Workers and farmers! Enlist in the Red Army. Forward to liberate Bessarabia!
Poster Number: PP 024
Category: Civil War
Poster Notes: Illustrations show Communist Hungary (the star) and Bessarabia (a chained woman) surrounded by Romania (a dragon). Today, the nation of Moldova encompasses the lands of former Bessarabia.
Russia's Provisional Government of 1917 declared the Moldavian Democratic Republic an autonomous republic of Russia. By May 1918, Austro-Hungarian troops occupied a section of northern Bessarabia and they ceded it to Romania. After its incorporation into Romania, civil unrest broke out. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government gave an ultimatum to Romania demanding its withdrawal from Bessarabia. When that ultimatum produced no result, the Soviets dispatched the Red Army to expel Romanians from Bessarabia. From the military incursion, the Bessarabian Soviet Socialist Republic was formed in 1919. Even though the Soviets never fully controlled Bessarabia, (its land was officially governed by Romania at the time), the Red Army was again sent to Bessarabia in 1940 resulting in the formation of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic as a part of the USSR.
Media Size: 30.5x22
Poster Type: Lithograph
Publishing Date: c.1919
Sources & Citation: Soviet Posters of the era of the Civil War 1918-1921 by B. S. Butnik-Siverskii (1960), page 195, poster 541
Catalog Notes: PP 024 Civil War b
Artist: Artist Unknown — неизвестный художник
The artist's name on the poster is not indicated. By assigning Artist Unknown to a poster it also could mean the artist used a chop mark whereby no signature is seen thus rendering the artist's identity anonymous.
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Printer: Printer not indicated —
Publisher: Department of Soviet Propaganda at the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies of Odessa — Отдела советской пропаганды при исполкоме Одесского С.Р.Д.
From May 1917 onward, the sphere of political influence in Odessa was in the hands of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies that was being supported by Rumcherod -- the Central Executive Committee of Soviets of the Romanian Front, Black Sea Fleet and Odessa region. Soviet influence in Odessa increased following the 1917 October Revolution in Petrograd (St. Petersburg). In January 1918, a Soviet coup took hold in Odessa and it culminated in the short-lived Odessa Soviet Republic. The ...
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