1. Stalin and the Korean War
Interpreting a Punch cartoon
Cartoon reproduced with permission of Punch Ltd.,

2. What questions does this cartoon raise?

3. What is Stalin trying to teach the class?
The cartoon is about Korea
What overall message is the cartoonist trying to get across?
It shows Stalin as a teacher. Why?
Why has the cartoonist included this caption? What message is he trying to get over?
But who is he trying to teach?
A knout is a heavy Russian whip

4. 2 1 4 2
Overall message 3
Enlarge to A3

5. What is the meaning of the cartoon?
To fully understand the meaning we also need to know:
when it was produced,
by whom and for
what audience,
why it was produced.
Having annotated your copy of the cartoon, write a caption using the information on the following page about the provenance (where the cartoon came from).

6. The cartoon appeared in Punch magazine on 12 July 1950, a few weeks after the Korean war had broken out.
It was created by an English cartoonist Leslie Illingworth.
Make sure you use all the clues to explain his attitude to Stalin. Is he sympathetic to Stalin’s view of US action in Korea?