'Enemies of the 5-Year Plan' 
      Art by Viktor Deni 1931.  
      
      Poem by Demyan Bedny. 
      The
      Landowner glares like a ferocious watchdog 
      The
      Kulak [rich peasant] snorts through his bulbous nose 
      The
      habitual drunk boozes his woes away 
      The
      [village] priest frantically whoops and and wails. 
        
      The
      corrupt journalist spits and hisses 
      The
      capitalist sharpens his tusks 
      The
      Menshevik rages like a madman 
      The
      White Soldier effs and blinds. 
        
      These
      dogs that have not been thrown into jail - 
      Everyone
      defending the bad old ways - 
      Put
      an evil curse on the Five-Year Plan 
      And
      declare war on it. 
      They
      threaten its disruption, realising 
      That
      it spells their utter ruination. 
        
      [Poem
      translation kindly supplied by Alan Richards, Newark.] 
      This
      poster from 1929 attacks eight groups that were frequently scapegoated
      (clockwise from top left): landlords, kulaks, journalists, capitalists,
      White Russians, Mensheviks, priests, and drunkards. (Mensheviks were the
      moderate wing of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party; they
      split from Lenin’s Bolshevik wing early in the century.) The poem at the
      bottom of the poster was written by Demyan Bedny, one of Stalin’s
      favorite poets. The poem harshly ridicules these members of the “old
      order,” describing them as “hounds that have not yet been caged.”
      The group is condemned for “declaring war” on the Five-Year Plan
      because “they understand that it will bring about their final
      destruction.”  
      (Text
      courtesy of the Hoover Digest 1998 No.3 - http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/digest/983/hahn.html.) 
      Click on photo above  for a printable 700kb jpg.
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