Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge

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Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge
ArtistEl Lissitzky
Year1919
Mediumlithographic
SubjectDefeat of the White movement
Locationvarious (print)

Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (Russian: Клином красным бей белых!, Klinom krasnym bey belykh!) is a 1919 lithographic Bolshevik propaganda poster by El Lissitzky. In the poster, the intrusive red wedge symbolizes the Bolsheviks, who are penetrating and defeating their opponents, the White movement, during the Russian Civil War.

The image gained popularity in the West upon Lissitzky's migration to Germany in 1921. It is considered symbolic of the Russian Civil War in Western publications, and is often used in album art and advertisements. It is also used by left-wing political and activist groups in Europe, alongside the anti-fascist red triangle, a reclaimed symbol from Nazi Germany's persecution of left-wing political groups in Germany and German-occupied Europe.

History

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Futurist Synthesis of War, 1914
The Red Wedge, Nikolai Kolli, 1918
Cover of Der Apikojres [he] № 6 (Yiddish: דער אפיקוירעס) El Lissitzky, 1931

Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge is one of the most famous works by Lissitzky. Lissitzky made it in 1919, when Russia was going through a civil war, which was mainly fought between the "Reds" (communists, socialists and revolutionaries) and the "Whites" (monarchists, conservatives, liberals and other socialists who opposed the Bolshevik Revolution). The name, allegedly recommended by Ilya Ehrenburg, was possibly chosen to counter the Russian pogrom slogan "Beat the Jews!" (Russian: Бей жидов!, romanized: Bej zhidov!).[1][2][3][4] The full slogan was Beat the Jews - save Russia! [ru] (Russian: Бей жидов — спасай Россию!), and it was predominantly used by right wing monarchists and their militant Black Hundreds.[5][6][7]

According to Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers, in 1945 Pablo Picasso declared that the "painting was not invented for decorating houses, but as a weapon of attack and defence".[8]

Art historian Maria Elena Versari connected Lissitzky's poster with Italian Futurism manifesto Futurist Synthesis of War, published in 20,000 copies in 1914, and signed by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, and Ugo Piatti. Lissitzky never mentioned the manifesto, but his friend and colleague Malevich met Marinetti in 1914, and even called him one of the "two pillars, the two 'prisms' of the new art of the twentieth century". Malevich was also well aware of the Italian Futurists works and of Boccioni's theories. In 1916–1917 Malevich, together with artists Alexandra Exter and Olga Rozanova, published two issues of a journal about Cubism and Futurism. Later, in 1918, Malevich wrote: "Cubism and Futurism are the revolutionary banners of art". Also in 1918, young architect Nikolai Kolli created The Red Wedge monument in Moscow. It "consisted of a red triangle vertically inserted as a wedge into a white rectangular block. A very visible crack snakes downward from the tip of the triangle, suggesting that the force of the red wedge has succeeded in breaking the solidity of the white structure. The abstract metaphor was intended to signify the victory of the Red Army over the White, counter-Revolutionary forces." The monument initially was erected as a symbol of victory over White general Pyotr Krasnov, an important early triumph of the Red Army. Versari argues that Lissitzky "adopted an almost identical language" for his Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, though he never mentioned it.[9]

Lissitzky later used similar idea, a wedge in a circle, for a cover of Yiddish magazine Apikojres ('Atheist'), a periodical published by the League of Militant Atheists. As Artur Kamczycki writes, "Apikojres is a heretic – a Jew who does not believe in revelation and negates traditional religion and will therefore not have a share in the world to come and is bound for eternal damnation. In Yiddish, this word is often used to describe someone who has opinions that contradict the orthodox doctrine. Lissitzky suggests here that a revolution requires sacrifice and transformations in the name of the new, better world."[10] He also noted that Lissitzky believed in the forces of Revolution and combined it with a messianic elements of Judaism, writing:

The educated were expecting the 'new era' to arrive in the shape of a Messiah ... mounted on a white horse. But ... it came in the shape of Russian Ivan ...in tattered and dirty clothes, barefoot ... only the youngest generation recognized this [...].[11]

Modern use

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Visual arts

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  • The poster was drawn as hanging on a wall in a 1995 poster created by Gabor Baksay.[13]
  • The Russian artist Sergei Bugaev produced an "Anti-Lissitzky" series between 1991 and 1995 which included several derivative works based on "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge".[14]
  • In September 2021, a modified version of this painting was used in Novosibirsk to promote vaccination against the COVID-19.[15]

