Political Posters, the Soviet Enlightenment and the Construction of a Learning Society, 1917-1928

Elena Ignatovich,Pierre Walter

doi:10.3384/rela.2000-7426.3561

Abstract

This paper explores the construction of a Soviet learning society represented in Soviet political posters during the first decade after the 1917 Socialist Revolution. The theoretical framework is based on studies of learning societies, lifelong education and learning, Soviet education, and the theory of multiple modernities. We employed a post-structuralist discourse analysis that allowed us to explore verbal and non-verbal poster elements to identify key domains in the construction of the Soviet learning society. Our study identified six main discursive visual and textual messages in political posters as educational devices in the development of the Socialist learning state. Findings show that learning was embedded in broader social, political, economic and cultural practices and took multiple forms. Political posters served multiple functions: they were motivators for learning, learning devices, means to communicate the Soviet party-state agenda, and part of the social-political and cultural curriculum of the learning society to come.

Highlights

Despite numerous studies in the field of learning/ educative/ knowledge societies, there is little knowledge about the practices of developing a learning society in the Soviet Union, which began to develop such a society after the October Socialist Revolution of 1917
The building of a new socialistic reality required from all Soviet citizens a new way of thinking that could only be achieved by mobilising mass education and learning by both children and adults in formal and informal settings
We would argue that the themes of these early posters carry through Soviet state political posters and other forms of education up through and after 1928

Summary

Introduction

Despite numerous studies in the field of learning/ educative/ knowledge societies, there is little knowledge about the practices of developing a learning society in the Soviet Union, which began to develop such a society after the October Socialist Revolution of 1917. No research has been done on how the Soviet state constructed a Soviet learning society during the early years of the Soviet Revolution and the formation, defence, and consideration of the new socialist state in first decade, 1917-1928 This was still a time of relative pluralism for the Bolshevik party-state when it was searching for new forms of adult education for the Soviet people. It was a transition period from the past into the future, involving many critical historical events: the October (Bolshevik) Revolution (1917), the Civil War and defense of the Bolshevik state (1918-20), state capitalism under Lenin and the New Economic Plan (1921-1928), and the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922). These were all before the advent of a more centralised, rigid party-state under Stalin, and the first Five-Year Plan (1928) regulating, systematising, and accelerating collectivisation and industrialisation

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion