The following images were taken and used by the Soviet government to portray the USSR as a modern country with all the amenities that a world super power would be expected to have. The people appear happy in their lives both at work and at home. The change over time indicates how the USSR developed as the Cold War progressed. There is no indication of the war torn peasants and unhappy and poverty stricken people nor of the brutality the government often used to maintain order. While many of the posters displayed were anti-American and anti-democracy, the photos are meant to display the Soviet Union at its best from the 1950's through the 1980's .
This aerial view shows a clean modern city at peace in the 1950's. These images are snapshots of how the government portrays the USSR both internally among the Soviet people a well as internationally.
The 1960's was a time of great tension and the ever present threat of nuclear warfare. These images show the Soviet Union as a military force to be reconed with as well as a stable and industrially advanced nation. They convey the success of Communism by showing happy people both at work and play.
The 1970's marked the end of the Vietnam war and a hope for a shift toward peace in the world, though both the US and the USSR stayed militant and always paranoid that the other may strike at anytime despite the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) theory that has implied safety from nuclear war.
The images from the 1980's indicate this was a time of relative peace. The government images during this decade show a shift from Communism toward Capitalism as they focus on the individual and advancements in technology. There is rarely an indication of the conflict in Afghanistan where the Soviet Union is backing a Communist regime against rebels backed by the United States. A similar situation to Vietnam had errupted for the Afghans but each superpower kept a lower profile, and as a result military images are not seen here.