United States of America

During the Red Scare, the United States took it upon themselves to help with the attempt to stop the spread on communism. This poster that was created by the United States Information Service in 1951 and distributed in Asia to show Juan dela Cruz ready to defend the Philippines from the threat of communism. Juan dela Cruz is the national personification of the Philippines that represents the “Filipino everyman” and in this poster he is holding a machete that is symbolizing democracy as the weapon that will defeat communism. The United States does not say that it is their job to stop communism from spreading, but rather it is everybody’s job to defend against it. Post-World War II, the rise of communism was a real threat that many countries needed to defend against, especially in Asia. The United States publishing a poster like this shows that they are supporting small countries, like the Philippines, as long as they are prepared to fight for themselves.

The Soviet Union

Directly falling World War II, the USSR made attempts to spread communism around the world. Much like this poster created by Viktor Ivanov in 1947, the Soviet’s published many types of propaganda that showed their citizen’s loyalty to the USSR and communism. This poster is titled “We’ll raise a generation, selflessly loyal to communism” which is a message to the people that communism is going to be continuously taught to the future generations of the USSR. Many Soviet posters may have even contained subliminal messages to the U.S. and other countries that communism was not going away anytime soon.