Liberalism versus Communism: The Soviet Other in Representations of American Cartoonists

• In Event: The Soviet Union as an Оbject of the U.S. Сold War Mission: Real Politics and Imaginary Reality

Abstract

This paper utilizes the constructivist approach to examine U.S.-Soviet relations via political cartoons as a specific genre of graphic satire and primary source. The author demonstrates how the U.S. cartoonists constructed the Soviet Other as the “enemy number one” while framing American messianic message as universally recognized. Among the antitheses cartoons visualized were liberalism vs communism, liberty versus political slavery, democracy versus totalitarianism, religious faith versus atheism, light versus darkness, the West versus the East. The special accent will be done on the Herblock’s cartoons who played a central role not only in reflecting of the twentieth-century American liberalism but also in representation of its nature and limits.

Author

• Victoria Z