Matthew Menke

10/19/16
2:45-4:00
Anya Connelly
Formal Writing Assignment #2
Making the East Red: Context and Fallacies in Communist Propaganda Posters
Truth is the most precious thing. Thats why we should ration it
-Vladimir Lenin
Many people commonly associate the concept of advertisement with private interests like
corporations attempting to sell a product to the people. While this is not inaccurate, it is
incomplete; advertisements can also be produced by governments. This paper will establish a
counterbalance to popular attitudes towards advertisements. Well analyze the messages in a
selected number of propaganda posters from different parts of Communist-ruled Asia. What do
these posters try to sell? Patriotism, hatred of the enemy, the supposed glory of their leaders and
the superiority of Communism/Socialism. The way governments sell their messages is often
through posters that show their leaders almost as gods, with halos or the Sun around their image.
These posters also show the enemies of the government theyre from as stereotypes who look
evil and grotesque. The propaganda produced by governmental agencies are well known for their
extremely fallacious reasoning. The fallacies commonly utilized are eliciting bigotry towards
certain groups of people, false analogy, and the false dilemma. The majority of the posters are
from the Cold War era, when Communism was in its heyday and was attempting to spread all
across the world, these efforts being led primarily by the Soviet Union and China. Before we
begin our analysis, some basic information must be given to help bolster understanding of the
material.

When the Communists in Russia, China, and North Korea took power after their
revolutions, they all began massive public relations campaigns throughout their entire nations.
According to them, the oppression of the old regimes was no more, the greedy capitalists had
been chased out and were not returning. There were complete changes in the cultures of these
now Communist countries; in Russia, the ways of writing literature, painting, drawing and
writing music were made to conform with scientific socialism and celebrate the strength of
Communism. In China and in North Korea, much of the same happened as well, except that in
China there was a major movement to improve their culture known as the Great Cultural
Revolution that lasted from 1966 and ended in 1976, the guiding light behind this was Mao TseTungs philosophy of continuous revolution, the victories gained under the Chinese Civil War
must always be defended and change must be constant as to prevent contradictions from arising.
The Cultural Revolution sold itself in many ways, but one popular form was the ballet, with
stories that mythologized Chinas transition into Communism. All of the example posters shown
here in this paper have one major theme in common, Communism is the superior system and
way of life, all who follow their leaders and fulfill their patriotic duty will prosper in life.
Everyone was targeted by these propaganda efforts, at every age and gender, the messages of this
propaganda espoused gender and racial equality, even though those countries fell short of their
lofty ideals. The leaders of these countries had a great deal of power over their nations politics,
economy and society. They worked hard to portray themselves as saviors of the people, in China,
Mao was and still is called the Great Helmsman, who guided China to a new era. Now that some
basic facts have been given, lets proceed to investigate the individual countries these posters
come from.
Aspects of North Korean Propaganda: Death to the U.S. Imperialists!

North Korean propaganda is an interesting area of study, the way they sell their messages to the
people of Korea is shocking to many in the Western world. They still use the old art style of
socialist realism, Korean propaganda still seems stuck in the 1950s, both in a political and artistic
way. The NK government tries to sell to the Koreans the idea that the US is the ultimate enemy
and that Kim Il-sung and his descendants are glorious rulers. Ever since the Korean War, the NK
government has always sold fear and hatred of the US, in their propaganda, Americans are
always drawn in a very stereotypical style. Americans in Korean propaganda are all blondehaired with elongated noses, sometimes with fangs and claws. This representation of Americans
is clearly meant to illicit hatred and ridicule of the American enemy and create loyalty towards
the nation in order to contribute to its defense. As Poster 3 shows, the message of the government
was of bringing defeat to the Americans, the posters slogan reads, Resist the U.S.s nuclear war
provocations now! The hands of NK are crushing the U.S.s nuclear weapons and delivering,
literally, a crushing defeat. The selling of all of these messages begins very early on, children in
NK schools play with toy guns and pretend to shoot Americans, using a target showing a US
soldier looking threatening or in a stupid daze. The toys and other paraphernalia often feature
hateful slogans such as, Let's wipe out the U.S. imperialists. (USA Today). Children are very
easy to sell propaganda to, since they are very susceptible to whatever adults tell them to do,
which is why there is a lot of debate as to whether to advertise to children in the first place. This
is how NK perpetuates its messages, they start young and carry them on all throughout their
lives, rarely hearing anything outside sources say. Another aspect of NK propaganda that is the
most well known is the apotheosis of whoever is ruling the country. From the reign of Kim Ilsung down to Kim Jong-un, they are portrayed in their propaganda as leaders who will bring
safety and security to their people. In Poster 1, the ruler being shown is Kim Il-sung, the poster

very roughly translates to The revolutionary spirit of Comrade Kim Il-sung, the Eternal Sun.
Even though Communist regimes are always atheistic, they are religious in a way as they
demand worship in some shape or form of the supreme leader, using giant statues or posters
showing their leader as the Sun, eliciting awe and wonder in their subjects. An interesting
question to ask is does Pyongyangs propaganda work on its own people? This is doubtful, in
more recent times there have been North Koreans who have smuggled VCRs and DVDs from
South Korea and learned about their neighbors prosperity. According to the book The Cleanest
Race: How North Koreans View Themselves and Why It Matters, in spite of crackdowns by NK
authorities on the black market, South Korean media has sold very well in rural markets,
therefore, more and more Koreans are learning about the outside world and seeing the falsehoods
being espoused by their government. (Myers). This just goes to show, no matter how much you
try to blind your people to the truth, they will eventually find it out.
Aspects of Soviet Propaganda: Death to World Capitalism!
Soviet propaganda posters are probably the most artistically interesting pieces of
propaganda to come out of the Cold War. A major example of this can be seen in Poster 2,
showing a Soviet worker turning away American aid. This poster is likely from the late 1940s
and the slogan from Josef Stalin roughly translates as, The peoples of the world do not want a
repeat of the scourge of war. The paper wrapped around the rifle says North Atlantic Treaty.
This poster is likely calling the US hypocritical in offering Marshall Plan aid to the Soviet Union
while forming NATO, designed to deter the Soviet Union from attacking Europe, which the
Soviet government would naturally twist into showing the US as aggressive for standing up to
Soviet plans. The poster is very fallacious as it creates a false dilemma because prior to the
creation of NATO in 1949, the US offered Marshall Plan aid to the Soviets in 1947, two years

