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Bureaucracy

Poster
1989 (published)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Poster depicting a worker and a farmer holding a hammer and sickle, shackled by manacles spelling the word 'bureaucracy'.

Object details

Category
Object type
TitleBureaucracy (manufacturer's title)
Materials and techniques
Colour offset lithograph
Brief description
Poster by the Battling Pencil group from a portfolio of 24 entitled 'Perestroika For and Against'. Russia, 1989.
Physical description
Poster depicting a worker and a farmer holding a hammer and sickle, shackled by manacles spelling the word 'bureaucracy'.
Dimensions
  • Height: 43.8cm
  • Width: 33cm
Production typeMass produced
Marks and inscriptions
  • logo of the Battling Pencil
  • They sent our directions - Advance! At great speed! But thwarted all initiative on the spot (Verse in Russian printed in the bottom right-hand corner of the poster)
Credit line
Given by Peggy vance
Historical context
Seventh poster in ‘Prerestroika [restructuring] For and Against’ portfolio. It illustrates a worker and a farmer holding the hammer and sickle symbols of communism. They look upwards showing their willingness to move with the times, but they are imoblised by manacles that spell out the word 'bureaucracy'.

The portfolio contains a series of 25 satirical posters by a group of Leningrad artists known as ‘Battling Pencil’ on the theme of the struggle to restructure communism in the new political atmosphere under the regime of Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachov (b.1931), appointed general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985, with text and images edited by A.M Murtov and V.I. Kiunap respectively. Each poster is composed of an image with an accompanying verse in the tradition of the Russian lubok.
Production
Attribution note: published in a print run of 5,000
Subjects depicted
Collection
Accession number
E.366-1990

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Record createdFebruary 18, 2009
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