Racial harmony in a Marxist utopia

Racial harmony in a Marxist utopia: how the Soviet Union capitalised on US discrimination - in pictures

This poster from 1957, shows a multicultural group exploring Moscow sights. Photograph: Wayland Rudd Archive/ Yevgeniy Fiks/Flint

‘Workers from all countries and oppressed colonies raise the banner of Lenin!”; “All hail the world October revolution!” extol the slogans. But what makes these 1930s Soviet propaganda posters different is the inclusion of African people, marching arm-in-arm with other races towards a Marxist utopia. At the time, few Russians would have seen a black person in the flesh, including the artists who created these images...

Looking at today’s Russia, that post-racial idealism is difficult to locate – judging by recent reports of football racism and a Duma MP’s comparisons of Barack Obama to a monkey. Could it be that these posters – and the state-enforced anti-racism behind them – papered over the cracks of Russia’s underlying race problems? Or could it be that racism has risen anew as a consequence of the individualist post-Soviet landscape? Maybe it’s capitalism’s fault after all. theguardian

Soviet poster from 1920. Photograph: Wayland Rudd Archive/Yevgeniy Fiks/Flint