Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has said that he considers the end of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” In that sense, he must have experienced a pleasant sense of nostalgia when he visited North Korea on June 19 for the first time in 24 years and was welcomed in the capital Pyongyang by fellow dictator Kim Jong-un.
The North Korean leader organized a grand celebration in Kim Il-sung Square, named after his grandfather, the founder of North Korea: a large red carpet was rolled out for the two dictators to pass by; huge banners in the colors of the flags of both countries were hung from the monumental buildings in the square; huge portraits with the faces of Putin and Kim made the children holding balloons and small flags, the military personnel parading and the audience look like ants in comparison.
It was an event reminiscent of the huge Stalinist-era parades in Russia, when large portraits of the dictator Josef Stalin were carried alongside equally gigantic portraits of Lenin, Marx and Engels. But what were the meanings behind the North Korean reception of Putin?
Ericson Straub, professor of design at the School of Fine Arts at the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná (PUCPR), explained in an interview with People’s Gazette that the aesthetics of Soviet propaganda, which ended up serving as the basis for communication in other communist countries, had two distinct moments.
The initial moment was the decade following the Russian Revolution of 1917, when all graphic communication in the nascent Soviet Union was conducted by artists and intellectuals (such as El Lissitzky and Alexander Rodchenko) from the so-called Russian constructivism, who adopted a minimalist aesthetic.
“Some continued after Stalin came to power [depois da morte de Lênin, em 1924]but most of those who participated in constructivism left, most to Germany. They were socialists, but they did not agree with Stalin’s way of conducting [o país]”, explained Straub.
A few years later, Stalin promoted changes in the aesthetics of Soviet visual communication, banning abstractionism and paving the way for the so-called cult of personality.
“In 1928, the Socialist Realism movement was created, which basically portrayed that thing of strong, hard-working, happy people, industrialized Russia, which was a lie. It was a ‘realism’ that was not true, they created a whole visual rhetoric that did not correspond [à realidade]. And the aesthetics also changed, it was no longer minimalist like constructivism,” Straub explained.
“Stalin called himself the great leader, the teacher of the Soviet people, the father of the nation, and this cult emerged [à imagem]as also seen in North Korea and China,” said the professor.
Maintaining some characteristics of Russian constructivism, but adapting them to Socialist Realism, Stalin created a symbolism that ended up becoming a reference for other tyrants, such as Hitler and Mussolini.
“North Korea is a new Socialist Realism, with a contemporary language, although it is not that new. What it sells is a totally utopian reality to control, it is the same logic, with this grandeur, big, monumental things, large spaces,” Straub pointed out.
In this way, the immense portraits, like those seen at Kim’s reception for Putin, have the clear aim of highlighting the leader above all others.
“This is called the hierarchy of proportions: it highlights what is most important. You have a picture of Stalin, Kim Jong-un, whoever, very large and the rest of the people much smaller. The meaning is: ‘I am much more important than you,’” Straub explained.
Political meanings sought by Kim and Putin
On the political side, the show of force of Kim’s grand reception of Putin was intended to highlight the antagonism towards the West, in the same way that the West was the enemy of communism during the Cold War.
The dictatorships of Russia and North Korea are targets of Western sanctions, and are banking on partnership to circumvent the difficulties that these punishments bring: in the military area, according to reports, this would translate into the transfer of Russian military technology to Pyongyang, which would reciprocate by sending ammunition to Moscow to continue its war against Ukraine.
On the day of the grand event in North Korea, Kim and Putin signed a mutual defense agreement, through which the two dictatorships committed to helping each other in the event of aggression from other countries.
To emphasize this rivalry with the West, both Russians and North Koreans have increasingly resorted to major events to demonstrate strength.
Putin, who has maintained the traditional Victory Day parades in which Russia celebrates its victory over the Nazis in 1945, has also held events in March to commemorate the annexation of Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula occupied by the Russians in 2014.
In North Korea, in addition to welcoming Putin, Kim has increasingly held military parades, in which he displays the new weapons that his dictatorship is developing while a large part of the population is starving.
In an interview with The Korea Times, Hyun In-ae, a visiting professor at the Department of North Korean Studies at Ewha Woman’s University in South Korea who has left North Korea, said that Kim’s military parades are intended to demonstrate unity and strength and show the people that it would be worth “tightening their belts” so that North Korea’s arsenal can continue to expand. “It’s a political event,” Hyun said.
#photo #Soviet #aesthetics #North #Korean #reception #Putin #reinforces #antagonism #West