Communist propaganda in the collection, by country and technique

Irakli Toidze signed this sheet, held by the U.S. National Archives, and its Russian text has an English line added beneath. Whether it was issued in the USSR is not established; the date is the start of a 1939 to 1945 range. The words "Motherland" and "Heroes" stand in for any named deed, and the Kremlin tower and red star lend state prestige to the salute. Read the technique: glittering generalities.

A Finnish military photographer recorded this banner at Vidlitsa on 12 September 1941, during the Continuation War. It is the Finnish form of the slogan "Thank you, Comrade Stalin, for a happy childhood". The leader is named as the giver of a virtue word, and the reader is asked to feel gratitude to him for it. Read the technique: transfer.

Deni's 1942 sheet from the State Publishing House "Art" gives an approval date of 20 August 1942 and a print run of 150,000. The headline orders the viewer to kill the "fascist brute". The label and the staged atrocity are name-calling, and the harm shown to a woman is a fear appeal; neither is evidence about a particular event. See Soviet wartime propaganda. Read the technique: name-calling.

The Tartu Art Museum credits Voldemar Tomassov and dates this Estonian-language poster to 1950, five years after the Soviet re-occupation of Estonia. The slogan refers to the 1936 constitution, officially the "Stalin Constitution". "Great" and "victorious" stand in for any testable claim, and the wreath, star and scroll lend ceremony to the portrait. The collection tags it for cult of personality. Read the technique: cult of personality.

The Marine Corps Archives attributes this Korean-language broadside to North Korea in about 1951. The sheet carries no issuer, imprint or date, so that attribution is the archive's alone. Its Korean caption names Stalin as head of the Soviet government and "Generalissimo". The entry notes that portraits of allied leaders were used by both sides in the war. For Stalin's death, see how Joseph Stalin died.

The Hangzhou Dongfanghong (The East Is Red) Silk Weaving Factory made this loom picture from an official photograph. Its caption calls the scene Mao's "seventh review" of the "great army of the Cultural Revolution", which places it in the autumn 1966 series of mass Red Guard receptions in Beijing. Mao stays at the centre between his two highest aides. See Mao cult origins. Read the technique: transfer.

Zhu Huakun's 1973 Xinjiang poster is held in a Swedish museum collection and titled in its catalogue "We never stop praising the thoughts of our Chairmain [sic] Mao". The portrait is the focal point and the whole household joins in. The entry says such posters put the leader's portrait inside minority-nationality households as a sign of national unity under the Party, and scores the composition only. Read the technique: bandwagon.

Catalogued by the museum as Shanghai, 1976, this poster uses the phrase "serve the people" as the warrant for a campaign line. "Bourgeois right" was a theme of the 1974 to 1976 study campaign associated with Zhang Chunqiao and the Shanghai group later labelled the Gang of Four. The entry notes it promotes a line and is not an account of retail conditions. Read the technique: glittering generalities.

The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party sent this circular on 18 October 1976, twelve days after the four were detained. It labels them an "anti-Party clique" engaged in a "conspiracy to usurp power", and grounds the charge in their not obeying Chairman Mao. The four were tried in 1980 and 1981 and convicted; the entry scores only the wording. See Mao's death and succession propaganda. Read the technique: name-calling.

A Flickr photographer photographed this primary-school poster at a farm on 10 June 2008; the poster itself is undated. Its headline, "Playing soldiers, beating up the American bastard: isn't it fun?", uses a derogatory tag together with violence presented to children as a game. Read the technique: name-calling.

Manfred Niermann photographed this open-air display in East Berlin in 1957; the boards name no issuer. Eleven numbered heads carry one-line epithets and each man's present West German or NATO post. The entry says several of the men held such posts in the 1950s. The eagle and numbering paste wartime guilt onto 1957 office-holders (name-calling, transfer). See the German Democratic Republic.

A CIA photographer dated this East Berlin sign 20 November 1961, three months after the border was closed on 13 August. The sign reads "Whoever attacks us will be destroyed". The CIA's caption says it was posted to intimidate the West; the collection quotes that without adopting it. The sign is a bare threat addressed to unnamed attackers. Read the technique: fear appeal.

Robert Schediwy photographed this billboard in 2002 in front of the U.S. mission in Havana; the United States had no embassy there between 1961 and 2015. No sponsor is printed on the board. "Imperialistas" is the whole characterisation of the addressee, and the board shows fear in the opponent and none in the in-group. The entry notes that the same definition applies to anti-Communist labels in US material. Read the technique: name-calling.

This is the office of a Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, a mass organisation announced on 28 September 1960, photographed on 30 March 2012. The entry says the name joins defending "the Revolution" and keeping watch on the neighbours as one civic task, which is identity fusion. Official and critical accounts of the committees are in the CDR case study. Read the technique: identity fusion.