Visualizing Politics in an Early Soviet Anti-Religious

THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN:

VISUALIZING POLITICS IN AN EARLY SOVIET ANTI-RELIGIOUS

PROPAGANDA POSTER

Elizaveta Krylova

A Third Year Research Project in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Studies at The School of Advanced Studies University of Tyumen

June 2020 МИНИСТЕРСТВО НАУКИ И ВЫСШЕГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ Федеральное государственное автономное образовательное учреждение высшего образования «ТЮМЕНСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ»

ШКОЛА ПЕРСПЕКТИВНЫХ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЙ (SAS) ТЮМГУ

Директор Школы к.ф.н., Ph.D. А.В. Щербенок

КУРСОВАЯ РАБОТА ЭМАНСИПАЦИЯ ЖЕНЩИН: ВИЗУАЛИЗАЦИЯ ПОЛИТИКИ ПОСРЕДСТВОМ АНТИРЕЛИГИОЗНОГО РАННЕСОВЕТСКОГО ПЛАКАТА

50.03.01 Искусства и гуманитарные науки

Выполнила работу Студентка 3-ого курса Крылова Елизавета Сергеевна Очной формы обучения

Руководитель Вульф Эрика Мария PhD

Тюмень 2020 3

DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY By submitting this research project, I hereby certify that: I am its sole author and that any ideas, techniques, quotations, or any other material from the work of other people included in my research project, published or otherwise, are fully acknowledged in accordance with the standard referencing practices of my major; and that no third-party proofreading, editing, or translating services have been used in its completion. Elizaveta Krylova WORD COUNT: 5020

TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT………………………………………………… ………………………..5 INTRODUCTION… ………………………………………………………………….6 RELIGION AND WOMAN...... … ……………...……...... 8 CONCLUSION… …………………………………………………………………...19 BIBLIOGRAPHY… ………………………………………………………………...21 FIGURES...... … ………………...………....23 APPENDIX...... … ………………………………………….33

ABSTRACT

The issue of the oppression of women by religion and religious law was topical when the Bolsheviks came to power, and this was reflected in various means of propaganda. While there is an extensive academic literature on Bolshevik policies on women and religion, most scholarship has focused on written sources, including propaganda publications. However, little attention has been paid to visual propaganda. This research essay considers the Soviet anti-religious propaganda poster Religion and Woman, a work by an unknown artist from the late 1920s. Providing a close visual analysis of this poster, I clarify the specific message that the poster conveys and how this message is communicated in terms of both image and text. Considering the socio-political context and using formal and iconographic analysis, I argue that despite the explicit anti-religious message, this propaganda poster used religious iconography and narrative to agitate the masses. Hence, woman is presented as a female analogue to Christ, domestic utensils become the instruments of her passion, and the Orthodox Church and other organized religions appear as hell. In line with the writings of V.I. Lenin, this propaganda poster visually shows how Soviet ideology offers paradise on earth as an alternative to paradise in the afterlife in the Christian tradition.

Anonymous artist, Religion and Women, late 1920s, poster

INTRODUCTION In the 1920s, the Soviet publishing house Ateist (“The Atheist”) issued the poster Religion and Woman (Religiia i zhenshchina; fig. 1). The first thing that attracts the viewer's attention is the figure of a woman at the top of the poster. She is wrapped up from head to toe, which makes her look generic; she can be representative of any nationality or religion. Male clergy of various faiths surround her. Lower on either side appear scenes of the abuse of women, accompanied by lines from Holy Scripture. In the center of the poster are a number of religious buildings, with an Orthodox church in the middle. Tentacle-like roots grow from these buildings

7 and extend to the crowd of women in turmoil. The women are surrounded by clouds with swirling household utensils. A poem appears at the bottom of the poster. It calls on the woman to free herself from religious oppression and to turn to active participation in the construction of a new socialist state. Ivan Shpitsberg (1880-1933) founded Ateist, a non-party publishing house in 1922 in response to “Lenin's appeal for consolidation of the efforts of Communist and non-Communist atheists.” Ateist published both original books and translations of the “works of 'bourgeois’ atheists,” with the aim of scientific struggle against religion as an ideological superstructure, unscientific and harmful to the working masses. Another goal was the struggle against the organization of the clergy as a political force that used the superstition of all kinds of cults for its oppressive purposes.1 The publishing house established the magazine Ateist in 1925, which was renamed Voinstvuiushchii ateizm (Militant Atheism) in 1932. Unlike many popular illustrated anti-religious magazines published at that time, such as Bezhbozhnik u stanka (Godless at the Bench) and Revoliutsiia i tserkov (Revolution and the Church), Ateist was distinguished by its predominantly intellectual character. But a published poster seems more like a separate action aimed at a wide range of viewers than a regular column of a magazine aimed at publishing scientific articles on criticism of religion. What can it say about the intentions of the publication?In a 1918 speech at the First All-Russian Congress of Women Workers, Lenin emphasized that “one of the primary tasks of the Soviet Republic is to abolish all restrictions on women's rights.” This could only be achieved through the combined efforts of women workers in the fight against “the influence of the priests, an evil that is harder to combat than the old

