---
title: 'Wolność Bolszewicka (Bolshevik Freedom): Polish Army propaganda poster'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/wolnosc-bolszewicka-poland-1920/
description: Under the headline 'Bolshevik Freedom', a nude, blood-red male figure in round spectacles (identified in secondary sources as Leon Trotsky) sits on a…
section: Collection
---

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

[![Wolność Bolszewicka (Bolshevik Freedom): Polish Army propaganda poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/wolnosc-bolszewicka-poland-1920.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/wolnosc-bolszewicka-poland-1920.jpg)

# Wolność Bolszewicka (Bolshevik Freedom): Polish Army propaganda poster

Under the headline 'Bolshevik Freedom', a nude, blood-red male figure in round spectacles (identified in secondary sources as Leon Trotsky) sits on a heap of skulls with a dagger dripping blood and a pistol, a skeletal figure of Death at his shoulder, while soldiers club prisoners and a village burns behind him. A boxed text sets what 'the Bolsheviks promised' against what they delivered, so the scene is offered as the consequence of a Bolshevik advance.

- **Date:** 1920
- **Period:** [Interwar](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=interwar)
- **Made by:** Polish Ministry of Military Affairs, Propaganda Department (M. S. Wojsk. Wydział Propagandy); artist given on Wikimedia Commons as Skabowski
- **Region:** [Eastern Europe and Eurasia](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=eastern-europe-eurasia)
- **Country:** [Poland](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=poland)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [State](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=state)
- **Regime:** [Second Polish Republic](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=second-polish-republic)
- **Leader:** [Jozef Pilsudski](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=jozef-pilsudski)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Demonize](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=demonize)
- **Theme:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military)
- **Event:** [Polish Soviet War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=polish-soviet-war)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trotsky_on_a_Polish_poster_of_1920.jpg), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (published 1920; Commons: PD-Poland, author died over 70 years ago) Skabowski (artist), Polish Ministry of Military Affairs, Propaganda Department, 1920; via Wikimedia Commons (reproduced in E. Fuchs, Die Juden in der Karikatur, 1921).

## Text on the object

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

```
WOLNOŚĆ BOLSZEWICKA

OBIECALI BOLSZEWICY:
DAMY WAM POKÓJ
DAMY WAM WOLNOŚĆ
DAMY WAM ZIEMIĘ
PRACĘ i CHLEB —
NIKCZEMNIE OSZUKALI:
ROZPĘTALI WOJNĘ
Z POLSKĄ
ZAMIAST WOLNOŚCI DALI
PIĘŚĆ — ZAMIAST ZIEMI
— REKWIZYCJE
ZAMIAST PRACY — NĘDZĘ
ZAMIAST CHLEBA — GŁÓD

M. S. WOJSK. WYDZIAŁ PROPAGANDY
```

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

```
BOLSHEVIK FREEDOM

THE BOLSHEVIKS PROMISED:
WE WILL GIVE YOU PEACE
WE WILL GIVE YOU FREEDOM
WE WILL GIVE YOU LAND
WORK AND BREAD —
THEY BASELY DECEIVED:
THEY UNLEASHED WAR
WITH POLAND
INSTEAD OF FREEDOM THEY GAVE
THE FIST — INSTEAD OF LAND
— REQUISITIONS
INSTEAD OF WORK — MISERY
INSTEAD OF BREAD — HUNGER

M. S. WOJSK. [Ministry of Military Affairs] PROPAGANDA DEPARTMENT
```

The boxed text at lower right is set in small type; a signature or monogram at the bottom right corner of the picture is not legible and is omitted.

[← Красный подарок белому пану (A Red Gift for the White Lord): Soviet Polish-Soviet War poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/krasny-podarok-belomu-panu-1920/) ["Zmaga je naša!" Carinthian plebiscite leaflet (1920) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/zmaga-je-nasa-plebiscite-leaflet-1920/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (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/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)
- [劉永福懸賞抓拿日本奸細告示 (Liu Yongfu's notice offering rewards for capturing Japanese spies), Taiwan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/liu-yongfu-reward-notice-japanese-spies-1895/) (1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)
- [時局圖 (The Situation in the Far East / Map of the Present Situation), newer version with English labels](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/situation-in-far-east-tse-tsan-tai-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)