Comrade, fed up with those white capitalist tiles in the restroom of your favorite people’s bar or local workers’ canteen? Then why not tell the capitalist pig owner to change them to more pleasing images of the glorious socialist high rises of former Soviet countries.

This is what you will find in the Galeria Urbana restaurant in Kaunas, Lithuania, where the walls of the comfort station have been decorated with tiles featuring photographic images of Soviet-era high rises or “небоскреб.” The tiles are the work of Lithuanian design studio Gyva Grafika, who wanted to bring the “outside inside” and re-examine the country’s “dark Soviet occupation history” and the “culture that was introduced to [Lithuania] by force.” Many of these Soviet-era high rises are now being demolished or modernized under EU-sponsored renovation projects as Lithuania hopes to move “forward to a better and more optimistic tomorrow” as “a strong north European country.” It certainly provides a talking point over dinner and a distracting way to spend a penny.
 

 

 
More after the jump…
 

“Chemical War,” 1925
 
The phrase “war toys” usually evokes images of little plastic guns, gritty action figures with kung-fu grips and more recently the first-person shooter video game. In Soviet Russia however, bloodthirsty board games were incredibly popular. I’d imagine this was partially due to a national penchant for games of strategy (like chess), but also probably owing (at least somewhat, if not to a great extent) to manufacturing considerations. Russia was still attempting a massive industrialization project throughout the 1930s, and board games were pretty quick and easy to produce without much in the way of materials or tools.

Obviously not every Russian board game had the hawkish tenor of most of the games below (“Electrification”), but there’s certainly enough of them to see palpable themes of nationalism and war. You’ll notice the game “Battle” looks pretty wholesome at first glance… until you realize that the players are engaging in a leisurely game on a battlefield, seemingly unaware of the carnage taking place directly behind them. Despite the intriguing cover art, I can’t find much on the rules or premises of these games, except they they were educational tools and often contained a military trivia component. Still, as far as insidiously nationalist, war-mongering propaganda goes, don’t they look kind of… fun?
 

“Revolution,” 1925
 

“Air War,” 1925
 

“Battle,” 1938
 
More Soviet games after the jump…

 
There are some amazing cinematic adaptations of Stephen King’s writing. There are also some… less impressive examples. This 1986 animated short, “Battle,” is not only a fine example of the former, it has the distinction of being the only Stephen King adaptation produced in the famously dark genre of Soviet animation. Based on King’s short story, “Battleground” (first published in a magazine in 1972, then compiled in his 1978 Night Shift anthology), the story is a classic revenge tale with a supernatural twist. A hitman is hired to kill a toymaker, and toy soldiers come to life in the murderer’s home to avenge their father’s death. Their artillery is tiny, but their warfare is relentless, and the hitman meets a brutal end.

“Battle” touches on the fear of the small, and “golem terror”—a sort of childlike anxiety around anthropomorphic objects and the irrational fear that they will become both animate and malevolent. You can see thematic similarities in both the third installment of King’s 1985 trilogy, Cat’s Eye, (where the titular cat protects a young Drew Barrymore from a tiny troll), and the brilliant “Amelia” tale from the 1975 TV movie Trilogy of Terror, where Karen Black is terrorized in her home by a Zuni fetish doll come to life. (A 2006 adaptation of “Battleground,” (starring William Hurt, and also quite good/intense), actually shows the Zuni fetish doll in the background of Hurt’s apartment multiple times as a sort of Hidden Mickey.)

The cartoon itself is a beautiful horror-noir, much of it done via rotoscoping, which gives it the fast-action fear it needs without sacrificing great animation. At any rate, you could definitely use it to scare children into putting their toys away, right?
 

 
The images below are from the Soviet anti-religious magazine, Bezbozhnik, which translates to “Atheist” or “The Godless.” It ran from 1922 to 1941, and its daily edition, “The Godless at the Workplace,” ran from 1923 to 1931. The scathing publication was founded by the League of Militant Atheists, an organization of the Soviet Communist Party members, members of its youth league, workers and veterans, so while it was in many ways a party project, it was not state-sponsored satire.