1 Dimitry V. Pospielovsky, History of Soviet Atheism in Theory and Practice and the Believer, vol. 1, A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Antireligious Policies (New York: Saint Martin’s, 1987), 37.

8 legislation.” 2 Both the traditional family and the church, institutions to which women were strongly attached, were potential enemies for the new ideology of socialism. Yet unlike most propaganda posters that stress the benefits of life under socialism, Religion and Woman conveys its message through showing the pernicious aspects of religion and the old order. In this essay, I employ close reading to clarify the message of the poster and identity its intended recipient. My findings indicate that despite the explicit anti-religious message, this propaganda poster used religious iconography and narrative to agitate the masses. In accord with Lenin’s precepts, this propaganda poster visually shows how Soviet ideology offers paradise on earth as an alternative to paradise in the afterlife in the Christian tradition. RELIGION AND WOMAN

While most scholarship has focused on written sources, including propaganda publications, there is no point in denying that anti-religious propagandists were well aware of the advantages that visual propaganda had in contrast to its other types.3 As Aleksandr Bogdanov, an ideologist of the Proletkult, noted, “art organizes social experience by means of living images with regard both of cognition and to feelings and aspirations.”4 Consequently, visual art was considered a suitable way to articulate

2 Vladimir Lenin, “Speech at the First All-Russia Congress of Working Women” in Collected Works, vol. 28 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1973), 180.

3 See, for example: Victoria E. Bonnell, “The Representation of Women in Early Soviet Political art,” The Russian Review 50, no. 3 (1991): 267-288; Kevin M. Kain, "Early Soviet Visual Antireligious Propaganda: The Display of Print Images in the Past, Present and Digital Future." Slavic & East European Information Resources 19, no. 3-4 (2018): 216-241; Lynne Atwood, Creating the New Soviet Woman: Women’s Magazines as Engineers of Female Identity, 1922-53 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999).

4 Aleksandr Bogdanov, “The Proletarian and Art,” in Russian Art of the Avant-Garde: Theory and Criticism, edited by John Bowlt (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988), 177.

9 complex ideas. This especially played into the hands of anti-religious propagandists, since the target audience for their work was peasants and artisans who had lived all their lives illiterate and unfamiliar with any other order of life except autocracy. Their main source of knowledge was the parish church, and religious art played a key role in the communication of belief to a largely illiterate populace. This state of affairs explains the use of religious motifs in the poster in question. Religion and Woman was created and printed by Ateist, the artist and writer are unknown. The precise date of publication is not printed on the poster, but it is know that it is from 1920s. At that time, the party turned to active anti-religious propaganda as a tool to fight against purported mass delusion. In 1920 the Agitation and Propaganda Department was established within the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party, which aimed to implement principles of educational activities and simultaneously to avoid insulting believers’ feelings (since it strengthened their fanaticism and opposition to Communist Party ideology).5 Magazines published at that time attacked mainly the Orthodox Church, bypassing other denominations; church ceremonies were deprived of legal importance, but still could be performed; religious propaganda had the right to exist along with anti-religious one. Some Party representatives believed that religious prejudice should be stopped by any means, while others realized that believers were subject to greater control when they were allowed to follow religious practices. That is why a measure was taken to stop this difference of opinions. In August 1921, the Party held a plenary meeting, at which they put forward instructions on the treatment of believers. However, this did not eradicate differences of opinion. In 1922, the government launched two campaigns against the Orthodox Church: the first was a ‘church valuables’ campaign in which the party seized valuables for the so-called needs of the

5 Philip Walters. “A Survey of Soviet Religious Policy,” In Religious policy in the Soviet Union, ed. Sabrina P. Ramet (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 6.

