Once the Bolsheviks vanquished the Whites in the Russian civil war, they began to turn their attention to the so-called societal ills within their ranks: illiteracy, religion and drunkenness. Bolsheviks believed alcoholism in particular to be especially pernicious, with Trotsky arguing "The very nearest future will be a period of a heroic struggle with alcohol. If we don't stamp out alcoholism, beginning with the cities, then we will drip up socialism and drink up the October Revolution" (Trotsky Rabochaia gazeta, January 13 1926). The posters under examination here present the battle against alcoholism as a problem that the proletariat will overcome through single blow of their blacksmith's hammer.  However, their actual relationship (fiscal and social) with alcohol was more complicated.

            In this talk I present an overview of fifteen temperance posters during the period of the First Five Year Plan. I situate the posters within their historical context and detail the particular linguistic and visual strategies the Bolsheviks used in order to create their envisioned socialist reality. In so doing, I demonstrate the subtle, but important ways that the language and visuals of the posters reflect the burgeoning ideology of the Soviet Union.