Copyright © 2003 Hugo S. Cunningham
Original Soviet text was not copyrighted

Added 20030422
Last minor change 20030422



Ob"yasnenie latinskoj azbuki vospolzuemoj zdes'

Cena 40 kop.Price 40 kopeks
BEZBOZHNIK U STANKA, #1 (1924)THE ATHEIST AT THE WORKBENCH
ZHURNAL M.K.R.K.P.
(Bol'shevikov)
MKRKP -- mozhet byt' «Moskovskogo Komiteta Rossijskoj Kommunisticheskoj Partii»
JOURNAL of the M.K.R.K.P.
(Bolsheviks)
MKRKP -- perhaps "of the Moscow Committee of the Russian Communist Party"
Ris. D. MoorCartoonist: D. Moor
BURZHUJ: Iegova, ty dolzhen sobrat' ves' narod tvoj, najdi zabludshixsya detej tvoix, kotorye gde-to tut pryachutsya, i vot gospodin podpolkovnik pomozhet nam. CAPITALIST: Jehovah, you must gather all your people here, find your prodigal children who are hiding somewhere, and here is Mr. Superintendant [of police] to help us.


The theme of this month's issue (and cover) is anti-Judaism, not to be confused with antisemitism. Ethnic Jews were accepted in the Soviet Union of the 1920s, but the Jewish religion was, like Russian Orthodoxy, condemned as a snare for the masses. "Jehovah" is supposed to lure ethnic-Jewish workers away from the Communist rally shown in the background.

The Jewish god "Jehovah" (who is given a different persona from the Christian "God the Father") wears a prayer shawl, a skullcap, and on his forehead tefillin. He has a single Cyclops eye, a reference (correspondent Lauri reminded me) to the "All-Seeing Eye" used by some Jewish artists as a substitute for banned images of G-d Himself.
Some Christians, eg Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, have felt free to portray God the Father.
The "All-Seeing Eye" also has been used as a symbol by Freemasons, eg. over the pyramid shown on the back of the USA $1 banknote.


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