10 hungry and needy; the second was the Renovationist Schism, which entailed seizure of control by the so-called Living Church, which sided with and was recognized by the Soviet government.6 Despite the proclaimed successes of both campaigns, power eventually passed into the hands of those pragmatic party members who believed that getting rid of religion was possible through active propaganda. They considered the New Economic Policy, characterized by economic difficulties and uncertainty, another reason to step up on the ideological front. A key role in anti-religious propaganda was played by the League of Militant Atheists, which was created in 1925 under the leadership of Emel’ian Iaroslavskii, and began to publish various magazines, including Ateist. By this time, efforts to undermine the reputation of religion were more thorough and consistent, penetrating into various spheres of society. Now, not only the Orthodox Church but also other faiths came under fire. Various forms of propaganda were used to denounce religous faith and believers. With the title Religion and Woman, it is no surprise that the poster’s focal point is the figure of a woman. The woman is surrounded by figures of the clergy of different religions: Arabbi in a prayer shawl with a hairy yellow face and big hooked nose, a pot-bellied Catholic monk with a tonsured head, a yellow-faced Chinese priest, a dark-skinned “native” with a single loincloth, an Orthodox priest in golden vestment, and other stereotypical images that emphasize ethnic and religious differences and prejudices. In contrast to the woman, their figures look flat and stretched, while their facial expressions are intentionally distorted and disfigured. The outline of the ring of male figures is curvilinear, which implies movement, as opposed to the vertical straight lines of the woman’s static body. The figure of the woman is elongated, erect, and looks at the viewer. A scarf hides her face, while her hands grasp an apron. Unlike the general background of the poster, the field around

6 Walters, 8-10.

11 her is white, which distinguishes and gives her a sense of purity. In addition to the ring of men, the female figure is surrounded by scrolls with text, which reinforces her imprisonment: They gathered around the woman Priests of all peoples and faiths: “Stop! Live with your face muffled, We will not let you veer from the indicated path.” 7 While the woman first draws the viewer’s attention, the dominating form in the poster is a massive architectural entity at the center with roots extending down to a crowd of women. This structure consists of a number of religious buildings (left to right): Buddhist datsan, Confucian temple, mosque, Orthodox church, synagogue, Catholic church, and ziggurat. The buildings are rendered in dark shades, which create a feeling of strength and authority. The central building, an Orthodox church, looks anthropomorphic: it has eye-like windows and an entrance that suggests a toothy mouth. This “mouth” attracts the viewer’s attention with a bright hellish red color, which darkens as it deepens. Above it an icon of the VladimirMother of God also takes root. The background here is bright yellow, matching the color of the golden robe of the priest pictured above. The roots, like tentacles, capture women in the fleeing crowd. The crowd goes back, tapering towards the entrance to the temple. They try to escape from the jaw-like entrance, but the roots entwine some by their hands and necks. The women’s faces and gestures express torment and suffering. Their figures have clear outlines, but the closeness and concentration of bodies create a faceless crowd that is difficult to recognize at a glance. Some bodies are bent in uncomfortable poses, as if permeated with pain. In the front of the crowd, another scroll encloses and restrains the women both physically and semantically: The fearsome octopus squeezes, squeezes, chokes,

7 See Appendix for a full Russian transcription and English translation of the poster text.

The women see things clearly and run away: “Everything the priests taught was a lie, You will not press us back into the church” The fleeing women are framed by clouds of dust billowing up. In contrast to the crowd, the clouds are bright and light. Clearly rendered, there are domestic utensils swirling in the clouds: cradles, teapots, pans, brooms, pacifiers, and the Bible. The billowing clouds rise up to two scenes, accompanied by scrolls with text. On the right, women of different ages kneel before a corpulent priest and give him offerings in the form of jewelry and food. The accompanying text says: “No one should appear before the Lord empty-handed: Each of you must bring a gift.” On the left is a scene in which a husband swings his whip at his wife hiding her face in her hands: “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord... and the wife must respect her husband.” A poem at the bottom of the poster tells of the enslavement of a woman by her husband and the priest and exhorts her to free herself in order to begin building a new, socialist order (see Appendix). Thus, the demonic images of dark temples with roots, distorted terrifying clerics, and suffering women expose religion as a corrupt enterprise that enslaves and humiliates women. The poster’s creators clearly used not only images of the church and its clergy, but also images that required knowledge of the religious value system to be understood. As Annie Gérin note in her study of Soviet illustrated anti-religious propaganda magazines, images “were understood as a mode of communication that could reach its public on an intuitive, emotional level.”8 What could reach women on an emotional level in a society that had not yet rid itself of deeply ingrained religious prejudice and ignorance? Given the illiteracy and superstition of the majority of the female population due to their constant confinement to the domestic realm, one

8 Annie Gérin, Godless at the Workbench: Soviet Illustrated Humoristic Antireligious Propaganda (Regina: Dunlop Art Gallery, 2003), 34.

