Introduction to Red Cartoons of 1928

by Robert Minor



The drawings printed in this volume are among the finest that can be found in America. 
Many of the cartoons which you see here have been reproduced in all countries of the 
world. The art here exhibited is of world rank.



But this art owes its fineness to the fact that it is not a product of the studio, and not made 
for the market. These pictures come out of the cauldron of the mightiest struggle in the 
history of mankind. They are a product of the class warfare which will settle the destiny of 
all men. These drawings, one and all, are made with a motive not understood by the 
conventional draughtsmen of the respectable capitalistic world. They are the expressions of 
opinion and emotion of men engaged in class warfare. In the strikes of the miners, street car 
men, against injunctions and frame-up, for Sacco and Vanzetti and Mooney and Billings, in 
the campaigns against the war danger, for the defense of the Union of Socialist Soviet 
Republics, these artists feel and picture the only cause worth fighting for. The drawings are 
made for a Communist daily fighting the battles of the workers—made by artists who are 
giving their efforts and genius to the working class, not for huge salary—but usually without 
pay. Fred Ellis, staff cartoonist of the Daily Worker, was a sign painter for twenty years and 
all this time a member in good standing in his union. A worker, his cartoons are saturated 
with a frank working class bias. Never has he made a cartoon which was not in the interests 
of labor. His cartoons, often with the touch of genius, have a fighting quality and strength 
which mark him as one of the really great political cartoonists of this time.



The work of Gellert, Cropper, Burck and others included in this volume, is the work of 
artists of first rank, adding to the accomplishments of American revolutionary Labor.



This is the third volume of "Red Cartoons." Previous issues in 1926 and 1927 have 
attracted ever wider groups of admirers. More than that, labor journals, revolutionary 
publications, have reprinted from them continuously

for the pleasure and inspiration of workers in all countries in their struggles.



Publication of "Red Cartoons" is now a yearly event of some importance. In Europe 
workers are acquainted with it. In America, some thousands look anxiously toward it. The 
number of its enthusiasts is growing yearly.



Here it is: "Red Cartoons of 1928."



Take this book, Comrade, and use it in the fight. It is not a collection of art for some 
aesthetic recluse. Use these pictures to stir men and women and boys and girls to think, to 
hope, to feel and to fight to make themselves a part of the immense army of the working 
class which will transform the world. If you do this you can repay the half-starved artists 
who have worked tirelessly and otherwise unpaid to make you a better fighter for your 
class.



ROBERT MINOR