1947 'Plain Talk' Cold War Propaganda Gulag 'Slavery' Map of the Soviet Union

Powerful Anti-Communist Cold War Propaganda.

This is a 1947 Plain Talk propaganda poster of the Gulag labor and prison camp network in the Soviet Union. Maps depicting the Soviet Union’s network of forced labor camps, known as the Gulag, became iconic symbols of Cold War propaganda, serving as some of the most widely distributed and influential pieces of anti-Communist media in the West.

A Closer Look

Coverage embraces the Soviet Union from the Baltic Sea to the Bering Strait, highlighting in red the location and extent of about 40 Soviet Russian forced labor camps. The red dots represent both the density and sprawling size of the centrally administered Gulag Camps. The smaller ringed red dots are concentration camps operated under local municipalities and NKVD (Ministry of the Interior) authorities. At the bottom center are horrific images of starving 'Gulag Children' - from left, Barbara Sliwinska (2), Jan Gorski (14), and Monek Finkelstein (12). To the left and right of the map are illustrations of Russian 'passports' issued to detainees assigned to the 'correctional labor camps'. At the bottom is a textual description of the horrors of the Gulag system.

An Anti-Soviet Propaganda Map

Perhaps the most widely circulated piece of anti-Soviet Cold War-era propaganda, this is not the first iteration of a Western map of the Gulag network. That work is credited to Polish soldiers Sylvester Mora and Pierre Zwierniak, who created a map to accompany their 1945 book Sprawiedliwość Sowiecka [Soviet Justice].

P.J. Mode, writes,

This map is a successor to the 1945 Map of Concentration Camps in Soviet Russia (Mode #1330), and the first version in this form. It was produced by Isaac Don Levine, the editor of Plain Talk, an anti-Communist magazine, and distributed in folded form with the magazine's May 1947 issue. (For more on Levine, see Barney 2015, 121-27.) Levine added a striking photo of 'Gulag' Children - one wearing a crucifix - and offered a $1,000 reward for 'Evidence Disproving the Authenticity of the Soviet Documents Here Reproduced.' Although the photo ID cards remain, the crude geographic areas of the earlier map have become more precise and much additional information has been added (likely from Mora and Zwierniak's book) (Barney 2013, 9, 30).... The publication of the Plain Talk map gained some prominent press coverage and led the American Federation of Labor to make a formal proposal that UNESCO conduct an international investigation of forced labor.

Plain Talk

Plain Talk was an American anti-Communist magazine published from 1946 to 1950, founded and edited by Isaac Don Levine, a prominent journalist and staunch critic of Soviet influence. Launched in the early years of the Cold War, the magazine positioned itself as a voice of vigilance against Communist infiltration in the United States and abroad. It featured articles exposing Soviet espionage, totalitarian tactics, and the activities of American Communist sympathizers, often written by former Communists, defectors, and conservative intellectuals. Though modest in circulation, Plain Talk played an outsized role in shaping early anti-Communist discourse, foreshadowing the rhetoric of the McCarthy Era. Despite its passionate editorial stance, financial struggles and limited readership ultimately led to its closure in 1950, but its legacy remains as a reflection of the intense ideological battles of postwar America.

Publication History and Census

This map was published as a folded insert in the May 1947 issue of Plain Talk. We have found only a handful of other instances when it appeared on the private market.

Cartographer

Isaac Don Levine (January 19, 1892 – February 15, 1981) was an American journalist. Born in Russia, Levine came to the United States in 1911. After finishing high school in Missouri, he began working for The Kansas City Star and then The New York Herald Tribune. He covered the Russian Revolution of 1917 for the Tribune and the Russian Civil War in the 1920s for The Chicago Daily News. He was a columnist for the papers of Hearst papers during the 1920s and 1930s. In 1939, Levine collaborated with famed defector Walter Krivitsky, a chief of military intelligence. Levine was the ghostwriter for a series of articles penned by Krivitsky about Stalinist Russia and his escape. Levine served the editor of Plain Talk, an anti-Communist magazine, from 1945-1950. He also played a role in the case against Alger Hiss, a State Department employee, who stood accused of being a Communist courier.   Further Details...

Condition

Excellent.

References

Cornell University, the P.J. Mode Collection of Persuasive Maps, #1337.01.