Standard Love Affair: Revolution Art: Solidarity in Posters

Revolution needs art, art needs revolution. The fire in the soul of the oppressed will push them to create slogans and guerrilla art that will threaten the state, challenge the status quo and call the people to arms. Its message and the sheer vitriol of which that message is daubed is what makes it potent beyond the guided propaganda of the state.

When the Polish socialist Solidarity movement, led by the Papal backed Lech Wałęsa and born of a trade union at the Gdańsk Shipyard in 1980, broke the iron grip of communist Soviet rule over the country, it did so with a striking and defiant emblem. The graffiti like, thick blood red scrawl of the party’s name was as dangerous to the state as the message behind it. If you want to topple the state, then you’d better have a flag the people can get behind.

The Polish people got behind Solidarity, and the quake that the movement caused shook the communist eastern bloc from its foundations. Here’s some of the fantastic posters produced by the brass hands of the Solidarity Party.