before NATO came into existence, the Soviets readily rejected the aid because Stalin and the rest
of the Soviet leadership never liked the United States since we were the great bastion of
capitalism. The poster also most prominently utilizes the fallacy of using stereotypes, the
American holding the rifle and food is shown as a bigoted representation of a capitalist with its
universal symbols, a top hat and a tuxedo jacket, along with the colors of the American flag,
bringing to mind Uncle Sam as well. Again we have to ask, did this work? In some respects, yes.
From the book, The Red Flag: A History of Communism, the author wrote that when he traveled
to the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s, he found that while there were people fearful of their
government and pessimistic about Socialism. On the other hand, there were some who genuinely
believed that the Soviet Union was a great success. (Priestland, 15). But to provide some
background, the author traveled to Moscow, which was more prosperous than many other parts
of the Soviet Empire, there were whole areas closed off to foreigners that were in dire poverty
and suffered extensive repression. What would those people have to say about the success of
Communism? How much would they buy their governments message?
Aspects of Chinese Propaganda: Dare to Think, Dare to Act
The propaganda of Communist China has features similar to the propaganda of the
previous two nations we discussed. China had and still does to some degree a cult of personality
surrounded around Mao Tse-Tung. As Poster 4 shows this cult with having the image of Mao is
the central object on the wall in the poster, giving the impression of importance. This could be
interpreted as a statement that is making it socially required to have a picture of Mao in every
house and that he is watching over the family. Another aspect of the poster that demonstrates a
personality cult is the slogan on the poster, which translates to, Chairman Mao gives us a happy
life. Something interesting to point out is that the teenage boy in the poster is dressed like Mao,

wearing the same type of military cap Mao wore while fighting in the 1940s, suggesting that all
boys should follow Maos example. The fallacious nature in the poster is in the obviously
extremely idealized representation of a Chinese family in the poster along with the false
dichotomy of presenting the idea is that the only way to have a happy life is to follow Mao. How
many people had happy lives when they were affected by the Great Leap Forward and the Great
Cultural Revolution? By the mid 1970s to the 1980s, more and more Chinese sought economic
liberalization so there would be improvements made to economic performance since they
became convinced that Communism failed them. (National Geographic Society, 385).
Conclusion
To conclude, the posters this paper examined are, in the opinion of this author, representative of
the ways the governments of Communist Asia attempted to sell their ideology to their peoples. In
selling this message, the glories of Socialism and their leaders, the governmental bodies utilized
the fallacies of the false dichotomy, false dilemma and the use of bigotry. Along with the logical
fallacies, there is also the issue of hypocrisy associated with these posters theme. The theme
promises peace and prosperity for all peoples regardless of race or gender, but in reality the
opposite was practiced for the most part. Russia, China and North Korea brought death and
destruction upon their own people and in other countries all in the name of Communism. They
all had concentration/death camps to lock away anyone that was considered a threat to the
revolution. They embraced economic systems that impoverished millions of people and made
no effort to see reality and change the faults of their systems, Russia and China have used limited
reforms while North Korea remains a frozen state, trying to spoon-feed their propaganda to the
masses while they defect to China or South Korea. In the end, it just goes to show that
corporations are not the only ones who try to spoon-feed people half-truths or lies, a government

can do the job just as well, perhaps even better since a government has the most power in its
hands.

Further Reading
This website has multiple examples of Communist Chinese propaganda poster from the earliest
days to modern times: http://www.iisg.nl/landsberger/
An article on the political philosophy of North Korea, juche:
https://web.stanford.edu/group/sjeaa/journal3/korea1.pdf

A military history of the beginning of the Korean War, this provides a political/military
background as to how North Korea became the way it is now:
http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/kw-outbreak/outbreak.htm
More examples of Soviet propaganda: http://www.internetvibes.net/gallery/old-ussr-postersabout-stalin-and-soviet-people-from-30th/
http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-most-sensational-and-lurid-soviet-propaganda-poster-1464264698
More examples of North Korean propaganda:
http://koreanhistory.info/NorthKoreanPropagandaPosters.htm
Communist Chinese political slogans: http://www.sacu.org/slogans.html
How China still clings to their recent history: http://world.time.com/2013/06/21/party-like-itsthe-1960s-china-resurrects-mao-era-slogans-and-autos/

Works Cited
"In North Korea, Learning to Hate U.S. Starts with Children." USA Today. Gannett, 23 June
2012. Web. 14 Oct. 2016.

Journey into China. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1982. Print.

Myers, B. R. The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters.
Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2010. Print.

Myers, B.R. "North Koreas Race Problem." Foreign Policy. N.p., 11 Feb. 2010. Web. 14 Oct.
2016.

Priestland, David. The Red Flag: A History of Communism. New York: Grove, 2009. Print.