Propaganda in the Soviet Union

Propaganda in the Soviet Union was the practice of state-directed communication to promote class conflict, internationalism, the goals of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the party itself.

The main Soviet censorship body, Glavlit, was employed not only to eliminate any undesirable printed materials but also "to ensure that the correct ideological spin was put on every published item." Under Stalinism, deviation from the dictates of official propaganda was punished by execution and labor camps. Afterwards, such punitive measures were replaced by punitive psychiatry, prison, denial of work, and loss of citizenship. "Today a man only talks freely to his wife – at night, with the blankets pulled over his head," the writer Isaac Babel privately told a trusted friend.Robert Conquest ''Reflections on a Ravaged Century'' (2000) , pp. 101–111.

Theory of propaganda

According to historian Peter Kenez, "the Russian socialists have contributed nothing to the theoretical discussion of the techniques of mass persuasion. ... The Bolsheviks never looked for and did not find devilishly clever methods to influence people's minds, to brainwash them." Kenez says this lack of interest "followed from their notion of propaganda. They thought of propaganda as part of education." In a study published in 1958, business administration professor Raymond Bauer concluded: "Ironically, psychology and the other social sciences have been employed ''least'' in the Soviet Union for precisely those purposes for which Americans popularly think psychology would be used in a totalitarian state—political propaganda and the control of human behavior."

Media

Schools and youth organizations

An important goal of Soviet propaganda was to create a New Soviet man. Schools and Communist youth organizations such as the Young Pioneers and Komsomol served to remove children from the "petit-bourgeois" family and indoctrinate the next generation into the " collective way of life". The idea that the upbringing of children was the concern of their parents was explicitly rejected.
One schooling theorist stated:

Those born after the Russian Revolution were explicitly told that they were to build a utopia of brotherhood and justice, and to not be like their parents, but completely Red.Lewis Stegelbaum and Andrei Sokolov, ''Stalinism As A Way Of Life'', p. 356 "Lenin's corners", "political shrines for the display of propaganda about the god-like founder of the Soviet state", were established in all schools. Schools conducted marches, songs, and pledges of allegiance to Soviet leadership. One of the purposes was to instill in children the idea that they are involved in the world revolution, which is more important than any family ties. Pavlik Morozov, who denounced his father to the secret police NKVD, was promoted as a great positive example.

Teachers in economic and social sciences were particularly responsible for inculcating "unshakable" Marxist–Leninist views. All teachers were prone to strictly follow the plan for educating children approved by the top for reasons of safety, which could cause serious problems dealing with social events that, having just happened, were not included in the plan. Children of "socially alien" elements were often the target of abuse or expelled, in the name of class struggle. Early in the regime, many teachers were drawn into Soviet plans for schooling because of a passion for literacy and numeracy, which the Soviets were attempting to spread.

The Young Pioneers were an important factor in the indoctrination of children.Lewis Stegelbaum and Andrei Sokolov, ''Stalinism As A Way Of Life'', p. 374 They were taught to be truthful and uncompromising and to fight the enemies of socialism. By the 1930s, this indoctrination completely dominated the Young Pioneers.

Radio

The radio was put to good use, especially to reach the illiterate; radio receivers were put in communal locations, where the peasants would have to come to hear the news, such as changes to rationing, and received propaganda broadcasts with it; some of these locations were also used for posters.Anthony Rhodes, ''Propaganda: The art of persuasion: World War II'', p212 1976, Chelsea House Publishers, New York

During World War II, radio was used to propagandize Germany; German POWs would be brought on to speak and assure their relatives they were alive, with propaganda being inserted between the announcement that a soldier would speak and when he actually did, in the time allowed for his family to gather.Anthony Rhodes, ''Propaganda: The art of persuasion: World War II'', p224, 158 1976, Chelsea House Publishers, New York

Posters

Wall posters were widely used in the early days, often depicting the Red Army's triumphs for the benefit of the illiterate. Throughout the 1920s, this was continued.

