As the Soviet Union resumed nuclear testing on August 31, 1961, the West decried the threat of nuclear annihilation as a form of terrorism. While the Berlin Wall began the process of drawing a physical line between East and West, Communist Party-led governments cracked down on the movement of people who attempted to flee their influence. Herblock uses the dropped mask with its vacuous smile as his symbol of the façade of détente in combination with the whip and jackboot to depict Soviet aggression.