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Happy May Day!

may day
Detail from a Russian May Day Poster, 1930, original size 103 x 73 cm.

Proletarii! Sryvaĭte podgotovku imperialistov k voĭne!: V denʹ 1 maia tesneĭ sonmknem riady v borʹbe za Sovetskiĭ Soiuz i za mirovuiu proletarskuiu revoliutsiiu!

Proletariats!  Frustrate the imperialists preparations for war!  On the 1st of May, tighten up the ranks in the fight for the Soviet Union and proletarian world revolution!

This May Day poster was printed to commemorate the Communist Party’s most important labor holiday.  Of the 75,000 posters originally printed in Moscow by Gosudarstvennoe izd-vo, the government authorized publisher, only a limited number have survived to the present. This lithograph is number 782 and is housed in the Russian Poster and Print Collection.

The Russian Poster and Map Collection contains rare lithographs and maps printed in Moscow and Leningrad between the years 1929 and 1936.  These materials were given to the University Libraries by an anonymous donor when the Special Collections department was established in the early 1970s.

To see this and other Russian and Soviet posters, visit Special Collections located on the second floor of the Bartle Library.