This continued in World War II, still for the benefit of the less literate, with bold, simple designs.

Cinema

Films were heavily propagandist, although they were pioneers in the documentary field ( Roman Karmen, Dziga Vertov). When war appeared inevitable, dramas, such as '' Alexander Nevsky'' (1938) were written to prepare the population; these were withdrawn after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, but returned to circulation after the war began.Anthony Rhodes, ''Propaganda: The art of persuasion: World War II'', p214 1976, Chelsea House Publishers, New York

Films were shown in theaters and from propaganda trains. During the war newsreels were shown in subway stations so that the poor were not excluded by an inability to pay.Anthony Rhodes, ''Propaganda: The art of persuasion: World War II'', p219 1976, Chelsea House Publishers, New York Films were also shot with stories of partisan activity, and of the suffering inflicted by the Nazis, such as '' Girl No. 217'', depicting a Russian girl enslaved by an inhuman German family.

Because film needs an industrial base, propaganda also made much of the output of film.

Propaganda train

An institution during World War II was the propaganda train, fitted with presses and portable cinemas, staffed with lecturers. In the Civil War the Soviets sent out both "agitation trains" (russian: агитпоезд) and "" (russian: агитпароход) to inform, entertain, and propagandize.

Meetings and lectures

Meetings with speakers were also used. Despite their dullness, many people found they created solidarity, and made them feel important and that they were being kept up to date on news.

Lectures were habitually used to instruct in the proper way of every corner of life.

Joseph Stalin's lectures on Leninism were instrumental in establishing that the Party was the cornerstone of the October Revolution, a policy Lenin acted on but did not write of theoretically.

Art

Art, whether literature, visual art, or performing art, was used for the purpose of propaganda. Furthermore, it should show one clear and unambiguous meaning. Long before Stalin imposed complete restraint, a cultural bureaucracy was growing up that regarded art's highest form and purpose as propaganda and began to restrain it to fit that role. Cultural activities were constrained by censorship and a monopoly of cultural institutions.

Imagery frequently drew on heroic realism.eye magazine,
Designing heroes
" The Soviet pavilion for the Paris World Fair was surmounted by Vera Mukhina's a monumental sculpture, ''Worker and Kolkhoz Woman'', in heroic mold. This reflected a call for heroic and romantic art, which reflected the ideal rather than the realistic. Art was filled with health and happiness; paintings teemed with busy industrial and agricultural scenes, and sculptures depicted workers, sentries, and schoolchildren.

In 1937, the Industry of Socialism was intended as a major exhibit of socialist art, but difficulties with pain and the problem of "enemies of the people" appearing in scene required reworking, and sixteen months later, the censors finally approved enough for an exhibition.

Newspapers

In 1917, coming out of underground movements, the Soviets prepared to begin publishing ''Pravda''.

The very first law the Soviets passed on assuming power was to suppress newspapers that opposed them.Richard Pipes, ''Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime'', p292, This had to be repealed and replaced with a milder measure, but by 1918, Lenin had liquidated the independent press, including journals stemming from the 18th century.

From 1930 to 1941, as well as briefly in 1949, the propaganda journal '' USSR in Construction'' was circulated. It was published in Russian, French, English, German, and, from 1938, Spanish. The self-proclaimed purpose of the magazine was to "reflect in photography the whole scope and variety of the construction work now going on the USSR". The issues were aimed primarily at an international audience, especially Western left-wing intellectuals and businessmen, and were quite popular during its early publications, with subscribers including George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, John Galsworthy, and Romain Rolland.

Illiteracy was regarded as a grave danger, excluding the illiterate from political discussion. In part this was because the people could not be reached by Party journals.

Books

Immediately after the revolution, books were treated with less severity than newspapers, but the nationalizing of printing presses and publishing houses brought them under control. In the Stalinist era, libraries were purged, sometimes so extremely that works by Lenin were removed.

