a peep under the curtain wall analysis!! HELPPPP?
My perception of this, as an American, is that the cartoon is somewhat lambasting Churchill, who coined the term iron curtain. It is implying that he's on the outside looking in, but the by order of Joe makes me think it's a stab at the US (known as G.I. Joe in the era). The Cold War was waged between the US and the USSR, Britain was largely left out of it. So even though Churchill was the first to identify the threat he was excluded from the ideological battle by the two greater powers, the US and the USSR.
Churchill is peeking under the wall to try to see what is really going on on the other side. The man running away is someone escaping from Easter Europe - behind the Iron Curtain - to the West. The industry (with the USSR Hammer and Sickle flag flying over it) represents USSR turning Easter Europe into states similar to USSR. The industry is being used to produce weapons, not things to raise the standard of living for the peolple living behind the Iron Curtain.Stalin plans to use these weapons to spread Communism to other countries by force. The wall in the cartoon represents the Iron Curtain, the barrier between Soviet controlled Eastern Europe and Western Europe. Stalin had agreed to hold free elections in Eastern European countries occupied by the Soviet Army after WW2; he reneged on this promise, establishing pro USSR Communist governments by force instead.It was at this point US and Britain decided Stalin couldn't be trusted - he was clearly trying to spread Communism globally, so Britain and US decided this had to be resisted, thus iniating the Cold War.
Okay, I have an idea as to what this is and I'm gonna knock it out with my opinion. The wall is the Iron Curtain (coined by Winston Churchill). The man is looking under the wall, because he is curious of what lies beneath or beyond it. The man is running away from the wall, because he is terrified by what he sees: oppression, communism, deprivation, etc. The industry on the eastern side can be described as the social network of communism - the ownership of the factory and the people in it by the government. The tank on the eastern side represents two things: oppression and aggression. It's there as a symbol to remind the people of the East that the Red Army calls the shots and also to be a warning to those of the West that the Red Army is capable and can destroy you (it's a sign of military might). It explains the beginnings of the Cold war; the initial fear of communism and the U.S.S.R.
