Postage stamps of the Soviet Union

In the thematics, Soviet stamps reflected to a large extent the history, politics, economics and culture of this world's first socialist state.

[1] The first postage stamps of the newly proclaimed Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were designed by Georgy Pashkov and issued in August 1923 in relation to the First All-Russian Agricultural and Handicraft Exhibition.

Their design proposed by Ivan Shadr included the busts of the worker, Red Army soldier and peasant.

These Kalinin stamps illustrated the motive powers of the Soviet state: the worker, the farmer, and the Communist Party.

Such a practice is considered a worldwide trend when in-power politicians are shown on postage stamps symbolizing the state.

The 28-kopecks stamp pictured a blast furnace, a chart for iron-ore production and the slogan "Iron, 8 million tons".

[3][6] Short heroic slogans of the Stalin period calling for economic mobilization were substituted on Soviet stamps in the post-Stalin years.

Such was, for instance, the series of "Decisions of the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—into Life" that was designed by Vasily Zavyalov and A. Shmidshtein, and issued in 1962.

Levinovsky and A. Shmidshtein, there was an inscription saying that "the main problem is to provide a significant increase of the material and cultural level of life of the people on the basis of high rates of development of socialist production, an increase of its effectiveness, scientific-technical progress, and an acceleration of the growth of the productiveness of labor".

[3][8][note 1] Such messages were typical of stamps for the Brezhnev and post-Brezhnev period until the changes occurred under Mikhail Gorbachev.

[13][14] A San Francisco inverted surcharge with small Cyrillic "ф" ("f") is characteristic of a rare Soviet stamp called Levanevsky with overprint.