In the Soviet Union, the dehumanisation of enemies by depicting them as animals was a significant means in representing the ideological conflict of the Cold War. Looking at animal symbolism in Soviet Cold War political cartoons helps us to understand how by portraying the enemy as an animal, the Soviet propaganda machine framed the conflict and communicated the Soviet ideology to the population. The animal symbols in use varied from caricatured national emblems to animals with a culturally coded symbolic value. Different animal symbols communicated different ideas of the enemy’s nature to the audience. In this way, different animals were used within varying cultural frameworks to manipulate the readership's views on the Cold War.



This paper uses the Soviet cartoonist trio Kukryniksy’s work published in the Communist newspaper Pravda during 1965-1982 to examine the ways in which the British lion was used to dehumanise the enemy and create an image of a feeble, passive Britain. More specifically it analyses the ways in which the British lion was used in Soviet political cartoons to create ridicule and hostility towards the ideological enemy, as well as, by contrast, to promote the Soviet ideology. Thus, for example, the traditional symbolic values of a lion, courage and strength, were juxtaposed in the depiction of the British lion, which was represented in the cartoons as cowardly and weak. More generally, the purpose of this paper is to map out how animal symbolism and political cartoons are used as communication methods in ideological conflicts.



Key Words: animal symbolism, Cold War, political cartoons, propaganda, Soviet Union