13 effective strategy for engaging their attention was to use a visual language that was familiar to them and rooted in the long history of Russian Orthodoxy and patriarchal rule. One of the most common plots in the Christian tradition is the ultimate story of the Last Judgment from the Book of Revelation, the final book of the New Testament by John the Apostle. According to the plot, the end of the world awaits, when the second coming of Christ would take place and He would judge the righteous and sinful. The Book of Revelation says: “The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books . . . Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.”9 A prime example of the Russian Orthodox iconography of this scene is Dionisius’s icon of The Last Judgment for the Uspensky Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin (с. 1500; fig. 2). Comparing this icon to the poster Religion and Woman, we observe that they have the same basic structure. At the top of the icon, Jesus Christ appears surrounded by angels and saints. The woman in the poster has the same holy appearance; she is pure, modest, and is surrounded by an almost sacred glow. While Jesus appears in a round mandorla with angels, she is encircled by figures who resemble mocking and dancing demons. Like the woman, a scroll appears above Christ’s head. In the context of the Book of Revelation, this scroll refers to the end of all time. Studying the poster we can detect another visual parallel to Dionisius’s iconography of the Last Judgment: The clouds on which saints stand on either side of Christ are similar to the scrolls present on the poster. At the bottom of the icon, the dead rise from their graves and prepare for judgment. On the left, we see the entrance to the Garden of Eden, and on the right appears a bloody river, stretching from the scales located in the center directly into the monstrous mouth of hell with the figure of the devil inside. The bloody river with

9 Rev 20:12, 15 (NIV).

14 the screaming faces of sinners is comparable to the crowd of women who are “sucked” by the monstrous mouth of the Church. In the Christian tradition, the Church is considered a representation of the body of Jesus Christ on earth, a monastery for all believers and those who want to gain eternal life. Hell is the place where sinners go to eternal torment. On the poster, these things are interchangeable: now hell, the place for torment, is the church, which in fact does not seem to promise any salvation. The poem at the bottom of the poste puns with the monstrous church: “the fearsome octopus squeezes, squeezes, chokes.” In Russian, the phrase “fearsome octopus” (strashnyi sprut) rhymes with the phrase “Last Judgment” (strashny sud), suggesting that the Judgment is already here, and it punishes everyone regardless of their righteousness or sinfulness. Speaking about the corruption of the church, which is something devilish, it is important to note the figure of the priest. As an authoritative person and mediator between parishioner and God, the priest has unlimited possibilities for exploitation, especially of devout women. This is reflected in the vignette showing women before a priest (fig. 3). The accompanying text is an excerpt from Deuteronomy: “No one should appear before the Lord empty-handed: Each of you must bring a gift.”10 The priest is obese, an indication of his greed. Before the quotation from Deuteronomy, the phrase “So said God” has been added. This suggests the manipulation of sacred texts to the priest's personal advantage. Here, the priest is not a mediator, but the direct beneficiary of the women’s offerings. Thus, the church as institution appears in the guise of a bureaucratic entity, accumulating wealth and manipulating parishioners. By serving the priests, religion promises women that they can get into the heaven, as shown in the icon of the Last Judgment. But in the reality depicted on the poster, religion traps women in a kind of hell, where they are blocked by endless clouds of household utensils and the responsibilities that fall on their shoulders.

