gohonzon

"The Evil Empire Strikes Back," a poster produced in 1951 by the famous Red Chinese propagandist [Hung Wei Lo], well symbolizes the comparatively brief period of concord between Iosif Stalin's Russia and [Mao Zedong]'s China.

The uniforms, physical attitudes, and facial expressions of the soldier from the Soviet and the Red Chinese soldiers are virtually identical, suggesting solidarity between their respective countries and especially between their armies; there is no evidence that either army wore mustard yellow uniforms during the Korean War era. The only major difference is that the Russian is armed with a pepeshka, while his Chinese counterpart carries a Thompson. Given the massive amounts of American-made munitions the Red Chinese captured from [Chiang Kai Shek]'s [Kuomintang] forces, Hung is making a sly dig at not only the Americans, but at the Soviet Union's less than fervent support for Mao and his compatriots in years past. Naturally unenthusiastic about the rise of a unified (Communist or not) China to the Soviet Union's south, Stalin strongly suggested that Mao merely coexist with Chiang. Mao, for his part, never forgot it.

The theme of Soviet-Chinese solidarity is further stressed by the books held open by the two soldiers. The Soviet soldier's book shows bayonets piercing the Nazi and Imperial Japanese flags; the number 12,000,000 represents the (then) official Soviet casualty figures. The Soviets certainly did the lion's share of the fighting against the Germans, but their contribution to the Pacific war was at best slight. The Chinese soldier's book shows a bayonet piercing the Kuomintang flag of Nationalist China, with the number 8,000,000 representing the supposed casualties they suffered during their revolution. Thus the poster attempts to establish a rough parity between the Soviet and Chinese armies.

The "Westerners" being threatened by the two soldiers include a mad scientist, a general with a toothache (possibly, to judge from the oversized hat, Douglas MacArthur), Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston S. Churchill. Churchill, of course, was long since out of power; Roosevelt had been dead for five years. The poster would have packed less punch, however, had it portrayed their respective successors Harry S Truman and Clement Attlee. The dollar sign superimposed on the swastika on the flag in Roosevelt's hand suggests that the decadent Westerners had been Nazis all along. The words coming out of Roosevelt's mouth are very unlikely to be polite or forceful. The bomb and chemical potion in the mad scientist's hands are intended to suggest that the Westerners are totally without scruple or decency; the general's appearance, on the other hand, suggests utter fecklessness. If the general is intended to be MacArthur, this would suggest a terminus ante quem of 11 April 1951 (the date Truman relieved him of duty).

The style of the poster has very little in common with ancient Chinese painting techniques, recalling rather the work of Soviet poster artists such as Dmitri Moor and Viktor Deni.

1921: "Did you enlist as a volunteer?"	1941: "How did you help the front?"

The soldier's confrontational pose has not changed over the years between the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War, nor has the poster's overriding red/black/white color scheme. Notice the careful attention Moor has paid to depicting accurately each soldier's headgear, attire, and weaponry. The only thing missing is the Hymn of the Soviet Union.

Like Moor, Viktor Deni was primarily a cartoonist. One of his specialties was caricaturing the traditional enemies of Communism, as shown in this 1929 poster decrying opposition to the Five-Year Plan: