Leftist Posters from Japan

"In the 1930s, a new style of poster emerged that reflected the growing significance of the masses in Japanese society", says Pink Tentacle.

"These artistic posters borrowed elements from Western design and often incorporated bold slogans with political, economic and educational themes."
However, the original posting is quite a strange brew, leftist posters mixed with government propaganda. Here is only "pure proletarian" artwork.

Workers and Farmers Russian Art Exhibit (Japan Proletarian Art League, 1927):

Tohoku Area Famine Relief (Federation of Tokyo Area Proletarian Organizations, 1931):

The 2nd Proletarian Art Grand Exhibition (Japan Proletarian Artists Federation, 1929):

Proletarian Art Institute (1930)

Poster for The Proletarian Graph Magazine (Proletarian News Company, 1929):

Come, the Dawn of Mankind is Breaking (Farmers' Theater Performance, 1928):

And my personal favorite,

Election Poster for Labor-Farmer Party, 1928:

Source: "Japanese Posters and Handbills in the 1930s - Communication in Mass Society," published by National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo,
2001
Headline poster: "Listen! Workers of All Nations!" (1931)

It's interesting to compare these posters with some examples of Japanese industrial expo propaganda.

Tags: 1920s, 1930s, art, japan, poster, propaganda

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Comment by lord_k on October 24, 2010 at 12:36pm: To Larry:
Tomorrow I gonna show some 1930s Statist posters. A good illustration to the article.

Comment by Larry on October 24, 2010 at 12:26pm: Absolutely fascinating Wiki article. It shows that the situation in Japan was much more complex than many of us, including myself, in the West tend to think.

Comment by lord_k on October 24, 2010 at 11:19am: To Charlotte:
Well, I recommend you to read this article, just for starters.

Comment by Charlotte Wolery on October 24, 2010 at 11:12am: I wonder, what was the government's response to all this as the military seized control of the government staring in the mid-30s? After all the Soviets were seen by the ruling class as low-life thugs who murdered their rightful sovereign (which is actually true BTW). To keep the people fighting against Communism (the official reason for Japanese 'expedition' into China and an unofficial war with the USSR in 1938-39) I'd imagine they'd have to address leftist tendencies among Japanese factory workers. So what did they do? Other than shoot dissenters, and I'm sure they did a lot of that.

Comment by lord_k on October 21, 2010 at 8:24pm: No, it's a copy of widely known portrait by N. Andreyev (c. 1920-1921).
Lenin HAD some Asian features. There were artists in China, Vietnam and Soviet Asia who used to emphasize these features. But this Japanese poster is quite true to the original.