In 1922, the deportation of writers and scholars warned that no deviation was permitted, and pre-publication censorship was reinstated. Due to a lack of Bolshevist authors, many "fellow travelers" were tolerated, but money only came as long as they toed the party line.

During the Stalinist Great Purges, textbooks were often so frequently revised that students had to do without them.

Theatre

The revolutionary theater was used to inspire support for the regime and hatred of its enemies, particularly agitprop theater, noted for its cardboard characters of perfect virtue and complete evil, and its coarse ridicule. Petrushka was a popular figure, often used to defend rich peasants and attack kulaks.

Themes

New man

Many Soviet works depicted the development of a "positive hero" as requiring intellectualism and hard discipline. He was not driven by crude impulses of nature but by conscious self-mastery. The selfless new man was willing to sacrifice not only his life but his self-respect and his sensitivity for the good of others. Equality and sacrifice were touted as the ideal appropriate for the "socialist way of life."
Work required exertion and austerity, to show the new man triumphing over his base instincts.B. R. Myers, ''The Cleanest Race'', p 86 Alexey Stakhanov's record-breaking day in mining coal caused him to be set forth as the exemplar of the "new man" and to inspire Stakhanovite movements. The movement inspired much pressure to increase production, on both workers and managers, with critics labeled " wreckers".

This reflected a change from early days, with emphasis on the "little man" among the anonymous labors, to favoring the "hero of labor" in the end of the First Five-Year Plan, with writers explicitly told to produce heroization.Richard Overy, ''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia'', p259 While these heroes had to stem from the people, they were set apart by their heroic deeds. Stakhanov himself was well suited for this role, not only a worker but for his good looks like many poster hero and as a family man. The hardships of the First Five-Year Plan were put forth in romanticized accounts. In 1937–38, young heroes who accomplished great feats appeared on the front page of ''Pravda'' more often than Stalin himself.

Later, during the purges, claims were made that criminals had been "reforged" by their work on the White Sea/Baltic Canal; salvation through labor appeared in Nikolai Pogodin's ''The Aristocrats'' as well as many articles.

This could also be a new woman; ''Pravda'' described the Soviet woman as someone who had and could never have existed before. Female Stakhanovites were rarer than male, but a quarter of all trade-union women were designated as "norm-breaking."Richard Overy, ''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia'', p260 For the Paris World Fair, Vera Mukhina depicted a monumental sculpture, ''Worker and Kolkhoz Woman'', dressed in work clothing, pressing forward with his hammer and her sickle crossed. Pro-natalist policies encouraging women to have many children were justified by the selfishness inherent in limiting the next generation of "new men." "Mother-heroines" received medals for ten or more children.

Stakhanovites were also used as propaganda figures so heavily that some workers complained that they were skipping work.

The murder of Pavlik Morozov was widely exploited in propaganda to urge on children the duty of informing on even their parents to the new state.

Class enemy

The class enemy was a pervasive feature of Soviet propaganda. With the Civil War, the newly formed army moved to massacre large numbers of kulaks and otherwise promulgate a short lived " reign of terror" to terrify the masses into obedience.

Lenin proclaimed that they were exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class, a position reinforced by the many actions against landlords, well-off peasants, banks, factories, and private shops. Stalin warned, often, that with the struggle to build a socialist society, the class struggle would sharpen as class enemies grew more desperate. During the Stalinist era, all opposition leaders were routinely described as traitors and agents of foreign, imperialist powers.

The Five-Year Plan intensified the class struggle with many attacks on ''kulaks'', and when it was found that many peasant opponents were not rich enough to qualify, they were declared "sub-kulaks." "Kulaks and other class-alien enemies" were often cited as the reason for failures on collective farms. Throughout the First and Second Five-Year Plans, kulaks, wreckers, saboteurs and nationalists were attacked, leading up to the Great Terror. Those who profited from public property were "enemies of the people." By the late 1930s, all "enemies" were lumped together in art as supporters of historical idiocy. Newspapers reported even on the trial of children as young as ten for counterrevolutionary and fascist behavior. During the Holodomor, the starving peasants were denounced as saboteurs, all the more dangerous in that their gentle and inoffensive appearance made them appear innocent; the deaths were only proof that peasants hated socialism so much they were willing to sacrifice their families and risk their lives to fight it.

