The Cuban case as depicted in the USSR's visual propaganda and the Soviet citizens' letters

The main aim of the article is to reveal the features of representation of Cuba, depicted in the Soviet visual propaganda and mass perception at the background of the Cold War. The author emphasizes the contest of posters and caricatures of early 1960s, as the most significant, stable and intelligible form of retranslation of the political metaphors. Their quantitative and qualitative analysis allows detecting the role of Cuba in total information flow and tracing connection with the other contexts. Unpublished "letters to the power" from the archival funds give opportunity for assessment of the Soviet peoples' discourse solidarity with official world view and for research the case of public moods about Cuba as a new ally. Since 1959 the first visual feedbacks had appeared in the press. The enemies of revolutionary Cuba were visualized more intensively on the pages of newspapers. The Soviet cartoonists condemned the Cuban counter-revolution as well as its patrons from the US, whose images were also the part of more extensive anti-imperialist and anti-war propaganda. The heroic images of Cubans were depicted more deeply in posters, in 1960-1964 covering about 10% of all the available propaganda materials, devoted to international topics. The perception of Cuban issues by Soviet citizens was evident during the Caribbean crisis in 202 letters addressed to the USSR Council of Ministers. Most of them expressed approval, gratitude and support of the efforts of the governance for maintaining peace and security of mankind, also voiced the solidarity with Cuba at the background of aggressive actions of the US. Some of the messages ended in style of the posters' slogans. But some part of the letters gave more voluminous analytical judgments, including the contradictions to the official rhetoric. Either the need to get involved in a large scale confrontation against the US because of Cuba was denied, or the more rigid and consistent protection of the Cubans was claimed. In general, the analysis of the Soviet visual propaganda shows, among the national liberation movements of 1950-1960s the revolutionary Cuba was initially positioned as one of the main allies of the USSR by the vividly represented and regularly replicated heroic image of the Cuban people with typical symbolism. Also, the Cuban matter became the relevant context for increasing anti-American propaganda. According to the letters to power many of the Soviet people shared the slogans of solidarity with Cuba.