

Moscow without Masks

10 January 1929
Bro 1160/2 fol

Artist Georges Rémi (Hergé) had not visited the Soviet-Union when he published the story of Tintin in the Soviet Union on 10 January 1929. He took the abuses and deceits his hero encounters mainly from the book Moscou sans voiles: Neuf ans de travail au pays des Soviets [Moscow without masks], published in 1928 by the Belgian consul Joseph Douillet. The first part of Douillet's book was called: 'How the red paradise is portrayed', and is full of examples of how foreign visitors are deceived. In Hergé's story, Tintin watches English communists visiting working factories, which are actually stage sets: 'And this is how those Soviets fool people who still believe in the red paradise.'