The house with ghosts
Description
"Poet: Shumilin, V. “The Fighting Pencil” group, 1972
He is just a genius for a shady business deal:
Fake names on the payroll he shows as real.
But for his unreal and illusory luck
In the jail for real he can be long stuck.
The poster refers to the prac6ce of ""dead souls,"" a term coined after the famous novel by Gogol. In order to reach full employment, the Soviet government overstaffed many organizations. Some ""entrepreneurial"" persons managed to take care of business in the organizations with much less people than they had on their payrolls and pocketed the wages of the people who were on the list
only. These people usually were relatives or friends, or other trusted persons, of the managers who took the money. The ""dead souls"" also could be people who did not work anywhere but needed to have some working experience recorded in their papers in order to be eligible for some benefits (e.g. social security). They could work somewhere else and give all the money to the manager, or could split the money between them—depending upon circumstances."
He is just a genius for a shady business deal:
Fake names on the payroll he shows as real.
But for his unreal and illusory luck
In the jail for real he can be long stuck.
The poster refers to the prac6ce of ""dead souls,"" a term coined after the famous novel by Gogol. In order to reach full employment, the Soviet government overstaffed many organizations. Some ""entrepreneurial"" persons managed to take care of business in the organizations with much less people than they had on their payrolls and pocketed the wages of the people who were on the list
only. These people usually were relatives or friends, or other trusted persons, of the managers who took the money. The ""dead souls"" also could be people who did not work anywhere but needed to have some working experience recorded in their papers in order to be eligible for some benefits (e.g. social security). They could work somewhere else and give all the money to the manager, or could split the money between them—depending upon circumstances."
Creator
Kunnap, V.
Date
1972
Source
http://webpage.pace.edu/nreagin/S2004HIS296K/IrinaVinokur/images/Picture9a.jpg
Rights
Source: Holzer, M., Illiash, I., Gabrielian, V., & Kuznestsova, L. (2010). Red Tape from Red Square:Bureaucratic Commentary in Soviet Graphic Satirical Art. Poughkeepsie, NY: NetPublications
Publisher
Rutgers
Contributor
Rutgers
Format
Medium: Poster
Language
Russian
Type
Artwork
Identifier
Art, Satire, Cartoons, Fighting Pencil, Dead Souls, Corruption, Posters
Coverage
Russia
Files
Reference
Kunnap, V., The house with ghosts, Rutgers, 1972
Cite As
Kunnap, V., “The house with ghosts,” Virtual Museum of Public Service, accessed March 26, 2025, https://vmps.omeka.net/items/show/446.