7/21/2016, 8:00 pm
The Russian Communist Party is sexing up its election campaign with Photoshopped posters depicting the Bolshevik leader, Lenin, as a young stud with a red laptop, a communist t-shirt, blue jeans, and a hot babe by his side. Then there's a Photoshopped picture of Stalin sucking on a red advanced personal vaporizer, or MOD (a type of e-cigarette for you non-smokers), with a caption, "Modernize, comrades!" There's also a leather-clad Karl Marx carrying a volume of Das Kapital (spelled in English for some reason as "Capital") and saying the Terminator's line, "I'll be back," also in English.
This is done admittedly in an effort to attract younger voters, especially women, who the Russian Communist Party strategists believe would rather be seen with a cool and healthy hunk of sexy man-meat than with a square and sickly aging bookworm.
We should warn our comrades in the Motherland, however, that in the progressive quarters of American academia, to where the vanguard of the revolutionary thought has now been relocated, such views are considered sexist, ageist, racist, and homophobic, while the posters themselves constitute a clear micro-aggression that can easily trigger a campaign of denunciations followed by lengthy apologies and resignations among the Party leadership.
We are also shocked and appalled that our comrades in the Motherland should think that in order to make the communist icons look more cool they should be made to look more American - complete with the English language and Hollywood catch phrases, as well as capitalist Levi's, biker jackets, sneakers, MODs, laptops, and smart phones - none of which are produced in the Motherland.
Instead of promoting communism, this approach subliminally plants a subversive idea that communists need capitalism in order to look cool. The only redeeming features in this entire agitprop are young Lenin's red cap and scarf - a hint that he might be gay or at least bisexual.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with revising and pimping up history - Stalin himself used to Photoshop comrades in and out of the pictures even before Photoshop was invented. However, couldn't the Russian communist organizers find at least one cool thing invented and manufactured in the USSR during the seventy years of the Communist Party rule that these characters could be wearing or holding in their hands? Like, for example… Well… Anyway, the alternative korrekt approach to modern agitprop would have been to make the characters more diverse and less Western, representing minority world cultures.
Thus, Stalin could be made into a kuffia-wearing Palestinian rebel with an AK-47, Lenin could be African-American in the New Black Panthers Party uniform carrying a bag of medical marijuana, the female person next to him could be a plus-sized lesbian in hijab, and Karl Marx could have large female breasts identifying a transgendered individual in Birkenstocks and ethnic clothing, while holding the Koran under his arm.
These are the coolest archetypes of the modern era that would be guaranteed to attract the largest number of progressive millenials. Please make a note of it.
While this first piece of advice is free, any follow-up consulting and agitptop manufacturing will be charged according to prevailing union rates as per 2016 Graphic Artists Guild Handbook's pricing guidelines.
P.S. Nevertheless, we did like the picture of Lenin fingering the touchpad, so we added him to the group of babushka cheerleaders at the top of the People's Blog - all in the spirit of communist redistribution, of course.
See the larger posters below:
"There is such a party!" - a Lenin's quote; he said it answering a politician's allegation that no Party can steer the country out of trouble. Lenin's voice from the back of the room screamed, "There is such a party!" The rest is history.
Stalin: "Modernize, comrades!" (not a real quote).
"The second century online" - probably meaning that the communist revolution in Russia will be a hundred years old next year and will be entering its second century, this time online. Or it could simply mean the second century of failure.
Karl Marx: "I'll be back" - wearing blue jeans, a leather jacket, and a red t-shirt, holdng his book, Das Kapital, apparently in English translation. Extra beet ration to a comrade who can identify the make and model of Marx's watch. Let's hope it's not a counterfeit Rolex.
