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The following cartoon was sent to me by friend and colleague Vince C with the heading “History Being Repeated”. Thanks, Vince.
It also contains an introduction as follows:
The attached picture is of a Punch Magazine dated 24 April 1904.
Despite the passing of a Century plus, a couple of World Wars, a bunch of regional wars, riddance of dictators and despots, dictator comebacks, a lot of boundary/border changes and more, not much has changed, has it?
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Some other old cartoons still relevant today . . .
With English wording . . .
Commentary:
This cartoon was created by a Russian, Stalinist cartoonist as an attack on the United States. A good example of co-option of a liberal position by an extremist, anti-democratic critic.In issue #4 of 1953 (10 February) of Krokodil, Ganf made a cartoon titled 'In America - At This Restaurant Only One Person Is Served'. It shows a restaurant where various business people serve piles of money to a hungry soldier, representing "War". In the background four other customers, Education, Health Care, Libraries and Art wait in vain for service. This powerful and timeless critique of government and business spending on military defense gained more prominence in the Internet age. However, its original anti-capitalist and anti-American context is usually ignored or ommitted by shortening the title to 'At This Restaurant Only One Person Is Served'. This is not just a result of many people being unable to read Russian. Usually just the image itself is shown, without the captions. Ganf's talent is such that even outside the Cold War context and without captions, the cartoon is instantly understandable. One can even argue that the situation depicted in the drawing is universal, rather than tied to just the United States.
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