Outer world viewed by Soviet propaganda of the 1950s - early 1960s in posters and caricatures

Soviet Russia was the first state in the world history, which began the formation of the socialistic society. After victory over the Third Reich, a real perspective to spread communism in other countries opened for the USSR. It was the reason for ideological confrontation with its former allies: the USA, Great Britain and France. With the beginning of the Cold War soviet propaganda started to pay a special attention to the foreign world in all spheres and aspects. The range of the ideological allies and opponents underwent several phases of transformation. The process of the priority values definition had generally ended by the early 1950s. Among the opponents there were included in the first place the USA and other NATO countries. FRG should also be emphasized as one of the main German-related challenge; and Israel as the principal ally of the imperialism in the Near East. Soviet propaganda never «fought» against common people. On the contrary, the government aimed efforts at demonstrating the society openness for the representatives of all countries, including capitalist. Holding the World Festival of Youth and Students in 1957 in the USSR became the triumph of ideas of internationalism and global peace. There was principally no division into «our» and «alien» countries at that time. The main method by which propaganda passed on the ideas of solidarity was the image of the representatives of three major races and making use of socialistic and western symbols together. Preference in positive image of the foreigner was given to citizens of the European popular democratic states and communist countries of the Eastern Asia, whereas all the arsenal of the political satire was directed towards «traditional» ideological opponents of the USSR, caricatures being the most essential part of it. Based on the caricatures from the newspapers of early 1960s bright and expressive description of the main capitalistic countries as they appeared for the average soviet citizen was created. Propaganda reached an unprecedented regional width after including the Third World countries in the political orbit of the USSR in the late 1950s. Their unequal struggle against former metropolis and outer dependence acquired an important ideological loading. The soviet press described them in heroic mood. A whole series of emotional posters with native patriots and sharp caricatures on colonialists acted under auspices of the UN mission became a response to the events in those countries. In the first two decades of the Cold War in propaganda there appeared mass of images and slogans. Together they constitute the whole concept of international relations. According to the soviet official propaganda the USSR did not appear a totally closed country despite of the Iron Curtain and strict ideological limits, and the outlook of a common soviet citizen, his views about outer world remained rather wide and many-sided enhanced by the feeling of personal implication and responsibility for the global processes.

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