The Soviet Union adopted a formal position of state-atheism after the revolution but it wasn’t a clean break. The expropriation of church property and the murder or persecution of clergy was certainly the most obvious supplantation of power, but the USSR was a giant mass of land, most of it rural and much of it pious, so the cultural crusade against religion was an ongoing campaign for the hearts and minds of citizens who might resist a sudden massive secularization. The monstrous, violent art you see below depicted religion as the enemy of the worker and footman to capitalism. You’ll notice a wide array of religions depicted, as the USSR was very religiously diverse.
 

Depicting the Muhammad, the Christian god, and a Jewish Kabbalist. Despite the ethnic cartoons, the founder and majority of staff were Jewish.
 

Mocking the “piety” of racist America with the title, “God’s country”
 

The Pope, with Jesus and the Bible astride a cannon, aimed at the 35 million European unemployed
 

Jesus, dumped like so much industrial waste
 

Deities getting smooshed by a Five Year Plan
 

Even Buddha gets his share of hate
 

God is responsible for plagues
 

Luring the people to church with music
 

A soldier literally skewering god. The books under his arm read “Lenin” and “Technology.”
 
Via The Charnel-House

German movie poster for Aelita
 
I’m always annoyed at how difficult it is to convince someone to check out a silent film. Why is it like pulling teeth to get folks to experience some of the most dynamic, expressive, and yes, entertaining movies of all time? Case in point, Aelita: Queen of Mars, the first Soviet science fiction film and an absolutely captivating watch from beginning to end.

Based on a novel by Alexei Tolstoy (writer, Nazi apprehender, and distant relative of that other Tolstoy ),Aelita: Queen of Mars is set primarily in post-war Moscow and (you guessed it) Mars. After receiving a mysterious message from outer space, Soviet Engineer Los builds a spaceship. Cut to Mars, where the Emperor Tuskub maintains absolute power, and keeps the Martian proletariat in cold storage when not using their labor. His daughter Aelita has been watching Los through a telescope. She’s fascinated with Earthly ways of life and infatuated with Los, but she’s forbidden from using the telescope, as Tuskub is suspicious of her fascination with the aliens.

When Los comes home one day to catch his wife Natasha friendly with their tenant, a black market criminal, he shoots her in a fit of rage. Disillusioned with his marriage, he sets off for Mars in his ship, taking with him the dynamic revolutionary adventurer, Gusev, who just so happened to be hanging around. When they arrive they’re immediately thrown in prison, along with Aelita as a conspirator. I don’t want to give anything away, but let’s just remember that Soviets were really into revolutionary uprisings. There’s even a scene where a hammer and sickle are smithed, though it’s actually the hammer and sickle being smashed out of shape, shot in reverse for a primitive (but impressive) special effect.
 

The film boasted groundbreaking sets and costume designs.
 
The acting is beautiful and romantic, the plot is grandiose and ambitious, and visually, it’s completely epic. Far from two-dimensional propaganda, the film is complex and nuanced: Natasha and Los’ tenant actually acknowledges the shortages and rationing of the Soviet Union, which is probably why the film eventually fell out of favor with the Soviet government. I cannot recommend this movie enough, as I re-watch it every few months. It’s available on YouTube in its entirety, below.
 

 
With the news that Azerbaijan has triumphed at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Running Scared” performed by Ell and Nikki, voted Europe’s favorite, I was reminded of a previous Azerbaijani purveyor of cheesy pop, Gaya, a fabulous singing quartet, who were one of the most successful in Soviet-Azerbaijani during the 1960s and 1970s. Qaya mixed modern beats with traditional Azerbaijani music, and their songs could easily sit (if not win) in today’s Eurovision; or, be piped anesthetically through shopping malls department stores.
 

 
More classic songs from Qaya, after the jump…
 
With thanks to Iya Vinogradova
 

 
The Museum of Anti-Alcohol Posters showcases an array of posters from the Soviet-era. From a design standpoint, these illustrations are really cool, but I wonder if they were truly effective with getting their message across to Friends of Bill???

 
See more images after the jump…