I've read all of the Tintin books but this is the only one I've added to Goodreads (so far) as it's the only complete Tintin work I've not read until now (at least in English). Years ago, in school, I struggled with the French original, translation dictionary in hand, and of course the story made minimal sense due to my poor understanding of the language.

But this is the original 1930s story translated into English. Story-wise, it's a complete mess but so was Land of the Soviets. It's also a complete product of its time and by today's mores and standards, it's an appalling work of racism and condescension, to say nothing of cruelty.

For the first and last time, Hergé uses graphic violence in a Tintin story - to wit, Tintin blows up rhinos with dynamite, slaughters a dozen or so antelope, and the antagonist gets dismembered by crocodiles.

So, it's definitely an unwanted red-headed stepchild in the Tintin oeuvre. Why the three stars then? For the sheer audacity and bare-faced cheek of it all. It's a work of naked European superiority and propaganda and the Congolese natives are consigned to idiot class. In fact, Hergé even has them dress in various pompous European styles as some kind of sad statement to loss of culture. It's a fascinating work, and if you're able to detach yourself from the racism and colonialism that seeps through its pages, then please read it this way. Hergé later apologised for this story and all but disowned it, and we have a far more sanitised and respectful redrawn version out there as compensation.

I really just enjoyed a primary source of political and social propaganda of the time. Tintin In The Land of the Soviets was especially interesting in that way.

Yeah I own this ironically.

This month bookclub is: Tintin comics! Haha.. I read this first because I finished the entire Tintin collection when I was in elementary school, and loving it, of course. But there are couple of comics that I didn't know exist. Tintin in Congo was the second volume of Tintin, but Herge didn't published it further, the drawing were entirely in black and white. Nothing interesting happened in this book, except a little adventure and slapstick humor for Tintin and Snowy. I would not recommend this as an entry point to read Tintin, only for the fans :)

Tintin, a reporter for Le Petit Vingtieme, along with his companion dog, Snowy, is off to the Soviet Union for a story. Everyone in the Soviet Union seems to want to kill Tintin and he, like many cartoon characters, dies a hundred times, but, also like many cartoon characters, is always able to shake off death and live to fight another day.

There’s action on every page of this comic book with Tintin battling Russian bad guys and trying to get out of prison and getting shot and being dragged behind a horse and crashing in a plane, always with his dog to help him get out of the next pickle. Very fun.

A Belgian reporter is sent on assignment to the new Communist country the Soviet Union, and right from the start hostile Bolshevik agents attempt to thwart him by any means necessary, lest he report that their economic progress is a scam. Russians are starving while grain is being exported to keep up this illusion of progress! A slapstick chase through Germany to Russia and back with pointed political commentary ensues. But Tintin and his dog Snowy beat off their adversaries, and return to Brussels to a triumphant reception.

First published in two page spreads in the youth supplement to the Belgian conservative Catholic newspaper Vingtième=The Twentieth Century from 1929 to 1930, this was the first appearance for Tintin penned by his creator, and at the time the supplement’s editor, Georges Remi. Thus an enormously popular adventure hero was born. Tintin, and his creator, who signed his work R.G. spelled out as Hergé, continued having adventures for the next half century.

Interesting as an historic reference point, I suppose. Tintin has come a long way since then.

The land of the Soviets is so primitive and immature in its drawing and storyline that even Hergé himself tried to destroy it after having the characters mature into the ones we know. Consequently, this is one of the least interesting books in the series, I have read it less than five times. (That is a record in and of itself, I have read every other Tintin book at the very least fifty times.)
The text below is included in ALL of my reviews for the Tintin series. If you've already read it, please skip it.
I am a lifelong fan of Tintin and Hergé. Tintin was the earliest memory I have of being exposed to books and stories, my dad started to read Tintin to me when I was less than three years old and continued to do so until I learned to read on my own. I have loved these stories my whole life, and I know all of them by heart, in Persian, in English, and in French.
But, as a devout fan, I think it's time to do the hard but right thing: confess that these books are far from perfect. They are full of stereotypes, racist, whitewashed, colonialist, orientalist, you name it. Not to mention a complete lack of female characters (Bianca Castafiore is a mocking relic of the poor dear Maria Callas that Hergé hated, her maid Irma is present in approximately 20 frames, Alcazar's wife also, anyway, there aren't any significant female characters in these books).
In the past few years, I've struggled to decide how I feel about these books. Will I dismiss them? Consider "the time they were written in" and excuse them? Love them in secret? Start disliking them? I don't know. So far I haven't reached a fixed decision, but I will say this: I am aware that these books are problematic. I acknowledge them. I don't stand for the message of some of these books. At the same time, I won't dismiss or hide my love for them because they were an integral part of my growing up memories and fantasies and games, and I do, still, love captain Haddock very much, stupid and ridiculous as he is.