GAMBLING IS NEVER PROFITABLE

King Ozymandias

rendered in stone with a

strident decree.

Says our dear traveller

(unsentimentally)

"All that remains is his

I tried to do a bit of a deep dive on this poster because it’s so different from what I normally see as examples of Soviet art. I wanted some context especially since Soviet art from the 80s just doesn’t pop up much on my radar and I was curious if this style/sentiment became more common as time progressed. 

I couldn’t find anything that wasn’t Reddit or Pinterest to source this specific image, but I did find out that it’s based on an earlier image – the cover of Soviet Life Magazine from January 1983, art by Boris Rogachevsky. (Probably not the most visible B. Rogachevsky, a cameraman, as he died in 1963). Unfortunately the inside index page is scanned crooked so we get the attribution and then the tantalizing phrase “symbolizes the idea that” before the rest is cut off. But the title of the issue (”Peace: Policy and Perspectives”) syncs with the idea that Rogachevsky was indicating there’s nowhere to go if we can’t resolve our differences. (Soviet Life ran another similar cover in 1987.)

What’s especially interesting, however, is that this wasn’t, at least initially, content intended for Soviet audiences. Soviet Life Magazine was part of an exchange that America and the USSR did where each government was allowed to publish a (very limited run) monthly periodical in the others’ country. So this image was on the cover of an English-language magazine meant for Americans, to present Soviet culture. I could get into why the Soviet government of the 80s might want to start talking more loudly about how the USSR and America really need to make sure they get along, but it’s not really my area of expertise.