
Cartoon, Woman with Lenin/Stalin Flag
Articles and images published in Soviet newspapers on March 8, International Communist Woman�s Day, provide the most obvious examples of how women were used as symbols in a propaganda campaign. These texts and images were clearly intended to convey a certain message about the changing role of women in the Soviet system. In particular, March 8 publications celebrated the achievements of Soviet women in part by comparing their lives to the difficulties of Russian women �in the past,� prior to the revolution, and to contemporary women �outside the Soviet borders,� which included the capitalist countries of Western Europe and the United States and the Asian and African colonial peoples ruled by European governments. In this cartoon, a woman waves a flag bearing the images of Lenin and Stalin while standing in front of buildings and factories symbolizing industrialization and urbanization.
Source: Leningradskaia pravda, "Woman with Lenin/Stalin Flag," March 8, 1934
