A Chinese-English poster distributed in Manila, catalog date 26 February 1957, signed by the Philippine Chinese Anti-Communist League and filed in the U.S. Information Agency series. A close photograph of a dead person in street rubble sits under the line "Spilling Their Blood to Stem the Tide of Russian Aggression!" (NAID 6948976).
What it shows
Content note: the poster's central image is a photograph of a dead person.
The archive describes a blue sheet headed in English, with a close photograph of a body lying in rubble in a street. The Chinese and English slogans say the peoples behind the Iron Curtain are spilling their blood to stop "Russian aggression." The signature is a Philippine Chinese organization, printed in both languages.
HUNGARY'S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM
支援匈牙利人民為自由而戰
鐵幕人民
浴血抗暴
Spilling Their Blood to
Stem the Tide of
Russian Aggression!
菲律濱華僑反共抗俄總會
PHILIPPINE CHINESE ANTI-COMMUNIST LEAGUE
The archive's English translation of the Chinese lines, which it labels a machine translation by Claude not verified by a fluent reader, reads: "Support the Hungarian people fighting for freedom. Peoples of the Iron Curtain bathe in blood resisting tyranny." It renders the Chinese name of the league as "Philippine Chinese Anti-Communist and Anti-Russian General League," a longer name than the English line printed on the sheet.
Who made it
The maker line names the Philippine Chinese Anti-Communist League first and the U.S. Information Agency second, in its series of posters distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. The archive classes the source as unidentified. The sheet carries the league's name; it carries no American one. The record does not say what part the agency played, who took the photograph, or where.
How to read it
FRAME tags it fear appeal and name-calling: a graphic casualty photograph, and the label "Russian Aggression" framing the Hungarian events of 1956 for the viewer. The photograph is the argument. A reader is shown a body and told whose fault it is.
The caution here concerns the frame. The record does not identify the person, the street or the date of the picture, and the poster supplies none. A real death used as a slogan, without a name or place, asks the viewer to feel before he can check. Hungary turns up in other U.S. Information Agency sheets for the Philippines: Communism Gives You Justice?, signed by a farmers' federation, and the Story of Hungary photo sheet. The U.S. Information Agency hub follows the theme.
Sources
- FRAME object record, Hungary's Fight for Freedom, 111b: Spilling Their Blood (Chinese-English poster distributed in Manila), 26 February 1957. Philippine Chinese Anti-Communist League; U.S. Information Agency, Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East series.
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 306, NAID 6948976 (306-PPB-111b), retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).
