This poster belongs to a vintage set of Hungarian poster reproductions published in Hungary in 1969 by Kossuth in the communist period.

Title: Workers-peasants alliance!

Interesting poster that represents the union between the city (factory workers) and the countryside (peasants), this a common symbolism in communism, the most famous one is the sickle that represents the peasants and the hammer that represents the factory workers.

Historical context:

The Hungarian Communist Party (Hungarian: Magyar Kommunista Párt, abbr. MKP), known earlier as the Party of Communists in Hungary (Hungarian: Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja, abbr. KMP), was a communist party in Hungary that existed during the interwar period and briefly after World War II.

Printed in 1970

Made in Hungary

Publisher: Kossuth publishing house

Printing technique: silkscreen. 

Material: cardboard

Size: 25x35cm 

Artist :Gönczi (Tibor Gebhardt)

Language: Hungarian 

This is guaranteed 100% communist period item manufactured in Hungary.

This is not a recent issue, replica or tourist souvenir.

For further information, this poster belongs to a collection which its folder says (translated with google translator):

At the time of the biggest historical turn in Hungary, around 1945, the poster had a special role, this particular modern genre of mass influence. The fight for Budapest and the liberation of the western half of the country was still going on, when the first posters appeared in the eastern area. These works, combined with other means of propaganda, not only disguise the real face of fascism, but also lead the viewer to recognize the need for an action and to take the desired action. However, this objective is seldom achieved by the text alone: the image is an indispensable element in the effect of the poster. The task of the poster image is to attract the viewer's attention and capture his interest with the help of easy-to-experience, experiential illustrations. The poster image is a peculiar genre: although it is formed from the elements of reality, its essence is not the representation of reality, but the illustration of the relations, tendencies, ideas, pictorials that prevail in reality, so beyond cognition but they were encouraged to fight by dispelling the myth of the "miracle weapon" and proclaimed the imminent destruction of Nazi Germany. the fight against war, the confrontation with the reaction, the reconstruction of factories and flats, the start of productive work, the increase of production mood, then the fight against inflation, stabilization, the promotion of the new forint, and finally, but not winning the electorate in the political struggle between the parties, scrolling through the reproductions of this collection We keep an eye on the diverging tasks, the wide range of problems, and the posters advertising a wide variety of objectives. Not a call to all of this. From this definition, some may filter the view that the poster cannot be measured by a standard formed from the classical traditions of art; a genre in which art is at the service of non-artistic relations. The poster: applied art; a tool for trade and political propaganda. This goal, which is also a life-giving principle, does not preclude the poster from being an art. The purpose, task and nature of art are diverse. The history of art teaches that during the many thousands of years of development of art, something that could usually have been served in the traditional genres of fine art could not have been displayed or published. In the poster, the text and the image are of equal importance. The length of the poster text is short, its content is easy for everyone to understand, because only under such conditions can it fulfill its role, it fulfilled a social function in addition to meeting the public hair and belief that the goal of art is to achieve beauty and aesthetics. The tasks of art in a given age are the words of society.

Historical situation and different ideas and expectations about the goals of art. Of course, not least from the artists, from whether they recognized the tasks suggested by their age and whether they undertook them. This historical constraint is manifested not only in ideas about the goals of art, but also in the fact that different genres become important in different ages. One can imagine an age when progress was represented by the genre of still life - this was the case on the eve of the French Revolution - because then the analytically accurate depiction of reality meant the advance. - they were not required to take part in the reconstruction of the people's state, the free Hungarian homeland, and in the formation of its political image. Such an inspiring task is seldom given to an artist: history can directly participate in shaping the fate of a people, an entire people is its audience, the whole country is an exhibitor; billboards, house walls, means of transport. Throughout our history, artists had a similar task only during the Soviet Republic. Nevertheless, there is no causal connection or stylistic relationship between the posters of the two great historical periods. At first glance, it seems that the poster art of the Soviet Republic gives a more pictorial, more artistic, ie greater experience. However, this finding is incorrect. The poster art of the time of liberation was created under different circumstances, and when examining its artistic language, style and components, the circumstance that it relied on and built on the new artistic achievements developed after 1919 is obvious. In order to better understand this problem, it does not hurt to briefly revive the style and artistic method of the Republican posters and then compare them with the poster art conception of the era of liberation. The posters of the Hungarian Soviet Republic gained a prominent place and appreciation for the hitherto undervalued Hungarian poster art. The usually very short texts of these posters guide our minds to perceive and experience the dynamic effect of radiating explosive forces with the concise power of the word of origin. The value of the posters made in 1919 is also increased by the fact that they filled a gap, a mural placed in a public space, ie monumental art for the community. In our art, the national direction, as opposed to the decadent aristocracy of routine-superficial Rococo art. In the same way, there are ages in which the calmer and more thoughtful methods of the depiction genres cannot keep pace with current social needs and transfer their place in order of importance to other, more mobile genres. This happened in the period around the liberation and in the next few years. The most significant works of fine art of this period were posters. Otherwise, there was hardly a possibility for a different kind of fine art representation. The exhibition halls were damaged, ruined, new fine arts organizations had not yet been formed, and the old ones had lost their credibility. Time was urgent, no problems were allowed for a minute. Our poster artists were directly informed about the objectives and tasks by the clients, party and social organizations. Only applied art is able to establish such a close and current relationship. The designer of the political poster is especially demanding and seeking the guidance of the client, and is usually not offended by criticism or possible rejection of the design, as the practice and the contractor are driven by a common goal: as effective as possible. a work that would address broad sections of the population. to create more works.

