist Republic](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=czechoslovak-socialist-republic)
- **Leader:** [Alexander Dubcek](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=alexander-dubcek)
- **Audience:** [Mixed](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=mixed)
- **Purpose:** [Demonize](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=demonize)
- **Themes:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military), [Elections and party politics](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=elections-party-politics)
- **Event:** [Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=warsaw-pact-invasion-of-czechoslovakia)
- **Techniques:** [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)
- **Source:** Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- **Source:** [Fortepan (donor: Konok Tamás id.), ID 27585, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_felirat_magyarul-_-_Fortepan_27585.jpg), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** CC BY-SA 3.0 (Fortepan release; Commons file page states the licence) FOTO:FORTEPAN / Konok Tamás id., ID 27585 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

## Text on the object

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

```
LENIN PREBUĎ SA –
BREŽNEV SA ZBLÁZNIL
```

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

```
LENIN WAKE UP –
BREZHNEV HAS GONE MAD
```

Read from the committed image. The words are painted in three groups that step up and down the wall: 'LENIN' at left, 'PREBUĎ SA –' above centre, 'BREŽNEV SA ZBLÁZNIL' below right, with a faint trace of paint to the right of the last word. 'BREŽNEV' and 'SA' are run together on the wall.

[← Việt-Cộng hãy coi chừng!! (Viet Cong Beware!)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/viet-cong-beware-blackhorse-1967/) ['Johnson Oorlogsmisdadiger' (Johnson, war criminal): placard at an anti-American demonstration, Amsterdam →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/johnson-oorlogsmisdadiger-banner-1968/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Passional Christi und Antichristi: the emperor kisses the pope's foot (leaf 'Antichristus')](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passional-christi-antichristi-emperor-kisses-pope-1521/) (1521 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [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/) (1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (the De Witt brothers as devils)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ondersoeckt-de-geesten-de-witt-devils-1672/) (1672 · Scapegoating, Name-calling)
- [The Highlanders Medley, or The Duke Triumphant (A Loyal Song)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/highlanders-medley-duke-triumphant-1746/) (1746 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/revere-bloody-massacre-king-street-1770/) (Mar 1770 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [Marche du Dom Quichotte moderne pour la deffence du Moulin des Abus (March of the Modern Don Quixote in Defence of the Mill of Abuses)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dom-quichotte-moulin-des-abus-1791/) (1791 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Exit Liberté a la Francois! or Buonaparte closing the Farce of Egalité, at St. Cloud (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/exit-liberte-buonaparte-gillray-1799/) (Nov 21, 1799 · Name-calling)