Picturing Russia: images of the country and its rulers
This page links to some of our visual sources on Russia and the Soviet Union in the decade after the revolution, made available through our digitisation projects on 'The Russian Revolution and Britain, 1917-1928' and 'Henry Sara's lantern lectures'.
Revolution
- 'Russia's struggle'Link opens in a new window: 101 colourised photographic slides of revolutionary 'struggle' against the Tsarist regime, and the upheavals of the October Revolution and Russian Civil War (digitised as part of Henry Sara's lantern lectures).
- Red Russia: The Triumph of the BolshevikiLink opens in a new window, by John Reed. The pamphlet includes two photos taken during the October Revolution.
Daily life and general views
- 'Russia's labours'Link opens in a new window: 104 colourised photographic slides of Soviet Russia shortly after the Russian Revolution, focusing on the lives of the general population (digitised as part of Henry Sara's lantern lectures).
- 'Russia in 1925'Link opens in a new window: 155 photographic slides of Russia eight years after the revolution, taken by the British Communist Henry Sara. Identifiable places include St Petersburg, Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod (digitised as part of Henry Sara's lantern lectures). 41 photographs taken by Sara during his visit are also available onlineLink opens in a new window.
- 'Changing Asia'Link opens in a new window: 79 photographic slides and other images portraying Russian Turkestan (now Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan) in the 1920s (digitised as part of Henry Sara's lantern lectures).
- 'Oddments'Link opens in a new window: mixture of photographic slides of Russia, Russians and propaganda material (digitised as part of Henry Sara's lantern lectures).
- Red Petrograd: second anniversary of the great proletarian revolutionLink opens in a new window. Commemorative booklet (in Russian). Contains images of Petrograd (Leningrad / St Petersburg) in 1918-1919, including of the first anniversary celebrations, mass meetings, and welfare and electrification projects.
- The All-Russian Central Union of Consumers' Societies: The CentrosojusLink opens in a new window, 1920. Pamphlet which includes 17 photographs of co-operative movement projects and buildings in Russia, including village dairy, chemical lab and factories.
- Photographs of Russian workers (in railway works, on building site, etc.), collected by the 1920 Trades Union Congress delegation and included in articles for the Amalgamated Engineering Union Monthly Journal and ReportLink opens in a new window (6 photos) and the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters, Cabinetmakers and Joiners Monthly JournalLink opens in a new window (5 photos).
- Photographs collected by the 1920 Trades Union Congress delegation and published in The Post, journal of the Union of Post Office WorkersLink opens in a new window (5 photos - children, the Subbotnik and delegates addressing Russian audiences).
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Where the Arctic Cable EndsLink opens in a new window, 1920. Article by A.E. Thompson, a telegraph operator who served in Russia with the British army. Includes 7 photos of Archangel, the local wireless station and Samoyod visitors.
- An engineer in Soviet RussiaLink opens in a new window, 1920. Article by William McLaine, including 3 photos (Putilov works and statue of 'The Metalist' at Petrograd).
- Photograph album / scrapbook of Tom MannLink opens in a new window. Includes photographs taken during Mann's 1921 visit to Russia, including images of the founding congress of the Red International of Trade Unions, a boat trip on the Volga (with Kalinin) and famine refugees in Samara. The album also contains various non-Russian images.
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Album of the funeral of P.A. Kropotkin in Moscow, 1921Link opens in a new window. Pamphlet contains 31 photographs, including images of crowds viewing the coffin and anarchists speaking at the graveside.
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First Workers' Loan and International Economic Help Campaign for Soviet RussiaLink opens in a new window, 1923. Pamphlet contains 14 photographs, including images of Russian projects helped by the loan (mostly farms and factories).
- Russia, the official report of the British Trade Union Delegation to RussiaLink opens in a new window, 1924. Contains 19 illustrations, including photos of welfare and housing projects.
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Soviet Russia: An Investigation by British Women Trade UnionistsLink opens in a new window, 1925. Contains 26 illustrations, including photos of buildings, sanatoria, peasants, pioneers, and the delegation.
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Album of postcards presented to Annie Bridge during her visit to the Soviet UnionLink opens in a new window, 1925. It includes general views of Moscow and Leningrad.
- Daily Herald Soviet Trade Union SupplementLink opens in a new window, 1925. Includes 11 photos of leading trade unionists, trade union facilities (including children's home and gym) and buildings.
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International Anti-Bolshevik ReviewLink opens in a new window, 1926. Includes 4 photographs of atrocities.
- 'To comrades and brothers: from the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union on the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution'Link opens in a new window, 1927. Photograph album which includes official views of Soviet leisure / sport, welfare and educational facilities, housing and military.