10 Gen 16:16-17 (NIV).

The woman at the top of the poster is a generalized image of a suffering Soviet woman, who corresponds to the woman referred to by the text below: “Woman! You have endured a lot in the past, on your back and to the side.” We can compare her passions with the passions of Jesus. In the Orthodox tradition, icons of the Last Judgment depict the throne of Christ with the gospel and Instruments of the Passion on it. On the icon of Dionisius, these instruments are depicted in the arms of angels on the sides at the top (ladder, column). There are other icons entirely dedicated to this imagery. For instance, an anonymous 19th century Russian icon of The Savior in the Dungeon (fig. 4) depicts Jesus surrounded by the instruments of his passion, objects that were involved in the suffering he endured before death. The include the cross on which he was crucified, the crown of thorns and the purple robe that his torturers mockingly put on him to proclaim him a king, the nails with which he was nailed to the cross, and so on. In the poster, the instruments that cause suffering to the woman martyr are irons, pots, kettles, baby pacifiers, the Bible, and other domestic objects. The accompanying poem deliberately uses the word “m ytarstva” (tribulations), which in Russian has a vivid religious connotation and usually describes the passion of Jesus Christ, yet may also refer to hard experience in general. The poster equates the daily trials of women with the trials of the holy martyr Jesus Christ, who was persecuted and taunted by Roman soldiers. Hence, it indicates that the fate of woman is to be tormented by the household chores and religious duties that her husband and priest force upon her – until she frees herself from these shackles. Notably, the origins of these shackles are directly related to religion and its connection to earthly law. The biblical creation story lays the foundations for the subordination of woman to man. In the Book of Genesis, God first created man and then created woman from his rib. God commanded: “She shall be called ‘woman,’ for

16 she was taken out of man.”11 Legislation in pre-revolutionary Russia on matters related to women and the family were based upon and legitimated religious customs and prescriptions that have their origins in Genesis. In this regard, the main issues concerning women’s rights and obligations were regulated by the 1st Book of Volume X of the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire, entitled "O pravakh i obiazannostyakh semeistvennykh" (On the Rights and Obligations of the Family). For example, Article 46 prescribes that unauthorized divorce, even by the mutual consent of the spouses, is prohibited. Article 103 prescribes spouses to live together, moreover, in the husband's place of residence. The wife was also obliged to follow her husband in case he needed to relocate somewhere. Other articles directly relating to women required them to completely obey their husbands. In Articles 107 and 108, woman is told to “obey her husband, as the head of the family; to be in love, reverence and unlimited obedience to him, to show him all pleasures and affection, as the mistress of the house.”12 We can see the religious roots of the civil laws by looking at one of the scenes located on the sides below the image of a woman in a circle of men (fig. 5). The accompanying text is identified as the Letter of Paul to the Ephesians: “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord... and the wife must respect her husband.”13 The scene that accompanies the quotation from Paul’s letter shows the plight of a woman who submits to and respects her husband. The man swing a crop at a womanwho coversg her face in fear, as if she were a beast of burden being flogged into submission. This scene visually echoes Masaccio’s celebrated image of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden in the Brancacci Chapel,

11 Gen 2:23 (NIV).

12 Svod zakonov Rossiiiskoi Imperiii povelieniem Gosudaria Imperatora Nikolaia Pervago sostavlennyi, vol. 10, pt. 1, Zakony grazhdanskie (Saint Petersburg: 1857), 21, 23.

13 Eph 5:22-33 (NIV).

Florence (1425; fig. 6). In the fresco, a cherub with a sword drives Adam and Eve out of the Garden because Eve, being tempted by a serpent, broke God’s orders not to taste the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Having expelled Adam and Eve from paradise, God doomed them to a painful fate on earth. He ordained to Eve: “With painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”14 In the poster, the woman appears in the role of the guilty Eve who is punished for original sin, and the man controls the execution of duties. The poem at the bottom states: In the course of years, they kept you as property By priests and family, in a dull vise. Your husband wanted you to be A mother, a cook, a mate, a servant, The priest prophesized afterlife horrors, So that you would obediently take to slavery. Hence, the husband and the state exerted control over the woman, their dominance reinforced by religious laws. In the Russian context, this connection of earthly and spiritual laws points to the indestructible union of religious authority and autocracy. Returning to the poster, let’s consider the inclusion of the icon of The Vladimir Mother of God above the entrance to the Orthodox Church. This particular icon is one of the most revered images of Russian orthodoxy and is also linked to the Russian state. That is why it appears in Simon Ushakov’s Praise to the Vladimir Mother of God: The Tree of the Russian State (1668; fig. 7), an icon about the connection between the church and the state. The central image is The Vladimir Mother of God, but careful examination reveals two male figures tending the tree on which the icon grows. They are Metropolitan Piotr and Grand Prince Ivan I, the founders of the Muscovite state, religious and civil

