Final answer:
The posters carried the slogan 'Long live the great invincible banner of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin!' used to unify and mobilize Soviet citizens, especially during wartime, by glorifying their leaders and promoting state ideology. They emphasized morale, unity, and civic duty as mechanisms for support but offered idealized rather than realistic assessments of war.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Slogan on Soviet Propaganda Posters
The slogan 'Long live the great invincible banner of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin!' can be seen on various Soviet posters during different eras, including one from 1940 by an unidentified artist, and another from the Great Patriotic War period by Nikolai Denisov and Nina Vatolina. This consistent message on the posters was meant to encourage civilians to show support for the Soviet regime and its wartime efforts. However, whether these posters offered a realistic assessment of the war is questionable. They often glorified the leaders and the communist ideology, presenting them as heroic figures, which might not have reflected the genuine hardships and complex realities experienced during the war.
Apart from promoting a deified view of the Soviet leaders, these posters served multiple purposes, especially during times of conflict. They sought to boost morale, unify the populace, and encourage civic participation and loyalty to the state's ideology. Posters like those by G. Mirzoev and Viktor Ivanov portrayed leaders as torchbearers of revolutionary ideology or peace, asserting their role as champions of the Soviet people's welfare.
The posters also served as tools for mobilization during war, with the message that civilians could support the war effort through organization and unity, and that voting for Stalin, as symbolized in Ivanov's poster, was akin to voting for peace. This reflects the extent to which the state utilized visual propaganda to manipulate public opinion and maintain the social order during tumultuous times.