Like the previous poster,
this one refers to the campaign of Asturias, a region in the north
of Spain that fell to the Nationalist army on October 21, 1937.
A parallel was drawn at the time between the defense of Asturias
and an earlier event of great symbolic importance: the revolutionary
strike led by the coal miners of the region that had taken place
three years earlier, in October 1934. This poster connects the events
of 1934 and 1937 both through the inscription on the image and by
calling attention to the monumental figure of the miner as the leader
of the struggle. The determined expression of the miner, and the
suggestion of movement created by the lifting of the left shoulder
and the cropped arm, result in a powerful and heroic image. The
call made in the poster by the issuing entity, the Socorro Rojo
de España is for assistance to the families of the fighters,
presumably in helping with their evacuation, or in donating food
and other materials for their sustenance. The implication is that
the determination of the miners in their new struggle, combined
with their revolutionary efforts in 1934, make them worthy of assistance.
Among the most dominant
images in this poster are the initials UHP, which also serve as
posts for the barbed wire fence on the lower part of the scene.
UHP stands for Unión de Hermanos Proletarios, or according
to some accounts, ¡Uníos! Hermanos Proletarios (Union
of Proletarian Brothers or Unite! Proletarian Brothers). This was
a slogan used during the war in an attempt to override the differences
that frequently caused serious confrontations between the Communists,
Socialists and Anarchists. For the more revolutionary segments of
the population, this was a positive call, and thus its use in images
such as this one. It could also have more negative connotations,
as when it was popularly used to refer to goods confiscated abusively
and illegally According to one witness, people sometimes referred
to cars by saying, "that car is UHP." This meant that
it had been confiscated and that its driver was not its rightful
owner.
This poster probably
dates to October 1937, the latest date on the inscription. It must
have been issued shortly before the fall of Asturias to the Nationalists
on October 21. The author who signs the poster, Cheché, is
not known. The composition of this scene is very similar to poster
number 11, which was also put out by the Socorro Rojo de España,
and is likewise inscribed "Asturias 1934-1937." During
the war, propaganda posters were often designed with little direction,
with artists responding to nothing but their own artistic impulse
and political intuition. The similarities between these two posters
suggests that in this case things were different. Either both artists
were in contact, or they were following instructions, presumably
from the Socorro Rojo.
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