The People's Cube - Political Satire

Decades before Twitter and Facebook, the Soviet state was a leader in perceptual manipulation technology. Meet the mighty flying propaganda machine of the 1930s: the Maxim Gorky.

The idea sounds like something straight out of the People's Cube bunker (which may or may not exist), and so we are not at liberty (which also may or may not exist) to discuss it. Let's just say that this works as an extended metaphor of the rise and fall of the USSR itself, or of any other utopian regime held together by a supersized propaganda apparatus (we are not at liberty to point fingers either).

Here is the skinny.

The cost of the plane was estimated at over 5 million rubles and its design was based on that of Junkers aircraft from Germany, like many Soviet aircraft at the time. Construction began in 1933.

The plans envisioned a printing press capable of producing 12,000 pages an hour, a darkroom, and a pneumatic post system and telephone switchboard for communications inside the aircraft. A loudspeaker system, named Voice from the Sky, would broadcast to people below.

Another proposal, which prompts the Twitter comparison, called for 18 illuminated letters to be affixed underneath the wings to beam messages from on high. Experts disagree on whether this was implemented. The other idea was to show various images and slogans on the clouds or on a special smoke curtain created by the aircraft itself, by means of a special projector apparatus. These images and short slogans should be of a size that can be seen and read from the earth at a distance of around two miles.

While the Maxim Gorky was being built, a propaganda squadron of smaller aircraft traversed the country. The Maxim Gorky, upon completion, was to be their flagship. The squadron touched down in towns and villages to deliver agitational messages and show movies. Pilots might take village elders aloft and point out to them that God was nowhere to be seen, helping to fulfill another Bolshevik goal, that of eradicating religion.

One of the propaganda sheets dispensed by the squadron was proudly headlined “Thrown from a plane of the Maxim Gorky Propaganda Squadron” and contained a panegyric to the Revolution with an appeal for increased production of hemp products. While the squadron may not have transformed the populace into dedicated Marxist-Leninists, it surely created the impression that the Party was the bearer of progress and enlightenment.

The Maxim Gorky crashed on May 18, 1935, having completed only 12 flights, while carrying its builders and their families on pleasure trips over Moscow. Two smaller planes accompanied it, by their presence emphasizing the size of the flagship, with Party-approved songs blaring from the Voice from the Sky speakers. In a maneuver that was later described as "aerial hooliganism," one of the smaller planes crashed into the gigantic right wing of the Maxim Gorky and both aircraft fell to the ground, killing everyone on board.

Read the full story here: The strange history of a futuristic Soviet propaganda plane.
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The caption on the fantasy poster translated from Russian: Long live our happy socialist Motherland. Long live our beloved, great Stalin!

The letters on the wings say (from top to bottom) Vladimir Lenin, Iosif Stalin, Maxim Gorky, Mikhail Kalinin, Vyacheslav Molotov, etc. (yes, the same Molotov who later signed the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop peace treaty with the Nazi Germany that started WWII and whose name was additionally immortalized in the "Molotov cocktail," the gasoline-filled bottles that the Soviet soldiers threw at the German tanks in lieu of real weapons).

Red Square wrote:.... the same Molotov who later signed the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop peace treaty with the Nazi Germany that started WWII and whose name was additionally immortalized in the "Molotov cocktail," the gasoline-filled bottles that the Soviet soldiers threw at the German tanks in lieu of real weapons...

The Red Army had real weapons but they gave most of them to the Germans during Operation Barbarossa. It wasn't until Komrade Unkle Joe's fellow traveler FDR came along that the Red Army once again had real weapons furnished by the evil kapitalist USA <spit>.

Perhaps Komrade Glorious Leader should outfit Air Force 1 with loudspeakers and cloud projektion devices to broadkast messages about his "kommon sense approaches" to the peasants in fly-over kountry while he is flying to Kalifornia for fundraisers and to yuck it up on komrade Letterman's show.

Red Square wrote:... a panegyric to the Revolution with an appeal for increased production of hemp products.

Yeah, it sounds like hemp products were involved at one point or another in the design.

Still, no sillier than the Ekranoplan.

Hey! You were a Bullshit Bomber! Lucky stiff. Did flying over Detroit blaring propaganda turn out well? Or was that the cause of the '68 riots?

Our mission was slightly South of the now non-existent USSA boarder. In 1968 I was busy enjoying the race riots in Kansas City as only a child can. What a sumptuous affair they were.

I also have experience littering the countryside of North Korea. There was a time when the People's Air Force took every opportunity to drop informative leaflets (that probably meant death for anyone caught with one) from high altitude when the prevailing winds would take them North. The leaflet drops were always conducted at night. Bales of paper tossed out the back into the inky darkness.

The thing I remember most about those drops was the light, or lack of it. South Korea was ablaze with light at night. The boarder was very distinct. Not a light to be seen to the North. Must have been Earth Hour every time we flew this mission. What are the chances?

