Propaganda: 100 years of fear, manipulation and persuasion – in pictures

A poster from 1958 by the Chinese artist Jin Meisheng, entitled National Unity. It shows the peoples of China marching together, carrying a picture of Mao Zedong.

A huge likeness of Benito Mussolini on the facade of the Palazzo Braschi in Rome in 1934. Behind him, the word si (yes) is repeated, reminding the population to approve the National Fascist party’s candidates in the March general election, the last under fascist rule.

A poster from the last 1960s that featured in a campaign aimed at discouraging illegal drug use by the UK’s Central Council for Health Education.

A Black Panther poster from 1970 designed by Emory Douglas, who use cartoon-like imagery to convery complex political issues.

A 1950s poster, All Our Colours to the Mast, featuring a design by the Dutch artist Reyn Dirksen. It was the winner of a Marshall Plan competition to promote European unity.

A portrait of Stalin mounted on a tractor in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, circa 1940. The photo was by Max Penson, who spent 30 years in Tashkent documenting life in the Soviet republic.

An anti-gossip poster released by Thailand’s Armed Forces Security Centre in the 1960s, suggesting women, socialising and liquor lead to secrets being revealed.

A 1980 poster calling for a boycott of the Moscow Olympic Games over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It shows Misha, the Olympic mascot, in a parody of a travel poster for the Soviet airline Aeroflot.

A Dutch anti-apartheid poster from 1978 criticising Shell’s involvement in South Africa.

An environmental poster from the Soviet Union in the 1980s, showing a couple wearing gas masks. It was one of series by Fighting Pencil, a group of poets and cartoonists in Leningrad (now St Petersburg).

An American motivational poster from the second world war. It utilises the cult of celebrity, featured the great boxer Joe Louis, who fought exhibition matches to entertain the troops.

A poster from the Soviet Union, circa 1971. It shows a Vietnamese child reading a book on the wing of a downed American aircraft.

An undated painting showing Kim Jong-il overseeing the production of 1969’s Sea of Blood. The film is a classic of North Korean propaganda; it has also been adapted as an opera and a novel.