The Wasp — 1921 — page 26: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a dramatic dialogue scene between two characters: **General Irma Korevna** (a Socialist/Anarchist agitator) and **General Peter Gretcheff** (a military officer). The satire contrasts their public images with present reality. Gretcheff, once photographed in full military regalia dining with dignitaries, now appears slovenly and diminished. Mel/Korevna argues that the General's own system—the authoritarian military-political structure he represented—created the conditions for radical movements like hers to flourish. The cartoon satirizes how revolutionary upheaval can reduce powerful establishment figures to powerlessness, while simultaneously suggesting that such radicals are products of the system they oppose rather than external threats. The specific historical context appears to reference Russian political turmoil, though the exact date and figures remain unclear.