Poster “May 1st. Workers have nothing to lose but their chains, and they will acquire the whole world.”
RSFSR. Moscow. 1919.
Publishing House of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies
Apsitis A.P.
Paper, lithography
94.6×69.3 cm

The task of May Day was to exalt the revolutionary heroics of the victorious proletariat, to demonstrate class solidarity and public enthusiasm in the struggle for a brighter future. Along with the use of the traditional symbol – red banner, which meant “birth in struggle”, in the early Soviet political poster images of the globe and broken chains were widely used. The greatest difficulty for artists was to reveal the image of the working class as a heroic community of the Bolshevik revolution and world history. On the poster of the artist Alexander Apsitis, the main character is depicted in a wide-open red work blouse (a symbol of purity and selflessness of thoughts). This poster gives an idea of the artists’ search for a new iconography of the May 1 holiday.