- The Trade Union of Soviet and Commercial Employees of the U.S.S.RLink opens in a new window, 1927. Pamphlet which contains 17 photos of union facilities / activities, including Crimea convalescent home, employees' clubs, children's centre, village militia, co-operatives, office 'Red Corner', employees' drama group performing 'China, Arise!', and sports.
- 'The Red Star' newspaperLink opens in a new window, no.1, July 1927. The back page contains photos of Red Army march in Red Square, tractors at the Putilov works, Soviet leaders (Rykov, Tomsky and Stalin), and a public demonstration outside the British mission in Moscow.
Soviet leaders
- 'Life and work of Lenin'Link opens in a new window: 111 slides on the life of Vladimir Lenin - from childhood to death (digitised as part of Henry Sara's lantern lectures).
- 'Leon Trotsky, the man without a country'Link opens in a new window: 64 slides on the life of Trotsky - from childhood to life in exile during the 1930s (digitised as part of Henry Sara's lantern lectures).
- Red Petrograd: second anniversary of the great proletarian revolutionLink opens in a new window. Commemorative booklet (in Russian), including images of leading Bolsheviks in 1919.
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Soviet Russia Pictorial. No. 9: Lenin Memorial NumberLink opens in a new window, 1924. Heavily illustrated publication produced after the death of Lenin.
- LeninLink opens in a new window, 1925. Commemorative album published in Germany, containing images of Lenin from childhood to death.
- Album of postcards presented to Annie Bridge during her visit to the Soviet UnionLink opens in a new window, 1925. The second half contains photographs of Soviet leaders.
Portraits of British delegations
- British Labour Delegation among the Russian Soldiers, 1917Link opens in a new window.
- 1920 Trades Union Congress delegation: 2 photos of delegates addressing meetings included in The Post, journal of the Union of Post Office WorkersLink opens in a new window.
- 1924 Trades Union Congress delegationLink opens in a new window: 5 photos collected by Ben Tillett, including 3 of the delegation in Russia.
- 'British socialists confer in the famous Kremlin'Link opens in a new window: photo of the 1924 Trades Union Congress delegation published in 'The Sunday Pictorial'.
- 'A Russian view of Mr Purcell'Link opens in a new window: cartoon of A.A. Purcell, member of the 1924 Trades Union Congress delegation, reproduced from a Soviet newspaper.
- John Bromley, member of the 1924 Trades Union Congress delegationLink opens in a new window, photographed in a crowd at train station.
- Four photographs taken during Tom Mann's 1924 and 1926 visitsLink opens in a new window.
- Photographs acquired by Percy Collick, railwayman and trade unionistLink opens in a new window, during his 1926 visit to Russia. Includes images of Collick and fellow delegates with Soviet workers.
Cartoons / paintings
- 'Another out-of-work'Link opens in a new window. Cartoon on the February Revolution and overthrow of the Tsar in the National Union of Railwaymen's newspaper 'The Railway Review'.
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Russia's Call to Humanity "Save Our Souls": An Appeal to the AlliesLink opens in a new window. Anti-Bolshevik pamphlet, with front cover portraying a drowning man (Russia) being saved from a raging sea (by the Allies) whilst other perish around him.
- 'They speak for themselves'Link opens in a new window, 1919. Cartoon about White Russian atrocities illustrating an article by Henry Sara.
- 'The "Horrors" of Bolshevism'Link opens in a new window: undated (probably 1920s) cartoon on Bolshevik redistribution of wealth, published by the Workers' Socialist Federation.
- 'The master key'Link opens in a new window, 1920. Cartoon about the British labour movement's anti-militarism during Russo-Polish War, from the National Union of Railwaymen's newspaper 'The Railway Review'.
- 'Which is the dictator?'Link opens in a new window, 1920. Cartoon about the Council of Action, formed to prevent direct British military intervention in the Russo-Polish War, from 'The Railway Review'.
- 'That "Rooshian" Feeling'Link opens in a new window, 1924. Labour Party election leaflet which uses a spoof of the cartoon used in adverts for Kruschen Salts to promote the Anglo-Russian trade agreement.
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International Anti-Bolshevik Review, 1926. Includes anti-Communist cartoons on the Third InternationalLink opens in a new window (monster sitting on pile of skulls), Soviet supply of vodka to the massesLink opens in a new window, 'Soviet equality'Link opens in a new window, 'Communist education'Link opens in a new window, the Red ArmyLink opens in a new window, 'demonstration of Soviet Russia to foreign tourists'Link opens in a new window, 'Apes, watching arrival of members of the congress of the Komintern'Link opens in a new window, the French Soviet Ambassador lounging on the beachLink opens in a new window, 'liberty in Soviet Russia'Link opens in a new window, the rebirth of RussiaLink opens in a new window, and 'Bolshevism in the colonies'Link opens in a new window.