Lenin’s Images in Visual Satire and the Collapse of Anti-Bolshevik Propaganda

Abstract

This article analyses anti-Leninist visual propaganda and examines the reasons for its low effectiveness. The author studies the morphological structure of Lenin’s images as an internal and external enemy, “the other”: a German spy, Judas, Hun, anarchist, or a member of the Black Hundreds. It is demonstrated that the sources of anti-Leninist images were visual political satire of the previous period and mass rumours. In some cases, anti-Leninist images were provoked by the radical statements and actions of Ulyanov himself. Anti-Leniniana was even beneficial to Bolsheviks: Lenin, previously unknown to the general public, became one of the most prominent political antagonists. Widespread public fears and premonitions were reflected in the images, which makes visual satire a mirror of the era. The low effectiveness of anti-Leninist propaganda can be explained by various factors, i. e. the use of propaganda stamps which most people had already gotten tired of during World War I; the inversion of images in the perceptions of different social strata; excessive stigmatisation of the Bolsheviks, who, as they approached October, began to be perceived as victims of the tired regime of A. F. Kerensky; and the counter-propaganda of the Bolsheviks themselves.