Recalling things that might not be The Current Truth,

Red Salmon

Red Salmon wrote:
...The thing I remember most about those drops was the light, or lack of it. South Korea was ablaze with light at night. The boarder was very distinct. Not a light to be seen to the North. Must have been Earth Hour every time we flew this mission. What are the chances?...

Perhaps the North Koreans had an elektricity shortage and were restrikted to only 5 minutes of light each night.

Gummipuppe wrote:

Red Salmon wrote:
...The thing I remember most about those drops was the light, or lack of it. South Korea was ablaze with light at night. The boarder was very distinct. Not a light to be seen to the North. Must have been Earth Hour every time we flew this mission. What are the chances?...

Perhaps the North Koreans had an elektricity shortage and were restrikted to only 5 minutes of light each night.

North Koreans do not have any shortage. They are just environmentally friendly.

Hammer and Loupe wrote:
North Koreans do not have any shortage. They are just environmentally friendly.

Oh, yes. Of course.

Gummipuppe wrote:

Red Square wrote:.... the same Molotov who later signed the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop peace treaty with the Nazi Germany that started WWII and whose name was additionally immortalized in the "Molotov cocktail," the gasoline-filled bottles that the Soviet soldiers threw at the German tanks in lieu of real weapons...

The Red Army had real weapons but they gave most of them to the Germans during Operation Barbarossa. It wasn't until Komrade Unkle Joe's fellow traveler FDR came along that the Red Army once again had real weapons furnished by the evil kapitalist USA <spit>.

Perhaps Komrade Glorious Leader should outfit Air Force 1 with loudspeakers and cloud projektion devices to broadkast messages about his "kommon sense approaches" to the peasants in fly-over kountry while he is flying to Kalifornia for fundraisers and to yuck it up on komrade Letterman's show.

But Komrade Glorious Leader would never get that close to the proles!

Gummipuppe wrote:Perhaps Komrade Glorious Leader should outfit Air Force 1 with loudspeakers and cloud projektion devices to broadkast messages about his "kommon sense approaches" to the peasants in fly-over kountry while he is flying to Kalifornia for fundraisers and to yuck it up on komrade Letterman's show.

Works for me. I understand there are still plenty of leftover Stingers out there. Preferably trailing a big long banner that says "DOWN THIS ONE."

Bigger is better. How bourgeois.

Red Salmon wrote:Our mission was slightly South of the now non-existent USSA boarder. In 1968 I was busy enjoying the race riots in Kansas City as only a child can. What a sumptuous affair they were.

'68 was before my time Comrade Salmon, but as a fellow native of Kansas City, thank you for your service to the nation. Go Chiefs!

Most Equal Kommisar al-Blogunov and Konservative_Punk,

I suspect that the reason my Active Duty crew was a selected for the Big Voice mission in the first place was because the "civilians" were tired of dealing with the Reserve and Guard Crews. While I got a good talking too about my graffiti, it was not my most heinous act of rebellion. I was already infamous for my sense of humor and lack of restraint in expressing it.

I have many happy memories of Green Ramp. Loading passengers who would be mysteriously absent when we landed. Other times going to parties in Panama and other undisclosed locations. Good times.

Komrad K_P, you didn't miss anything. And Go Chiefs.

Red Salmon

Red Salmon wrote:I suspect that the reason my Active Duty crew was a selected for the Big Voice mission in the first place was because the "civilians" were tired of dealing with the Reserve and Guard Crews.

<off>
Blogunov, I can attest that the AN-12 Variant flown by the US Hair Force does in fact land. In and out of Baghdad--twice each way, one landing back from R&R on Christmas day...

Not pleasant at all, and no in-flight snacks, no movie, no wi-fi, but the loadmasters were some PS-3 Playing MACHINES! The side exit is by far preferable to the steep/spiral landing. My first three jumps were from a C-123 back in 1980...you know, back when jump school was TOUGH...

Komissar al-Blogunov wrote:Also, while I have heard of Sikorsky's (now there's a real genius)

Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky is considered Russian, and he may have spoken Russian, but he was born, grew up, worked, and invented his first helicopters in Kiev, Ukraine (then the Russian Empire) before emigrating to the US in 1919, fleeing the communists. He was of Ukrainian/Polish decent.

In the past I didn't make such distinctions, even though a lot of talent from Ukraine eventually settled in Moscow or St. Petersburg because that was a necessary step to succeed in that empire. But now that Russia is demonizing Ukraine and claims that Ukraine is nothing without Russia, I'm beginning to differentiate who is who.
If Sikorsky hadn't fled to America, the new Soviet government would have eventually moved him to Moscow and then, during the purges, he could have been shot just like the thousands of others like him.

Ivan the Stakhanovets wrote:<off>
Blogunov, I can attest that the AN-12 Variant flown by the US Hair Force does in fact land. In and out of Baghdad--twice each way, one landing back from R&R on Christmas day...

Not pleasant at all, and no in-flight snacks, no movie, no wi-fi, but the loadmasters were some PS-3 Playing MACHINES! The side exit is by far preferable to the steep/spiral landing. My first three jumps were from a C-123 back in 1980...you know, back when jump school was TOUGH...