Make Canada a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone - Communist Party of Canada 1980s

Vintage Leftist Leaflet Project

See the end of this post for details on the project.

Leaflet: Make Canada a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone - Communist Party of Canada 

A leaflet from the early 1980's denouncing the Trudeau government allowing the testing of cruise missiles in Canada and the premises on which they were allowed. Also calls for nuclear disarmament broadly.

Notable for the cover art by Anton Refregier, the American artist and muralist whose work we looked at before in Sketches of the Soviet Union in the 70's: Anton Refregier -- Part I Moscow and Leningrad and Sketches of the Soviet Union in the 70's: Anton Refregier -- Part II Ukraine, Latvia, Armenia, Turkmenia and Georgia.

(Click on scans to enlarge)

When The Left Chapter began part of what I wanted to do on the blog was to show and highlight vintage public leftist election/political leaflets and booklets. While many of these have been offered with commentary to date, a very large collection of hundreds of them from several different sources remains and to preserve these often quite rare documents we will be posting them on a regular (almost daily) basis now often without or with minimal commentary so that people may have access to them as quickly as possible as an historical resource.

While these will all be leaflets from a variety of different leftist viewpoints and countries, they are being posted as an historical/study resource and the views or opinions expressed in them do not necessarily reflect the views of this blog or blogger.

All of these posts (as well as posts made to date) will be listed on the page: Vintage Communist/Socialist Leaflets (which is still being updated with past posts).

If you have any public, vintage leaflets or booklets you would like to contribute to this project please contact us via theleftchapter@outlook.com

Sketches of the Soviet Union in the 70's: Anton Refregier -- Part II Ukraine, Latvia, Armenia, Turkmenia and Georgia

Published in 1978 in Moscow, Sketches of the Soviet Union is a fascinating series of recollections of the travels of American artist and peace activist Anton Refregier through the USSR in the mid-70's.

Refregier visited a wide variety of cities, regions and republics and recounted events he attended and the people and places he encountered from weddings, to factories, to city planners, to collective farms and scientific academies, etc. While the recollections are clearly told from a pro-Soviet perspective, they are very interesting as they are not devoid of a critical eye and as he met so many different types of people from different backgrounds and walks of life.

The book is well worth seeking out if for no other reason than as a refreshing counterpoint to standard American Cold War narratives of the period about the USSR.

Happily, there is another reason to seek the book out, however, and that is the incredible sketches of daily life that Refregier did and that  are to be found throughout the book.

These sketches are amazing and should not be lost. While seemingly simple in style, they convey a real sense of character, time and place.

Previously we took a look at some of the sketches from his travels to Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg of course). Today we will look at some of those from the Ukraine, Latvia, Armenia, Turkmenia and Georgia.

Refregier died while working on a mural in Moscow in 1979. Some biographical details of his life can be found from the book at the end of this post.

(Click on images to enlarge)

Ukraine

Latvia

Armenia

Turkmenia

Georgia

See also: Sketches of the Soviet Union in the 70's: Anton Refregier -- Part I Moscow and Leningrad

See also: From Revolution to Stalingrad to Space - Historical Sketches of the USSR for Young Adults

Sketches of the Soviet Union in the 70's: Anton Refregier -- Part I Moscow and Leningrad

Published in 1978 in Moscow, Sketches of the Soviet Union is a fascinating series of recollections of the travels of American artist and peace activist Anton Refregier through the USSR in the mid-70's.

Refregier visited a wide variety of cities, regions and republics and recounted events he attended and the people and places he encountered from weddings, to factories, to city planners, to collective farms and scientific academies, etc. While the recollections are clearly told from a pro-Soviet perspective, they are very interesting as they are not devoid of a critical eye and as he met so many different types of people from different backgrounds and walks of life.

The book is well worth seeking out if for no other reason than as a refreshing counterpoint to standard American Cold War narratives of the period about the USSR.

Happily, there is another reason to seek the book out, however, and that is the incredible sketches of daily life that Refregier did and that  are to be found throughout the book.

These sketches are amazing and should not be lost. While seemingly simple in style, they convey a real sense of character, time and place.

Today we take a look at some of the sketches from his travels to Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg of course). In a future post we will look at some of those from the Ukraine, Latvia, Armenia, Turkmenia and Georgia.

Refregier died while working on a mural in Moscow in 1979. Some biographical details of his life can be found from the book at the end of this post.

(Click on images to enlarge) 

Moscow

Leningrad

Anton Refregier

See also: Mergen and His Friends: A Nanai Folk Tale - A Vintage Soviet Children's Fable

See also: From Revolution to Stalingrad to Space - Historical Sketches of the USSR for Young Adults