Abandoning Ideals and Producing Graphic Disillusionment in Suomen suurin kommunisti

Abstract

This chapter discusses Suomen suurin kommunisti (SSK) through the lens of abandoning ideals and disillusionment, which takes an intriguing graphic and intertextual form in the narrative. The first half of the graphic novel deals with revolutionary optimism in the years following the formation of Soviet Russia under Lenin. In contrast, the second part of SSK focuses on the 1930s, a decade marked by increasing control, political suppression, and ultimately mass exterminations and world war. The chapter discusses the historical background of the narrative and the legacy of radical leftist politics in Finnish popular culture. It focuses on the graphic novel, its use of history, and its ambivalent position on who should be regarded as the titular ‘Greatest communist of Finland'. The chapter present examples of redrawn appropriations of political artworks by El Lissitzky, Vladimir Stenberg, Gustav Klutsis, and Yakov Guminer, all of them leading luminaries of the Russian avant-garde movements such as Suprematism and Constructivism during the early Soviet years.