Soviet vintage advertising

[museum-cdm.livejournal.com]

Soviet vintage advertising (1920s — 1930s).

1939



1938



1920s



1926



1930



1930



1938



1937



1927



1928



1930



1936



1939



1938



Children in vintage аmerican ad → →

Comments

[kittymink.livejournal.com]

I love the combination of awesome typography and awkward-looking children

[noluck-boston.livejournal.com]

I loved the kid eating all those cookies.

[kittymink.livejournal.com]

Me too! Shouldn't they be good Communists and share them with the other kids?

[luke-russell.livejournal.com]

Penultimate ad...what on earth is "natural soki"?

[luke-russell.livejournal.com]

Why does everyone look so awkward? I had no idea all these luxury products were so plentiful and available in early Soviet Russia, especially during the Depression. Truly a socialist paradise. I wondered what happened?

[bib-specialist.livejournal.com]

Just because they were advertised doesn't mean they were available to the wider Soviet public. If they were available at all, it was to those who could afford it (in the 20s, during the NEP period) or those with connections (in the 30s, after Stalin's abolition of the private sector). At this time, there were also famines and food shortages in parts of the Soviet Union. BTW, there was no Depression in the Soviet Union- it was isolated from the Western economies, and the 30s were a time of industrialization and great economic growth.

[luke-russell.livejournal.com]

Thank you for all that background. Very interesting. And your comments about the USSR in the 1930s sort of confirms my belief that, at times, a command economy may work "better" (or perhaps more fairly), especially if markets have failed.

[deborahkla.livejournal.com]

Just as our economy would not have recovered without government intervention (in both the 1930s and today), the communist government's regulation kept it from failing. Incidentally, the Australian economy is booming--they were the only Western country to successfully evade the worldwide recession--and their minimum wage is around $14 - $16 an hour.

[luke-russell.livejournal.com]

That's right, in fact very few make less than $20 an hour. Even at a car wash. AND there's no income tax for the first $36,000 of your income AND medical virtually all paid for under Medicare.

But don't even try to buy a house. A shack is upwards of $1,000,000.

[deborahkla.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...that's not what I've heard--it's all over the place about the Australian McDonald's employee who's buying a house. but TBH I'd rather make good pay and have most of my medical covered than worry about owning a house, which I'd never be able to own in the USA anyway.

[luke-russell.livejournal.com]

Odd, I live in Sydney and hadn't heard that story. Our news programs here are terrible. I'm sure a McDonalds employee could buy a house out in the bush, especially if a dual income household...but not possible here in Sydney!

[deborahkla.livejournal.com]

Every city in the world is very expensive to live in, especially major cities like New York, San Francisco, Paris, London, Melbourne and Sydney. That doesn't mean that housing in the rest of the country is the same. I would imagine that it's just as you say; farther out from the city, housing is cheaper and could very well be affordable, especially for a two-income family.

[franklanguage.livejournal.com]

All the ads are awesome, especially the elephant.

[museum-cdm.livejournal.com]

this is work of designer dmitry bulanov. he was well-known poster artist in prewar Leningrad. later he was repressed and died in prison.

[deborahkla.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for sharing these. I learned a little Russian in school because my grandparents both came from Southern Russia, and I love seeing old photos and old ads.