14 Gen 3:16 (NIV).

18 rulers who forged Russian autocracy. They stand at the entrance to Uspensky Cathedral — a symbolic place for all the rulers of the Russian State, where the tsars were crowned. The red walls in front of them are those of the Moscow Kremlin. On the left is Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, who ruled at the time this icon was painted, and on the right are his wife with children. In addition to the icon, medallions with portraits of metropolitans and tsars (on the left) and Moscow saints (on the right) also grow on this tree. At the top, Jesus Christ gives the soaring angels a crown and a robe for Alexei Mikhailovich: the king of heaven crowns the king of earth. This icon confirms and legitimates the earthly authority of the Tsar, who is granted divine right to rule. Honoring traditions, the praise of the Mother of God, Jesus bestowing the crown for the tsar — all this says: the power of the tsar is granted and blessed by the Lord, therefore no one has the right to dispute it. Returning to the poster, it has the same features – treelike structure, church at center, Vladimir Mother of God – all evoke this image of the Tree of the Russian State.Yet here the planted by the metropolitan and the tsar does not bloom; it has become a monstrous octopus whose tentacles ensnare women. The icon of the Mother of God as a symbol of veneration also seems to have dug firmly into the soil cultivated for centuries; God-fearing people who blindly worship religion are not able to realize that the church swallows and enslave them. Certainly, it was necessary to fight this rooted religious system in the most decisive manner. But how? Should suppression of religious practices and traditions be done forcibly, by cutting off any religious expressions in the bud? Or would it be better to gradually and consciously lead people away from prejudice? This exact debate unfolded in the Soviet Union during the 1920s. Lenin endorsed Marx’s vision of religion, which he called a “bourgeois reaction that serve to defend exploitation

19 and to befuddle the working class.” 15 Lenin added a further element to the Marxist attitude to religion. H e argued that aggressive religious propaganda was detrimental to the revolution, and that only the class struggle could lead to a natural and final withering away of religion. In this connection, the Party issued a decree on January 23, 1918, which deprived the Orthodox Church of the status of a legal entity and prohibited it from owning private property. Later in 1918, Article 13 of the Russian Constitution officially separated the church from the state, and schools from the church. However, Lenin’s injunction on the nonviolent enlightenment of believers was not always respected. The decree was accompanied by terror, which resulted in the killing of many church representatives. As Philip Walters notes: “One of the recurrent features of subsequent Soviet religious policy was to be that periods of anti-religious violence would regularly be followed by warnings similar to the above heralding periods of relative moderation.”16 Despite the frequent changes in Party policy towards the church, one of Lenin’s instructions was not in doubt: in order to eradicate religiosity, it was necessary to propose something in return. Already in his speech “On Socialism and Religion” in 1905, Lenin stated: “Unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven.”17 He realized that the imposition of an alien, completely new value system would not lead to success, and therefore openly operated with religious analogies. In this regard, he proposed creating a Bolshevik paradise, immediately attractive in that one did not have to wait until their death to get there. This paradise could be created by one’s

15 Vladimir Lenin, “The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to Religion,” in Collected Works, vol. 15 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1973), 403.

16 Walters, 6.

17 Vladimir Lenin, “On Socialism and Religion,” in Collected Works, vol. 10 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965), 87.

20 own hands, without oppression, coercion, and ignorance. The poem calls on the frightened woman to take action: So go, strengthen the Soviet system. Learn to rule the state, Build factories, collective farms, mines. Here, everything is subject to her; she is omnipotent and has the right to decide for herself how this paradise will look. Paradise after death is just a fiction, and the institutions that support this idea create a hell on earth. An ideal society is a socialist society that is being built thanks to new Soviet people.

CONCLUSION

The poster Religion and Woman reflects the early Soviet utopian goal of replacing old traditions with a new socialist system through a paradigm shift: paradise after death would be replaced by a paradise on earth, a paradise called the Soviet Union. In words and images, the poster reveals the entire depth of the established system, the intricacies of the strongest institutions on which the former empire was built — the Church and autocracy. It sheds light on the vulnerability of women in relation to this powerful patriarchal alliance, and suggests replacing it with a completely new system, characterized by equality and scientific progress. Yet shortly after this poster was published, the course would change dramatically. During the 1930s, women were deprived of the new rights and freedoms that were granted after the revolution; it became more difficult to divorce. With the approach of World War II, official Soviet attitudes towards religion softened considerably. Although party leaders ideologically adhered to Lenin's postulates, they no longer fulfilled them with the zeal that accompanied their introduced in the 1920s. Now, in post-Soviet Russia, we can observe an even greater rollback. Laws decriminalizing domestic violence, the “glass ceiling” effect, and wage gaps indicate that women are being returned “to

