"Baptism to Faith is Spiritual Enslavement" (1980s) by Victor Petrovich Boldyrev comes out of the late-stage atheist campaigns of the 1980s, when the Soviet state ramped up efforts to suppress religious practice—especially Orthodox rituals like infant baptism. Created for Agitplakat Don, this oil-on-card sketch is one of the few surviving drafts from a time when most preparatory works were destroyed after printing.

The composition lays out Boldyrev’s concept with brutal clarity: oversized, menacing hands close in on a pale, expressionless infant, framed by a black void in the shape of a cross. Below, the baptismal font and bold propaganda text draw the eye downward, reinforcing a strong vertical pull. Every element is engineered for psychological impact.