Stalin, denouncing White counter-revolutionaries, Trotskyists, wreckers, and others, particularly aimed his attention at the Communist old guard. The very improbability of the charges was cited as evidence, since more plausible charges could have been invented.

These enemies were rounded up for the gulags, which propaganda proclaimed to be " corrective labor camps" to such an extent that even people who saw the starvation and slave labor believed the propaganda rather than their eyes.

During World War II, entire nationalities, such as the Volga Germans, were branded traitors.

Stalin himself informed Sergei Eisenstein that his film '' Ivan the Terrible'' was flawed because it did not show the necessity of terror in Ivan's persecution of the nobility.

New society

Propaganda can start a large movement or revolution, but only if the masses rally behind one another to make the images produced by propaganda a reality. Good propaganda must instill hope, faith, and certainty. It must bring solidarity among the population. It must stave off demoralization, hopelessness, and resignation.

A common theme was the creation of a new, utopian society, depicted in posters and newsreels, which inspired an enthusiasm in many people. Much propaganda was dedicated to a new community, as exemplified in the use of "comrade." This new society was to be classless. Distinctions were to be based on function, not class, and all possessed the equal duty to work. During the 1930s discussion of the new constitution, one speaker proclaimed that there were, in fact, no classes in the USSR, and newspapers effused over how the dreams of the working class were coming true for the luckiest people in the world.Lewis Stegelbaum and Andrei Sokolov, ''Stalinism As A Way Of Life'', p171 One admission that there were classes – workers, peasants, and working intelligentsia – dismissed it as unimportant, as these new classes had no need to conflict.

Military metaphors were used frequently for this creation, as in 1929, where the collectivization of agriculture was officially termed a "full-scale socialist offensive on all fronts." The Second Five-Year Plan saw a slowdown of the Socialist Offensive, this against a propaganda background of trumpeting the USSR's triumphs on "the battlefield of building socialism."

In Stalinist times, this was often portrayed as a "great family", with Stalin as the great father.Lewis Stegelbaum and Andrei Sokolov, ''Stalinism As A Way Of Life'', p22

Happiness was mandatory; in a novel where a horse was described as moving "slowly", the censor objected, asking why it was not moving speedily, being happy like the rest of the collective farm workers.

''Kohlkhoznye Rebiata'' published bombastic reports from the collective farms of their children.Lewis Stegelbaum and Andrei Sokolov, ''Stalinism As A Way Of Life'', p358 When hot breakfasts were provided for schoolchildren, particularly in city schools, the program was announced with great fanfare.

Since communist society was the highest and most progressive form of society, it was ethically superior to all others, and "moral" and "immoral" were determined by whether things helped or hindered its development. Tsarist law was overtly abolished, and while judges could use it, they were to be guided by "revolutionary consciousness". Under the pressure of the need for law, more and more was implemented; Stalin justified this in propaganda as the law would "wither away" best when its authority was raised to the highest, through its contradictions.

When the draft of the new constitution led people to believe that private property would be returned and that workers could leave collective farms, speakers were sent out to "clarify" the matter.

Production

Stalin bluntly declared the Bolshevists must close the Tsar-induced fifty- or a hundred-year gap with Western countries in ten years, or "socialism would be destroyed". In support of the Five-Year Plan, he declared being an industrial laggard had caused Russia's historical defeats. Newspapers reported overproduction of quotas, even though many had not occurred, and where they did, the goods were often shoddy.

During the 1930s, the development of the USSR was just about the only theme of art, literature and film.Lewis Stegelbaum and Andrei Sokolov, ''Stalinism As A Way Of Life'', p208 The heroes of Arctic exploration were glorified. The twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution was honored with a five volume work glorifying the accomplishments of socialism and (in the last volume) "scientifically based fantasies" of the future, raising such questions as whether the whole world or only Europe would be socialist in twenty years.

