More US child workers die in agriculture than in any other industry. Every day, children are injured while working on US farms. And they receive frighteningly little safety training, making their work in demanding environments even more dangerous. Why are they still working in US agriculture? The children fear having their pay docked or being fired if they couldn’t keep up. Telling a 14-year-old to be careful with a machete, or a 15-year-old to be careful around pesticides, is hardly adequate safety training. Safety training is essential for all workers, but children shouldn’t be allowed to do such dangerous work in the first place.
In Soviet Russia, the graphic arts also proved a vital tool. The differences in Communist and Marxist control lead to a focus on duty to the state, as a result the vast majority of propaganda from the era reflected this sentiment. Soviet propaganda was aimed at the mobilisation of the working classes in order to facilitate the industrial advancement of the nation and build its military might. Unlike western propaganda however there was little humour to be found. Artists were employed by the Propaganda Section of the Central Committee of the Communist party, images were deemed crucial in order to spread messages to the masses, largely made up of poorly educated, illiterate workers.
Design techniques, strategy and distribution
One of the most prolific of the soviet propagandists was Dimitri Moor. Considered one of the founders of Soviet political poster design, some of Dmitri’s early work followed the same concept as well known American and British recruitment artworks such as the 1914 British First World War poster featuring Lord Kitchener (Fig. 3) and J. M. Flagg’s Uncle Sam poster from the United States (Fig. 5).
Fig 9: Dimitri Moor. 1920 Fig 10: Dimitri Moor
Did you volunteer? Workers of the world unite
In Fig. 9 the central figure mimics the earlier western designs with a pointing finger, encouraging men to enlist in the Red Army. The main figure is positioned above eye level as a way to make the subject more imposing but the primary difference comes from Moor’s choice to fill the negative space with a background of factories representing the industrial state. The phrasing is in direct comparison to the British and American posters, ”I want you” has been replaced by “Did you volunteer”, an indication that enlisting was expected in Soviet Russia. Much of Moor’s artwork was restricted to a minimal black and red colour pallet. Black was commonly used for all capitalist elements, while red was used for socialist elements such as flags and workers’ shirts.
From this soviet culture of embracing the developing modern technologies came Constructivism, the Russian school of “production art” that embraced machine-age design functionality and steered away from traditional decorative design work. Constructivists utilised simple flat colours, short, sharp slogans, geometric shapes a
