Games of revolution and industry 

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Image: Reds and Whites, a war game!
A Soviet board-game from 1929.
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It’s the 1920s. You’re a young revolutionary living in the newly-formed Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Now that the Allied Intervention’s been frustrated, and the reactionary White Army beaten back, the threat of counterrevolution seems to have momentarily subsided. All in all, it’s a good time to be a Marxist in old Muscovy.

There’s only one problem with this new arrangement: What to do with the free time you’re not spending locked in combat against the tsarists, yankees, and Huns? Sure, you’ve got a job at the local shoe factory. But war communism’s out, and the New Economic Program is in. It’s time to kick back and relax. Communism will be built soon enough.

Luckily, there’s a new product available to help pass the time. A.V. Kuklin’s come out with a whole batch of revolutionary board-games, featuring such riveting class-conscious titles as Electrification, Revolution, Reds vs. Whites, and Maneuvers: A Game for Young Pioneers [Soviet Boy Scouts]. Games for the whole family, even though the family form of property-relations must eventually be abolished. Let the capitalists have their Monopoly; let the imperialists play their Risk. I’ll stick to Modern War or Air Struggle.

Ages 8 and up?

1930

1927

1925

1924

1924

Air Struggle! 1925

1925

1929

1938

1926

1925

1925

Modern Fight, the game! 1933

1928: “Electrification,” the board game

1931

1931

Russia vs. China (1925)

1924

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My favorites among these include the “electrification” board-game, the chemical war game, and the Reds vs. the Whites game. You can tell that they reflect the immediate experience of devastating world war, revolution, and bloody civil war, followed by a project of social engineering and economic modernization the likes of which the world had never seen. The only other thing I’ll say is that, from an aesthetic perspective, one can see the change in the officially-sanctioned styles from the more avant-garde lines, shapes, and typography to the cartoon realism of caricatured figures in the Sots-art of the 1930s. Enjoy!