3.1 Mass Media, Propaganda & Religion Flashcards
Mass Media: Newspapers
Glavit - censorship office
1917 Decree: closed all non-socialist newspapers, by 1920 all non-Bolshevik
Izvestia - gov news
by 1983 10.7 M issues of Pravda were in circulation, Trud was 13.5 M
production figures & tech advances (e.g oil in north pole)
Mass Media: Radio
Spoken Newspaper of the Russian Telegraph Agency
Recent development by soviet scientists in 1921 -> easier to control
& ++ effective; 65% was illiterate
Loudspeakers in public spaces ->collective agreement
Rapid development, gov. investment: by 1922 Moscow had a sophisticated broadcasting station
Control centralised by Commissariat for Posts & Telegraphs
Cheap radios with limited reception: no access to foreign stations, limited access to info
Mass Media: Magazines
Variety to cater to a range of interests -> e.g 1946: Sovetskii sport (forced to carry political news on front page)
Areas of interest off-limits: pornography, crime, religion…
Mass Media: Television
1950->1958, television sets increased from 10,000 to 3M
During 1950s-60s, mass production->cheap and accessible
Capitalism portrayed negatively, life under Communism idealised
By 1985 there were 2 television channels
Cult of personality
Adoration of the individual through the use of art and popular culture, created a sense of loyalty
detach the leaders from collective leadership
reinforcing individual power
Lenin’s Cult
heroic remembrance, ideological and educational tool
developed by successors
Petrograd renamed Leningrad 1924
‘Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live’ used by Stalin
Writings as sacred texts, e.g ‘Collected Works of Lenin’ became essential reading for Party
Stalin’s Cult: nature
To win power struggle 1924-28, reinforced dictatorship 1930s
Took personal credit for successes, rewrote history, controlled education and art, linked to Lenin
God-like
Khrushchev’s Cult
Limited: could not rely on terror
Appointed son-in-law editor of Izvestiya
Stalin’s Cult: examples
Reaming Tsaritsyn to Stalingrad, 1925
Slogan ‘Stalin is the Lenin of today’
Films like ‘Fall of Berlin’ 1949 - military hero
Posters of Stalin in military uniform
History of 1917 rewritten -> Stalin as protagonist
Titles such as ‘Gardener of Human Happiness’
Brezhnev’s cult
Awarded over 100 medals, Lenin Prise for Literature for poorly written memoirs
Religion under Lenin
Decree of Freedom of Conscience 1918 - separated Church and state
28 bishops and over 1000 priests in Red Terrir
Head of Church, Patriarch Tikhon, under house arrest
All monasteries closed down by 1918
church valuables seized by reds
Living Church 1922 to divide Christian’s and reduce power
Mass media:
Prohibited topics
Prohibited plane crashes & natural disasters -> e.g Kyshtym disaster 1957 - 200 fatalities, 270,000 exposed to chem waste, 30 small communities disappeared from maps but affected areas evacuated after 2 years
Katyn Forest Massacre 1940
Moscow Fire, 1972
Current affairs, world events
Religion under Stalin
League of Militant Godless 1929
Baptisms renamed octoveribgs
55% peasants active Christians mid 1920s
Great Purge killed/arrested 151/163 bishops
WW2: re establishing patriarch, seminaries to train priests, stopped arrest of religious figures
Actions against Islam & Muslims
Sharia courts phased out
Most mosques closed down
Campaign against veiling women, 1920s