21 their place” – tormented by domestic chores and their husbands. In the midst of a global pandemic, when everyone is forced to stay home, women again become targets for oppression, just like a century ago. Likewise, the connection between the Russian government and the Orthodox Church is reasserting autocracy: the rights of believers are vigorously defended, while clergymen continue to deceive and profit from the populace. The image of Vladimir Putin, along with other top officials of the state was proposed for immortalization in a mosaic for the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, just like the icon The Tree of the Russian State (fig. 8). Due to the scandal that news of the mosaic provoked, it was not finished.18 Yet a similar pattern can be clearly seen here. The idea of a paradise on earth seems abandoned and never realized. One can only guess whether this was an unsuccessful execution, or whether Russia really has a mystical path that no force can change.

18 Aleksandra Dzhordzhevich, "«Izobrazheny rukovoditeli nashego gosudarstva. v tom chisle sredi naroda»: Pochemu Glavnyy khram VS RF ukrasili mozaikami s litsami Vladimira Putina i Iosifa Stalina," Novaya Gazeta, April 24, 2020, https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2020/04/24/85085-izobrazheny-rukovoditeli-nashego-gosudarstva-v -tom-chisle-sredi-naroda; Ivan Tyazhlov, “Demontirovana mozaika s izobrazheniyem Putina v khrame Vooruzhennykh sil,” Kommersant, April 30, 2020, https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4335483?from=hotnews.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aleksandra Dzhordzhevich, "«Izobrazheny rukovoditeli nashego gosudarstva. v tom chisle sredi naroda»: Pochemu Glavnyy khram VS RF ukrasili mozaikami s litsami Vladimira Putina i Iosifa Stalina." N ovaya Gazeta, April 24, 2020, https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2020/04/24/85085-izobrazheny-rukovoditeli-n ashego-gosudarstva-v-tom-chisle-sredi-naroda. Attwood, Lynne. C reating the New Soviet Woman: Women’s Magazines as Engineers of Female Identity, 1922–53. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999. Bogdanov, Aleksandr. “The Proletarian and Art.” In Russian Art of the Avant-Garde: Theory and Criticism, edited by John Bowlt, 177-182. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988. Bonnell, Victoria E. "The Representation of Women in Early Soviet Political Art." The Russian Review 50, no. 3 (1991): 267-288. Gérin, Annie. G odless at the Workbench: Soviet Illustrated Humoristic Antireligious Propaganda. R egina: Dunlop Art Gallery, 2003. Ivan Tyazhlov, “Demontirovana mozaika s izobrazheniyem Putina v khrame Vooruzhennykh sil.” K ommersant, April 30, 2020, https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4335483?from=hotnews. Kain, Kevin M. “Early Soviet Visual Antireligious Propaganda: The Display of Print Images in the Past, Present and Digital Future.” Slavic & East European Information Resources 19, no. 3-4 (2018): 216-241. Lenin, Vladimir. “On Socialism and Religion.” In C ollected Works, edited by Andrew Rothstein, 83-87, vol. 10. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965. Lenin, Vladimir. “Speech at the First All-Russia Congress of Working Women.” In Collected Works, edited by Jim Riordan, 180-182, vol. 28. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974.

Lenin, Vladimir. “The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to Religion.” In C ollected Works, edited by Andrew Rothstein and Bernard Isaacs, 402-413, vol. 15. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1973. Pospielovsky, Dimitry V. H istory of Soviet Atheism in Theory and Practice and the Believer. Vol. 1, A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Antireligious Policies. New York: Saint Martin’s, 1987. Svod zakonov Rossiiiskoi Imperiii povelieniem Gosudaria Imperatora Nikolaia Pervago sostavlennyi. Vol. 10, pt. 1, Zakony grazhdanskie. Saint Petersburg: 1857. Walters, Philip. “A Survey of Soviet Religious Policy.” In Religious policy in the Soviet Union, edited by Sabrina Ramet, 3-30. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

FIGURES

Figure 1 Anonymous artist, Religion and Women, late 1920sPoster, 102 x 70 cm The Ne boltai! Collection Source: http://neboltai.org

