This will hurt me...

Another ad from those pesky Chinese Communists. This time though, I want you to guess or deduce what this little girl is endeavoring to get the Chinese proletariat to do (or not do, as the case may be). So have a look, have a think, and then highlight over the lines below to see the answer. Please do not spit freely. Spitting freely is neither hygienic nor civilized. How did you do? You're welcome to tell me in the comments if you got it right (or spectacularly wrong).

In all seriousness, every time I revisit these most excellent Communist propaganda posters, I wonder why they lost the Cold War. Today’s poster features the innovative, exceptional and persuasive slogan: Have a happy holiday! Nothing says “happy holidays” like Marx and Engles frolicking in the forest with some joyously cheerful kiddies! It is funny really, when others think about ideas like dialectical materialism , the dictatorship of the proletariat or the concept of relative surplus-value , they envisage dour grey industrialised wastelands and soot-coated agitators. Myself, nothing says the production of absolute and relative surplus-value more than a rosy cheeked cherub picking pansies in fields of flowers.

As you all will know by now, I’ve had both Henry and Ezra undergoing rigorous physical exercises to prepare them for the harsh realities of walking to the south pole… barefoot! In all seriousness, this winter has seen life resemble more the rugged and brutal training scenes of Rocky IV (the one where Rocky drags trees around in Siberia in order to beat the dastardly communists and bring freedom and democracy to a godless inhuman totalitarian system). In these photos, you can see the lads doing shuttle runs between the posts, whilst weighed down with packs filled with lead cannonballs. I have them on fifty groups of fifty reps, with a punishment of fifty additional reps if they don’t complete ANY of the first 2,500 laps with a certain time frame. These boys are now so fit that I’m thinking of sending them to North Korea, to sort ‘em out! As you can see, the lads are enjoying all of that pain.

The copy reads: Foster a correct spirit, resist the evil spirit, resist corruption, and never get involved with it. Say what you like, but modern-day ad execs have nothing on Chinese Communists when it comes to snappy slogans!

I have said on a number of occasions - and apologies in advance to my Latvian readers - that I miss the Red Menace™. It was a simpler time when honest, God-fearing folk knew who the enemy was: the heathen, black-hearted Soviet hordes from those countries where people ate turnips and lived in soulless grey cities lacking in jazz clubs and technicolour films. Their women were hairy legged peasants (or untrustworthy vixens), men nicotine-stained meatheads, and children mindless zombies pre-programmed to know nothing of love, family or nylon stockings. We had our bombs trained on them, and were ready to destroy the world, lest their bland Bolshevik tendencies overwhelm our fun loving will to strip malls, strip clubs and ready access to hardcore pornography! Better DEAD than Red , remember!

So I’m standing at the lights, and these two guys are in some kind of speed boat. Only I think that they were trafficking cocaine, rather than speed. C’mon, they’re not on motorbikes . So I see these dudes, and I’m like, “it’s my duty as a good citizen to stop them going about their destructive ways”. The thing is though, the little red man/woman/citizen is up, and I’m like, “it’s my duty as a good citizen to obey the little red man/woman/citizen”. Torn by the conflicting drives and obligations, I had a little nervous breakdown. After my recovery – and the flight to freedom from our Columbian friends in the speedboat – the little red man/woman/citizen got me to thinking about my favourite variation on the theme, the world famous Ampelmännchen . You might be familiar with the Ampelmännchen tale, the friendly face of East Berlin. Like me, you may have even been to the Ampelmännchen shop and purchased an Ampelmännchen t-shirt. The theory behind Ampelmännchen (are you starting to see h...

I was relieved to read in The Times (of London, no less) this morning that the art of the Stalinist propaganda poster is not yet dead. The Times was promoting a gallery showing for North Korean propaganda posters, and included a few examples of the form for our education. Sadly, I could only read about such pearlers as “Let's grow more sunflowers!”; “Let's breed more high-yielding fish!”; or the wonderfully obscure "In all institutions and workplaces, let's popularise basketball!” Another delightful one exhorts: "Let's expand goat rearing and create more grassland in accordance with the party!" Wise words. However, I have chosen to bypass some that you might expect to see ("Let's take revenge a thousand times on the US imperialist wolves!") in favour of something more harmonious. So today I present you a message that ALL nations should adhere to: "Let's all become perfect swimmers!" Let us just...

Now, I do appreciate the sentiment expressed in today's ad, and (as ever) context is vital. When you're in the middle of a war a certain liberty may be taken with expression, so the jarring notion of a blonde, curly-haired scamp - let's call him 'Chip' - talking about "Jap kids" (in a strange and foreign font, no less) can be overcome. Yet what really concerns me about this ad is the odd lens through which the Sparton company have chosen (in 1943) to define what it means to be a "free American boy". Free speech and action, yep, no problemo. "Free American boys" should experience those delights. "Warm comfortable homes". Well, homes are a good start, and I guess you wouldn't want it cold. Comfortable? That surely is in the eye of the beholder? But yeah, comfortable is good, I guess. "Automobiles and radios by the million"? Yeah, you're starting to lose me here Sparton. "Electrical machines to keep and c...

Today I've found an interesting ad for US Savings Bonds from 1952. Essentially, They have decided that the best way to promote the bonds is by drawing up a map of Communist Party members in each State. One assumes the thinking was that the terror provoked by the knowledge of five fifth columnists in Alaska potentially getting up to no good would be enough to scare the housewives out of a few dollars to stump up for another H-Bomb! This is one of my all time favourite ads, as it reveals a certain mindset (paranoia) at a time when the Cold War (still in its infancy) threatened to turn hot. I'm sure that the Bonds people saw this as a public service announcement of sorts, kind of like mapping of the outbreak of some horrible disease. Maybe the implication implicit here is that Bobby Joe down in Kansas better start rooting out the seditious six! When I look at this map though, there is one thing that I can't help but ponder. I wonder about that lonely Red down there in Mississ...

Two ads for today, and they have a political theme. As in any dictatorship, anniversaries were big events in the former-East Germany. My post for today features some government posters prepared for the thirtieth anniversary of the DDR in 1979. The emphasis that you can see in the two that I have chosen is generally indicative of the propaganda line of the state: a youthful, peace-loving, hard-working nation that was strongly supported by its citizens. And didn’t that turn out to be true? These posters interest me as much for the way that they conflict with the general idea of what East Germany was supposed to be like as the designs themselves. Remember, for most of us in the West the images of the DDR were stark: depressing, horrible food, old people shuffling about, monotonous, tired, lots of mullets , angry in a despondent kind of way. Really, it was like Devonport. "Our congratulations!" "Everything for Human Happiness." A broader collection of thirtieth annivers...