Music

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  • A similar simplified version (rotated 1/4 turn clockwise) was used by the German post-punk band Mekanik Destruktiw Komandoh (MDK)[a] for their 1983 12" single "Berlin", released on the sixth international label.[citation needed]

Fiction and games

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  • Lissitzky's Revenge is a game based on Lissitzky's propaganda posters from 1919. It was developed in 2015 and uses paper-cuts as a medium. In the game "you play as the red wedge and must recreate its violent assault on the white circle to complete each level".[21]
  • In the science-fiction TV series Farscape, the Peacekeeper faction uses a simplified version of the poster as their logo.[22]

News and non-fiction

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Political logos

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  • Several German-speaking Marxist organizations are using a simplified version of the poster for their logo, among them the German/Austrian/Swiss section of the International Marxist Tendency ("Der Funke")[26] and "Gruppen gegen Kapital und Nation".[27]
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Notes

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  1. ^ Named after Mekanïk Destruktïẁ Kommandöh, also abbreviated as MDK, the third studio album by French band Magma, released on 6 May 1973.
  2. ^ Protest against the party conference of the Berlin regional association of the AfD in 2018. See also:
     Media related to Protest against an AfD meeting in the Zitadelle Spandau on 04-09-2018 at Wikimedia Commons

References

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  1. ^ Silver 2024: "In 1918 Nikolai Kolli ... The avant-garde Russian Jewish artist El Lissitsky echoed that sculpture in his famous "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge" poster, some arguing that the slogan was chosen to counter the Russian pogromist slogan “Bej zhidov!” (“Beat the Jews”)."
  2. ^ Forgács, Éva (1999). "Malevich, Lissitzky, and the culture of the future". The Structurist. 39 (50): 49. Retrieved 30 August 2022. Lissitzky's choice of the words "Beat the Whites!" (Bei bielykh!) — supposedly on the advice of Ilya Ehrenburg — recalled the dreaded pogrom slogan "Beat the Jews!" (Bei zhidov!).
  3. ^ Forgács 2022, p. 49.
  4. ^ Birnholz 1974, p. 113: "I have found no contemporary references to the slogan "Beat the Whites", but it strikingly recalls the traditional shout of the pogroms, "Bei zihidov," or "Beat the Jews"— though "beat" is too weak, and "Jews" too polite for an accurate translation of this phrase."
  5. ^ Скобелев Андрей Владиславович (Skobelev, Andrey Vladislavovich) (2012). "Много неясного в странной стране..." III. Материалы к комментированию избранных произведений В. С. Высоцкого. Литературоведение ["There is much that is unclear in a strange country..." III. Materials for commenting on selected works by V. S. Vysotsky. Literary criticism] (PDF). Воронеж: Эхо. p. 38.
  6. ^ Размолодин, М. Л. (2013). ред. Иерусалимский, Юрий Юрьевич (ed.). Русский вопрос в идеологии черной сотни: монография [The Russian Question in the Ideology of the Black Hundreds: Monograph] (2-е издание, доп. и перераб ed.). Ярославль: Нюанс. p. 103.
  7. ^ Antisemitism: a historical encyclopedia of prejudice and persecution [ru] — Klier, John D. (2005). "Black Hundreds". In Richard S. Levy (ed.). Antisemitism: a historical encyclopedia of prejudice and persecution. Contemporary world issues. Vol. 1. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 71. ISBN 978-1-85109-439-4.
  8. ^ Lissitzky-Küppers 1980, p. 21.
  9. ^ Versari 2015.
  10. ^ Kamczycki 2013, pp. 92–94.
  11. ^ Lissitzky-Küppers 1992: 331, quoted after: Apter-Gabriel 1988: 118 cited in Kamczycki (2013, pp. 92–94)
  12. ^ Horvatinčić, Sanja (2017). Spomenici iz razdoblja socijalizma u Hrvatskoj – prijedlog tipologije (info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis) (in Croatian). Zadar: Sveučilište u Zadru. Retrieved 26 June 2018.
  13. ^ "Beim nächsten Werbeblock hau ich dir eine rein!". www.emuseum.ch.
  14. ^ "Sergey Bugaev-Afrika". VLADEY. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
  15. ^ "Авангардные плакаты с красным клином зовут новосибирцев на вакцинацию" (in Russian). 2021-09-07. Archived from the original on 2022-01-04. Retrieved 2022-01-04.
