Stealing the Thunder: The Soviet Union and Graphic Propaganda on the Home Front during the Second World War

This article examines the effect of Ministry of Information home propaganda policies on official and socially engaged leftist visual discourses in Britain in the fields of photography, graphic satire and design after the Nazi German attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. It takes into account the pro-Soviet sympathies of Peter Smollett and others at the ministry. It also examines how government policies contributed to the ‘look’ of the ‘Social Vision’ of the Welfare State. From 1941, policies were developed by the ministry to encourage particular cultural and political attitudes towards the Soviet Union, communism and socialism at home and abroad. The ministries of Information and Supply ordered print runs of Soviet posters with captions translated into English alongside posters carrying photographs and news stories, illustrating the Soviet war effort and British war production for Soviet aid. They were widely distributed to places where the working population and armed forces might congregate. Signi...