The Ultraleftist / El Izquierdista

EL IZQUIERDISTA - EL EMBOSCADO SE CUBRE DU TODOS LOS ROPAJES PARA MEJOR ASESINAR EN LA SOMBRA! ANIQUILEMOSLE SE ENCUENTRE DONDE SE ENCUENTRE! The Ultraleftist - The ambusher Wears Many Disguises To Assasinate From Under Cover! We Annihilate Him Wherever We Find Him! [88x64cm] Ramon Puyol [1936-37]. Issued by SRI. This poster takes its visual style from surrealism but its thematics from the conflicted world of Spanish politics. Both the Left and the Right in Spain were made up of multiple parties with competing aims and social visions. The communist party, following its worldwide popular front policy, argued for cooperation with liberal democrats and socialists in the struggle against fascism. The more radical Left, on the other hand, promoted continuing class struggle and a continuing social revolution. This poster presents the communist party view of the radical Left. The "ultraleftist" here, at once absurd and grotesque, overdoes everything. He raises two right hands in the closed-fist salute of the Popular Front and wears not the one conventional five-pointed star of the people's army but two, along with the three stripes of the Republic's flag on his sleeve. His nose, elongated Pinocchio-style, is stretched out in yet a third Popular Front fist. His left foot, meanwhile, has melded with a tree trunk; stuck in the ground, he can neither move nor adapt. And his right leg, clothed in shredded striped trousers, suggests he is imprisoned in old ideas. He wears a Soviet hammer and sickle proudly on his chest, but his real identity, hidden away inside him, is here exposed for all to see: in place of his heart sits a fat capitalist in a top hat. Behind his head, therefore, we see that the Left and the Right hands are really clasped together in collaboration. Finally, the tree trunk is sprouting an arm that offers the open-handed fascist salute. It is really fascism, the poster argues, that ultimately benefits from the divisive policies of the radical Left. Those politics, the ultraleftist's pointed ears suggest, have a demonic or bestial character.

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