posted 02-18-2007 03:12 PM            

I've been swamped in work lately, but decided to post a few items today for a bit of a break.

Here is a rather worn cigarette case with a Kiev mark, and great military design. I presume the inscription is also military-related, but I can't read it -- not even sure whether it's Russian, or Ukrainian written in Cyrillic.

Can anyone help with this?

posted 02-18-2007 05:26 PM            

To the President of the Council of the OSO (Society for the Defense of the Soviet Union and for the Development of its Aviation and Chemical Industries),
Ukrainian Road Construction Project
Nicolai Yakovlevich VERPET
For active defense work on the tenth anniversary of the OSO
[from] the Council of the OSO, Directorate of the Southwestern Railroad
January 23, 1937

posted 02-19-2007 09:41 AM            

Tom, you're quite right about the imagery, but what's interesting here are the specifics. Where much Soviet imagery had an outstretched arm towards the future, or something similarly optimistic, this shows a retreat. It's a technique widely used by the bolsheviks of mounting a machine-gun (water-cooled, in this case) in the back of an open car. These could be driven to the lines and the guns turned to fire in any direction. But in this case the car is speeding forward, and the gun is being ferociously fired to the rear, covering a retreat. The outstretched arm here can be seen as throwing a grenade, or as an expression of frustrated reaching out -- sort of, anguished outreach to comrades left behind in the retreat, maybe.

The engraving's reference to road construction is perfect here, as use of that kind of vehicle to move troops and weapons depended on having good roads (much like the motivation for our US interstate highway system, years later). Within just a few years of this commemoration the Soviets had ramped up production of tanks and other tracked vehicles that were less reliant on roads, and the famed "tank-riders" -- mobile infantry who were moved into position riding on tanks -- were in some ways descendants of these bolshevik car-mounted fighters.

The image here probably reflects an incident -- real or imagined -- dating to the period 1917-30, based on the style of the car and, to a lesser extent, the gun. There are many other examples of Soviet propaganda deploying images from the revolution period, of course, but I don't remember many featuring a retreat. I suppose it's like the later invocations of the siege of St. Petersburg, intended to inspire through lessons of hardship....