Illustration of party unity in the magazine “Crocodile” in the context of the struggle for power in the mid-20s

Abstract

The article analyzes the communicative connection between the internal political struggle in VKP(b) and the satirical magazine “Crocodile” (a supplement to “Rabochaya Gazeta”), which was published in mass circulation. Usually the Crocodile illustrations did not depict the real motives of the political struggle; their task was to show the rejection of any party opposition as such. But in the December 1925 issue of “The Crocodile” (No. 47), the front page of the magazine suddenly displays an image in which all the party leaders are busy with general construction, and no matter how much you look at the picture - you will not find the main leader in it. Such was a political order. The article analyzes the reasons for the possibility of an appearance of an obviously ideological drawing in a satirical journal – with an attempt, approved at the very top of the political power - to portray exactly the “unity of the party”, and not a split that was about to happen ahead of the XIV Congress of the party, about which many Bolsheviks were speaking openly.