Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (, ) is a 1919 lithographic Bolshevik propaganda poster by El Lissitzky. In the poster, the intrusive red wedge symbolizes the Bolsheviks, who are penetrating and defeating their opponents, the White movement, during the Russian Civil War.
The image gained popularity in the West upon Lissitzky's migration to Germany in 1921. It is considered symbolic of the Russian Civil War in Western publications, and is often used in album art and advertisements. It is also used by left-wing political and activist groups in Europe, alongside the anti-fascist red triangle, a reclaimed symbol from Nazi Germany's persecution of left-wing political groups in Germany and German-occupied Europe.
Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge is one of the most famous works by Lissitzky. Lissitzky made it in 1919, when Russia was going through a civil war, which was mainly fought between the "Reds" (communists, socialists and revolutionaries) and the "Whites" (monarchists, conservatives, liberals and other socialists who opposed the Bolshevik Revolution). The name, allegedly recommended by Ilya Ehrenburg, was possibly chosen to counter the Russian pogrom slogan "Beat the Jews!" (). The full slogan was (), and it was predominantly used by right wing monarchists and their militant Black Hundreds.
According to Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers, in 1945 Pablo Picasso declared that the "painting was not invented for decorating houses, but as a weapon of attack and defence".
Art historian Maria Elena Versari connected Lissitzky's poster with Italian Futurism manifesto Futurist Synthesis of War, published in 20,000 copies in 1914, and signed by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo CarrÃÂ, Luigi Russolo, and Ugo Piatti. Lissitzky never mentioned the manifesto, but his friend and colleague Malevich met Marinetti in 1914, and even called him one of the "two pillars, the two 'prisms' of the new art of the twentieth century". Malevich was also well aware of the Italian Futurists works and of Boccioni's theories. In 1916âÂÂ1917 Malevich, together with artists Alexandra Exter and Olga Rozanova, published two issues of a journal about Cubism and Futurism. Later, in 1918, Malevich wrote: "Cubism and Futurism are the revolutionary banners of art". Also in 1918, young architect Nikolai Kolli created The Red Wedge monument in Moscow. It "consisted of a red triangle vertically inserted as a wedge into a white rectangular block. A very visible crack snakes downward from the tip of the triangle, suggesting that the force of the red wedge has succeeded in breaking the solidity of the white structure. The abstract metaphor was intended to signify the victory of the Red Army over the White, counter-Revolutionary forces." The monument initially was erected as a symbol of victory over White general Pyotr Krasnov, an important early triumph of the Red Army. Versari argues that Lissitzky "adopted an almost identical language" for his Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, though he never mentioned it.
Lissitzky later used similar idea, a wedge in a circle, for a cover of Yiddish magazine Apikojres ('Atheist'), a periodical published by the League of Militant Atheists. As Artur Kamczycki writes, "Apikojres is a heretic â a Jew who does not believe in revelation and negates traditional religion and will therefore not have a share in the world to come and is bound for eternal damnation. In Yiddish, this word is often used to describe someone who has opinions that contradict the orthodox doctrine. Lissitzky suggests here that a revolution requires sacrifice and transformations in the name of the new, better world." He also noted that Lissitzky believed in the forces of Revolution and combined it with a messianic elements of Judaism, writing: <blockquote>The educated were expecting the 'new era' to arrive in the shape of a Messiah ... mounted on a white horse. But ... it came in the shape of Russian Ivan ...in tattered and dirty clothes, barefoot ... only the youngest generation recognized this [...].</blockquote>