Dognat' i peregnat' v tekhniko-ekonomicheskom otnoshenii peredovye kapitalisticheskie strany v 10 let. 70 kartinnye diagrammna otkrytkakh (To Catch up with and Surpass the Leading Capitalist Countries in Technical and Economic Affairs in 10 Years. 70 Pictorial Diagrams on Postcards)
1931
A 1931 letterpress-printed postcard that turns an economic bar chart into a piece of Soviet propaganda, using pictorial graphics to show industrial and agricultural production as evidence that the USSR could ‘catch up and surpass’ capitalist countries.
A seesaw-like crane arm crowns a stacked set of horizontal red bars that stretch toward a numbered scale, visually pitting dark, smoky factory imagery on the left against golden sacks of grain on the right so that raw statistics read as a dramatic tug between industry and agriculture.
It exemplifies how early-1930s Soviet designers transformed data into mass-reproducible visual arguments—melding modernist graphic devices and printing technology to communicate Five-Year Plan ambitions and mobilize popular belief in industrialization.
Medium
Postcard from a portfolio of 70 postcards and one booklet, letterpress printed
Dimensions
sheet: 5 7/8 x 4 1/8" (15 x 10.5 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of The Judith Rothschild Foundation
Accession
424.2001.19
Palette
Exhibitions
