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': 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 Bolsheviki, by John Reed. The pamphlet includes two photos taken during the October Revolution.
Daily life and general views
- 'Russia's labours': 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': 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 online.
- 'Changing Asia': 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': 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 revolution. 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 Centrosojus, 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 Report (6 photos) and the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters, Cabinetmakers and Joiners Monthly Journal (5 photos).
- Photographs collected by the 1920 Trades Union Congress delegation and published in The Post, journal of the Union of Post Office Workers (5 photos - children, the Subbotnik and delegates addressing Russian audiences).
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Where the Arctic Cable Ends, 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 Russia, 1920. Article by William McLaine, including 3 photos (Putilov works and statue of 'The Metalist' at Petrograd).
- Photograph album / scrapbook of Tom Mann. 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, 1921. 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 Russia, 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 Russia, 1924. Contains 19 illustrations, including photos of welfare and housing projects.
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Soviet Russia: An Investigation by British Women Trade Unionists, 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 Union, 1925. It includes general views of Moscow and Leningrad.
- Daily Herald Soviet Trade Union Supplement, 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 Review, 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', 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.R, 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' newspaper, 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': 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': 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 revolution. Commemorative booklet (in Russian), including images of leading Bolsheviks in 1919.
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Soviet Russia Pictorial. No. 9: Lenin Memorial Number, 1924. Heavily illustrated publication produced after the death of Lenin.
- Lenin, 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 Union, 1925. The second half contains photographs of Soviet leaders.
Portraits of British delegations
- British Labour Delegation among the Russian Soldiers, 1917.
- 1920 Trades Union Congress delegation: 2 photos of delegates addressing meetings included in The Post, journal of the Union of Post Office Workers.
- 1924 Trades Union Congress delegation: 5 photos collected by Ben Tillett, including 3 of the delegation in Russia.
- 'British socialists confer in the famous Kremlin': photo of the 1924 Trades Union Congress delegation published in 'The Sunday Pictorial'.
- 'A Russian view of Mr Purcell': 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 delegation, photographed in a crowd at train station.
- Four photographs taken during Tom Mann's 1924 and 1926 visits.
- Photographs acquired by Percy Collick, railwayman and trade unionist, during his 1926 visit to Russia. Includes images of Collick and fellow delegates with Soviet workers.
Cartoons / paintings
- 'Another out-of-work'. 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 Allies. 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', 1919. Cartoon about White Russian atrocities illustrating an article by Henry Sara.
- 'The "Horrors" of Bolshevism': undated (probably 1920s) cartoon on Bolshevik redistribution of wealth, published by the Workers' Socialist Federation.
- 'The master key', 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?', 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', 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 International (monster sitting on pile of skulls), Soviet supply of vodka to the masses, 'Soviet equality', 'Communist education', the Red Army, 'demonstration of Soviet Russia to foreign tourists', 'Apes, watching arrival of members of the congress of the Komintern', the French Soviet Ambassador lounging on the beach, 'liberty in Soviet Russia', the rebirth of Russia, and 'Bolshevism in the colonies'.