The poster art of the Soviet Republic undertook to create monumental art that guided the masses and forged the wills into one. What Hungarian revolutionary poster art cannot develop in such circumstances for a while, this short period of production fully meets the needs of Lenin's "monumental propaganda". The posters of the Soviet Republic were not made by advertising graphic artists, but by painters They brought a new sound and a new form to the Hungarian fine arts, such as Ady or Bartók to the realm of poetry and music.Their style, the deed.Only our artists living in exile practiced this genre. Neue Sachlichkeit (the new objectivity) of German expressionism became involved in Hungarian art during his emigration to Germany, and his style of poster art was connected to Hungarian art. It was not only the Germans who cultivated it, but also the Mexican revolutionary artists, talk about the fate of human existence at a high temperature. But as they did not have the opportunity to fulfill their talents, their communist artists from Latin European nations also learned about them until the time of the Soviet Republic. The first Hungarian posters published by Sándor Ék in 1944–45 were the first heralds of the new era. An international plan that only seemed unworkable remained. However, the revolutionary period brought a goal, a task and a style of revolutionary art to Hungary. However, his work could hardly be continued in Hungary, as during his emigration Hungarian art, and poster art in particular, developed a different conception and a different means of expression. This style is a peculiar domestic version of surrealism. gave them an opportunity. They were able to create works of unprecedented size, several square meters in size, reproduced in print. These posters became the ornaments of the street, and at the same time the scenes and ideological backdrops of the revolutionary times: permanent. It is no coincidence that the advanced art of the Horthy era was nourished by this1 heritage. This statement applies in particular to the painting of Gyula Derkovits. It cannot be detected in a work during the Soviet Republic. Surrealism is one of the characteristic influences of the so-called Isms, in today's expression the style of avant-garde, in the form and content of the latest chronological style. Many of his works have an intelligible symbol system and a trend in them. His main task was to liberate man. It would meet the requirements of a political poster not only because of its easy-to-understand, clear compositional arrangement, which protests against artistic and behavioral habits. However, he took a political poster on neither the Derkovits nor the fundamental issue of the exploitation of man by man. He enthusiastically welcomed the Great October Socialist Revolution, expressing his sympathy for the Soviet Union. Many authoritative members of the group, such as Aragon, the novelist, and Éluard, the other advanced artist living at home, could not create. The Hungarian Communist Party, which was forced into illegality during the Horthy regime, had the greatest opportunity to produce leaflets and small wall stickers illustrated with agitating images: however, the number of copies was not large. poet, members of the French Communist Party. The development of the art of the two of them was increasingly influenced by the French Communist Party, and this circumstance soon.

Documents of a great era, but also valuable and significant works of art. You can look at all of them at length. We can observe the richness of artistic ideas, the almost inexhaustible creative invention, which expresses the efforts, problems and thoughts of the Hungarian people who have embarked on the path of socialism with pictorial liveliness, in a very varied form and solution. Not only this theme, but also the reproductive work of perceptions. This publication, selected exclusively from published posters, contains the works of all significant representatives of the renewed Hungarian poster art, both older and younger. Taken together, it proves that Hungarian poster artists considered their participation in political and economic struggles and in the construction of the country to be their profession. Hungarian art history writing has hardly taken these works into account. Hopefully, its variety will also captivate the viewer. Although symbolic realism from surrealism is the dominant trend, not all of our poster artists follow this path. Sándor Bortnyik - already a significant creative artist at the time of the Soviet Republic - the school-creating master of the Hungarian commercial poster is also included in this collection with some interesting and expressive works. With the publication of the most important Hungarian cultivator of photomontage, "Filo", poster artists can take their rightful place in the history of recent Hungarian art. After learning about the works published here, we can safely say that in the history of socialist art and the works of our poster artists are a time-tested value.