Favorite Over The Top Propaganda in History

Raferty

Lately, because I have been re-reading Anne Applebaum's Iron Curtain on the history of Communist takeover in Eastern Europe, I have also been looking at some of the Socialist Realist posters that came out during the period, as well as some of the anthems of the new order.

I have to say, the propaganda is so bad and over the top that it has almost a kitsch quality at this point.

My favorite is probably East Germany's Lied Der Partei (see below)


The lyrics literally say "The party, the party, is always right" and repeat it multiple times.

So I open it up with this: What is your favorite bits of over the top propaganda you have seen or heard (posters, songs, pictures, etc.) from a dictatorship, be it communist or otherwise?
 

Raferty

A second close favorite: Cultural Revolution Maoist Propaganda




Keep in mind that much of the propaganda was aimed specifically at the young, so it has a juvenile quality that is kind of endearing, until you remember what Maoism was, that is.

I am also struck by the dissonance of how Mao was treated by contemporary Western admirers at the time. I don't think they really understood what he was all about. The Black Panthers in particular were kind of hilarious in this, with simultaneous "Down with the system!" and "The Revolutionary Masses must be guided by the Communist Party, Down with counter-revolutionary deviationism !!" rhetoric.
 
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Raferty

For some old school domestic ones, besides the Disney WW2 cartoons, this poster has always been one I think is interesting:

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What I always thought was weird about it was the lack of personalization of the Japanese leaders paired with the intense focus on Hitler as a focus of fun. Very few posters went after Hirohito himself and Tojo was only mocked to a lesser extent. I think it was mostly because of a lack of understanding of how the Japanese system worked, while most of the populace had seen newsreels of Hitler ranting and raving.
 

General Tirpitz

Raferty said:
What I always thought was weird about it was the lack of personalization of the Japanese leaders paired with the intense focus on Hitler as a focus of fun. Very few posters went after Hirohito himself and Tojo was only mocked to a lesser extent. I think it was mostly because of a lack of understanding of how the Japanese system worked, while most of the populace had seen newsreels of Hitler ranting and raving.
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That was large extent due to racism. Compared to Germany, Japan was much easier to represent as the "other". To generalize (as there were many exceptions), American propaganda directed against Germany was more ideological while in the case of Japan it was racialized.
 
Worffan101

Worffan101

The USSR's anthem is some of the most gloriously ridiculous, chest-beatingly nationalistic bullshit the world has ever seen, and I love it.
 

Raferty

General Tirpitz said:
That was large extent due to racism. Compared to Germany, Japan was much easier to represent as the "other". To generalize (as there were many exceptions), American propaganda directed against Germany was more ideological while in the case of Japan it was racialized.
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Interestingly enough, I have seen from Japanese propaganda of the era a pretty explicit racial character to it, especially when dealing with Chinese and Americans. But usually that was also featured alongside attacks on Roosevelt being some kind of barbarian.

I just thought it was odd that there was less attacks on the Emperor than you would think.
 

Paul Spring

World War I was also good for over-the-top propaganda!
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Somewhat ironically, WWI propaganda in the USA at least was much more anti-German ( as opposed to anti-Nazi) than the WWII propaganda was!
 
theg*ddam*hoi2fan

theg*ddam*hoi2fan

Worffan101 said:
The USSR's anthem is some of the most gloriously ridiculous, chest-beatingly nationalistic bullshit the world has ever seen, and I love it.
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Agreed :D

I first heard it when I was about six - thanks to watching Hunt for Red October. Not knowing anything of the politics or anything, I just really liked the music (starts at 1:54)...

 

Raferty

For more modern examples, I look towards things like Hamas.


This video is pretty ridiculous. Like, do they really think that this is supposed to be scary?

I find videos like this below, apparently a TV show (not sure if its actually real or not, but man, that would be incredible) far scarier, about a terrifying costumed rabbit that eats Jews and seeks martyrdom:

 

Raferty

This one is from a Canadian election. Interesting to see what worked then and what works now.

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No political parties go into elections without sprucing things up a little bit, but evidently the Tories in Canada did for this election and it worked.
 

General Tirpitz

Raferty said:
I have seen from Japanese propaganda of the era a pretty explicit racial character to it, especially when dealing with Chinese and Americans. But usually that was also featured alongside attacks on Roosevelt being some kind of barbarian.
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Japanese propaganda often depicted Americans as some sort of monsters, but at the same time it usually lacked the idea that Americans were inferior to Japanese, at least physically or mentally. Japanese, having been avid students of the West, had became very aware of racial theories of the time and more or less had accepted their conclusions i.e. that they belonged to a race somehow biologically inferior to Whites. Because of this, their propaganda usually emphasized things like the stronger Japanese spirit or the degeneration of modern western culture in addition to general evilness of western powers towards Asian countries instead of racial factors.
 

Raferty

sa.jpg


This one, to me, seems weird. Its a Herut poster from the 1949 election, but it looks to me to be kind of odd, in that they are making their embodiment someone who is wearing a steel pot helmet and carrying a Lee Enfield. For a political party with roots in the anti-British Irgun movement, this seems a bit strange considering that the person looks like a standard Tommy. Perhaps IDF uniforms hadn't developed much separation as of yet. You can see by the armpatch he is wearing that Herut, and Revisionist Zionism, in this period still believed in a Trans-Jordan concept of Israel.

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This is a Bundist poster from I believe Poland (In Yiddish "Our fatherland is wherever we live", at least I think that is what it says). The message is aimed against Hashomer Hatzair (the Socialist Labour Zionist movement) and Beitar (the Revisionist-Jabotinskyite Zionist movement), who the Bund competed for votes from, both nationally and in terms of inter-Jewish organizations. Obviously, after the Holocaust, the Bund was completely and utterly discredited, but they had real popularity beforehand, and picked up votes from anti-Zionist Jews on both the left and the right.
 
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Laqueesha

Laqueesha

General Tirpitz said:
Japanese propaganda often depicted Americans as some sort of monsters, but at the same time it usually lacked the idea that Americans were inferior to Japanese, at least physically or mentally.
Click to expand...

North Korean propaganda is somewhat similar; not least because it is a former Japanese colony. In it, the "Korean race" (the "minjok") isn't portrayed as being stronger or smarter than others, rather more ethical, with non-Koreans being varying degrees of bad, from irredeemably untrustworthy to straight-up evil.
 
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