Figure 2 Dionisius, The Last Judgment,c. 1500) Tempera on wood Uspensky Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin Source: http://artpoisk.info/artist/dionisiy_1440/strashnyy_sud/

Figure 3 Detail of the poster Religion and Women

Figure 4 Unknown, The Savior in the Dungeon, late 19th century Russian icon in private collection Source: https://russianicons.wordpress.com/tag/christ-in-the-dungeon/

Figure 5 Detail of the poster Religion and Women

Figure 6 MasaccioExpulsion from the Garden of Eden, 1425, Fresco, Brancacci Chapel, Florence Source: http://www.museumsinflorence.com/musei/Brancacci_chapel.html

Figure 7 Simon Ushakov, Praise to the Vladimir Mother of God: The Tree of the Russian State 1688 State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/Figure 8

Vasilii Nesterenko, C rimean Spring, 2020 Maquette for mosaic panel for the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, Moscow Source: https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2020/04/24/85085-izobrazheny-rukovoditeli-nashego -gosudarstva-v-tom-chisle-sredi-naroda

APPENDIX Text on the poster, with translation by the author and corrections by Erika Wolf.

At top right: Релгигия – дурман для народа Religion is the opium of the people

Around the woman encircled by clergymen:

РЕЛИГИЯ И ЖЕНЩИНА They gathered around the woman Окружили женщину кольцом. Priests of all peoples and faiths: Всех народов и всех вер попы: “Stop! Live with your face muffled, "Стой! Живи с закутанным лицом, -- We will not let you veer from the indicated Не дадим уйти с указанной тропы” path”

RELIGION AND WOMEN

Below the woman being beaten by her husband:

«Жены! Повинуйтесь своим мужьям, как must respect her husband.” (Letter to the господу . . . Жена да боится своего мужа». Ephesians 5) (Посл. к Ефесянам V) “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord... and the wife

Below the women kneeling before a priest:

«Так говорит господь Бог: -- Пусть не являются пред лицо мое с пустыми руками, но каждый с даром в руке своей.» (Второзаконие XVI) “No one should appear before the Lord empty-handed: Each of you must bring a gift.” (Deuteronomy 15)

Below the women at the base of the religious structures:

Давит-давит, душит страшный спрут. The fearsome octopus squeezes, squeezes, Женщины прозрели, прочь бегут. chokes, "Все чему попы учили, - ложь, - The women see things clearly and run away: “Everything the priests taught was a lie, В церковь нас назад You will not press us back into the church” не зазовешь".

Text of the poem at the bottom of the poster:

Женщина! Ты вынесла немало Труженица-женщина, товарищ - В прошлом на спине, да на боках, Веру рабскую в попов и в бога брось! В смене лет, как собственность, держали - Поп, семья тебя в тупых тисках. Woman! You have endured a lot Муж хотел, чтоб матерью, кухаркой, In the past, on your back and to the side, Самкой и служанкой ты была, In the course of years, they kept you as Поп об ужасах загробных каркал, property Чтоб покорнее рабство ты несла. By priests and family, in a dull vise.

Отошли те женские мытарства... Your husband wanted you to be Так иди, крепи советский строй. A mother, a cook, a mate, a servant, Управлять учись-как государством The priest prophesized afterlife horrors, Фабрики, колхозы, шахты строй. So that you would obediently take to slavery.

Не забудь: столовые и ясли These female tribulations have passed... От домашнего труда раскрепостят. So go, strengthen the Soviet system. Ничего не наколдует рясник Learn to rule the state, И не даст икона и обряд. Build factories, collective farms, mines.

Женщина! Иди, иди в Советы, Do not forget: dining rooms and nurseries Фабзавкомы, в Рики, в Профсоюз, Will liberate you from domestic work. Слушай лекции, учись, читай газеты, Expect nothing from the wearer of a cassock На Рабфак ступай, Спецтехникумы, в And avoid the icon and the rite. Вуз... Woman! Go, go to the Soviets, Знай: напрасно по небу ты шаришь. To the factory committees, to the district Вспомни: в прошлом как тебе жилось? executive committees, to the trade unions,

Listen to lectures, study, ready newspapers, Remember: How did you live in the past? Enroll in the workers faculties, in special Female toiler, woman, comrade, technical schools, in universities… Give up servile faith in priests and in god!

Know: In vain do you rummage the sky.