  16. ^ "The Mandem Need You: Can Grime4Corbyn succeed where Red Wedge failed?". Crack Magazine. The name Red Wedge was adopted from a lithographic soviet propaganda poster from 1919. The artwork, designed by constructivist artist El Lissitzky, was titled Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge in reference to the Bolshevik faction defeating the anti-communist White Movement confederation during the Russian Civil War. The image of a red triangle penetrating a large white circle was also reinterpreted by Bragg and his musical comrades. However, despite the poster's communist ancestry, the 1985 movement insisted it was not a communist organisation.
  17. ^ Tom Watson (2017-06-06). "06.06.17 (Words by: Tom Watson) "I'm a socialist, which means my glass is half full. I'm encouraged by the young people being mobilised." – Billy Bragg "The mandem need you." – Novelist". crackmagazine.net. The name Red Wedge was adopted from a lithographic soviet propaganda poster from 1919. The artwork, designed by constructivist artist El Lissitzky, was titled Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge in reference to the Bolshevik faction defeating the anti-communist White Movement confederation during the Russian Civil War. The image of a red triangle penetrating a large white circle was also reinterpreted by Bragg and his musical comrades. However, despite the poster's communist ancestry, the 1985 movement insisted it was not a communist organisation.
  18. ^ "The Mandem Need You: Can Grime4Corbyn succeed where Red Wedge failed?". Crack Magazine. The name Red Wedge was adopted from a lithographic soviet propaganda poster from 1919. The artwork, designed by constructivist artist El Lissitzky, was titled Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge in reference to the Bolshevik faction defeating the anti-communist White Movement confederation during the Russian Civil War. The image of a red triangle penetrating a large white circle was also reinterpreted by Bragg and his musical comrades. However, despite the poster's communist ancestry, the 1985 movement insisted it was not a communist organisation.
  19. ^ "F2 — Franz Ferdinand". Band Logo Juke Box. 2020-05-20.
  20. ^ "• The Design Appropriations of Punk and the New Wave". implica.tumblr.com. Archived from the original on 2016-10-06.
  21. ^
  22. ^ Farscape: the Illustrated Companion. Titan Books. 2000. pp. 27–28. ISBN 1840231785.
  23. ^ "Belarusian football team releases new kit inspired by avant-garde artwork".
  24. ^ Silver 2024.
  25. ^ https://www.peopleshistory.com.au/ "People's History of Australia is a podcast and blog looking at Australian history from the perspective of ordinary people fighting together for a better life. While most of the history we get taught focuses on the deeds of the great and powerful, we want to turn this upside down, and amplify those moments when ordinary people across Australia have made history – by coming together, overcoming the barriers and divisions that keep us isolated and atomised, and struggling collectively for justice."
  26. ^ "Der Funke". derfunke.at. Retrieved 2020-06-16.
  27. ^ "Gruppen gegen Kapital und Nation". gegen-kapital-und-nation.org. Retrieved 2020-06-16.
  28. ^ Silver 2024: "It was also an anti-fascist symbol in Britain. Anti-Fascist Action used the symbol in the 1980s with the red triangle piercing a swastika (right). That particular image harked back to early Soviet propaganda."
  29. ^ "Have Antifa members used an inverted red triangle as a symbol?". Skeptics Stack Exchange.
  30. ^ "Nasce la Rete dei Comunisti" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 September 2011.
  31. ^ Example: the second image in the gallery of this Reuters story is a banner that says "Crash the Party" in English and then in German "Nationalismus ist keine Alternative": Nasr, Joseph. "German far-right AfD party elects new leader backed by radical wing, By Joseph Nasr, 1 December 2019 3:26 AM GMT+10, Updated 30 November 2019". photo credit: Fabian Bimmer. Reuters. [2/6] Demonstrators hold a banner during an anti-AfD protest ahead of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party meeting in Braunschweig, Germany, 30 November 2019
  32. ^ The second image in this gallery: Nasr, Joseph (1 December 2019). "German far-right AfD party elects new leader backed by radical wing". reuters.com. photo credit: Fabian Bimmer. Reuters. [2/6] Demonstrators hold a banner during an anti-AfD protest ahead of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party meeting in Braunschweig, Germany, 30 November 2019

Sources

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