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[VARVARA STEPANOVA] Massy vozhdiu [i.e. From the Masses to the Leader] / compiled by S. Khaevskii

Item #2367

Moscow: Partizdat, 1934. 216 pp.: ill. 34,5x26 cm. In original cloth with colored lettering. Very good condition. Left bottom corner of the title page is restored skillfully, as well as the tears on the fold-out. First and only edition. One of 1000 copies. Very rare.

This parade book could be considered the most concentrated praise of Joseph Stalin. It consists of numerous thankful letters, reports and appeals addressed to the leader of the Communist party.

In the majority of cases, the letters were attributed to groups: shock-workers of industries (heavy, energy, chemical, oil, aviation), representatives of the OGPU (as responsible for the White Sea–Baltic Canal) and employees of certain factories: the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, the Kharkiv Tractor Factory, ZIL and GAZ, the Red Putilovite Plant, the Uralmash, Dnieper Dam, etc. The letters praise achievements of the country and cite Stalin’s quotes related to all sections. For instance, the first Soviet semi-rigid airship was successfully tested in 1933 and early Soviet high-altitude balloons were launched and set new world records. “Something that the capitalist countries couldn’t succeed in for many years, the workers managed to do under the leadership of the
Bolshevik Party and its leader Stalin.” – the aviation section reads. The design was created by one of the leading book designers of the 1930s, Varvara Stepanova (1894–1958). Photographs were provided by Vladimir Griuntal (1898–1963).

13 full-page photomontages combine photographs of machines, parts of factories, workers, products (including an automobile), etc. placed above selected publications in official huge-run newspapers. Being printed in such newspapers as ‘Pravda’ [Truth], many texts actually became the only truth available for the masses of the large-scale state. In those terms, the newspaper publications were chosen as testimony of workers’ common approval of the Stalinist course. The only place where Stalin’s name isn’t magnified in this book is the title page. Stepanova enlarged
the word “masses” to show the scale. The motif of a crowd is shown in the endpaper design and, according to the clothes, the picture was taken during a holiday. The edition includes minimalistic two-color half titles and a colorful folding panorama created by M. Dobrakovskii. The panorama shows Stalin looking at a well-built city with passenger and cargo trains going and airships flying above.

Worldcat shows the only copy located in Ohio University.

Price: $12,500.00