One of the iconic figures of Soviet propaganda was the колхозница (kolkhoznitsa, or “peasant woman”), who worked in the kolkhoz, or collective farms of the U.S.S.R.
The original poster showed a kolkhoznitsa determinedly making her way to the field, while a kulak, a drunkard, and a priest (all traditionally male figures) cling on to her and try to stop her. Notice the cartoonish elements of the trio as compared to the severe art style of the peasant woman. Victoria Bonnell of the University of California, Berkeley, elaborates:
The formidable peasant woman heroically resisting ‘class enemies’ in the countryside became a stock figure in visual propaganda of the early 1930s. Never before had the peasant woman been represented with this kind of perspectival distortion, which previously had been applied exclusively to the two unambiguous heroes of the revolution.
Bonnell’s article can be found here.