Even while a majority of the population was still rural, the USSR was proclaimed "a mighty industrial power." '' USSR in Construction'' glorified the Moscow-Volga Canal, with only the briefest mention of the slave labor that had built it.

In 1939, a rationing plan was considered but not implemented because it would undermine the propaganda of improving care for the people, whose lives grew better and more cheerful every year.

During World War II, the slogans were altered from overcoming backwardness to overcoming the "fascist beast" but continued focus on production. The slogan proclaimed "Everything for the Front!" Teams of Young Communists were used as shocktroops to shame workers into higher production as well as spread socialist propaganda.

In the 1950s, Khrushchev repeatedly boasted that the USSR would soon surpass the West in material well-being. Other Soviet officials agreed that the USSR would soon show its superiority because capitalism was like a dead herring – shining as it rotted.

Subsequently, the USSR was referred to as "developed socialism."

Mass movement

This led to a great emphasis on education.

The first post-mortem attack on Stalin was the publication of articles in ''Pravda'' proclaiming that the masses made history and the error of a "cult of the individual."Robert Service, ''A History of Modern Russia, from Nicholas II to Putin'' p 332

Peace-loving

A common motif in propaganda was that the Soviet Union was peace-loving.

Many warnings were made of the necessity of keeping out of any imperialistic war, as the breakdown of capitalism would make capitalist countries more desperate.

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was presented as a peace measure.Anthony Rhodes, ''Propaganda: The art of persuasion: World War II'', p217 1976, Chelsea House Publishers, New York

Internationalism

Even before the Bolshevists seized power, Lenin proclaimed in speeches that the Revolution was the vanguard of a worldwide revolution, both international and socialist. The workers were informed they were the vanguard of world socialism; the slogan "Workers of the world, unite!" was constantly repeated.

Lenin founded the organization Comintern to propagate Communism internationally. Stalin proceeded to use it to promote Communism throughout the world for the benefit of the USSR. When this topic was a difficulty dealing with the Allies in World War II, Comintern was dissolved.Robert Service, ''A History of Modern Russia, from Nicholas II to Putin'' p 270 Similarly, "The Internationale" was dropped as the national anthem in favor of the " Hymn of the Soviet Union".

Japanese prisoners of war were intensively propagandized before their release in 1949, to act as Soviet agents.

Personality cult

While Lenin was uncomfortable with the personality cult that sprung up about him, the party exploited it during the Russian Civil War and officially enshrined it after his death. As early as 1918, a biography of Lenin was written, and busts were produced. With his death, his embalmed body was displayed (to imitate beliefs that the bodies of saints did not decay), and picture books of his life were produced in mass quantities.

Stalin presented himself as a simple man of the people, but distinct from everyday politics by his unique role as leader. His clothing was carefully selected to cement this image.Robert Service, ''A History of Modern Russia, from Nicholas II to Putin'' p. 198 Propaganda presented him as Lenin's heir, exaggerating their relationship, until the Stalin cult drained out the Lenin cult – an effect shown in posters, where at first Lenin would be the dominating figure over Stalin, but as time went on became first only equal, and then smaller and more ghostly, until he was reduced to the byline on the book Stalin was depicted reading. This occurred despite the historical accounts describing Stalin as insignificant, or even a "gray blur", in the early Revolution. From the late 1920s until it was debunked in the 1960s, he was presented as the chief military leader of the civil war. Stalingrad was renamed for him on the claim that he had single-handedly, and against orders, saved it in the civil war.

He often figured as the great father of the "great family" that was the new Soviet Union. Regulations on how exactly to portray Stalin's image and write of his life were carefully promulgated. Inconvenient facts, such as his having wanted to cooperate with the Tsarist government on his return for exile, were purged from his biography.

His work for the Soviet Union was praised in paeans to the "light in the Kremlin window." Marx, Engels