Media

Question 1

After the Civil war what happened to freedom of the press?

Answer 1

It got worse.

Question 2

What did Glavlit do from 1922?

Answer 2

Oversaw the systematic censorship

Question 3

Examples of glavlit’s censorship under Lenin?

Answer 3

All books were investigated for anti Communist bias.

The GPU compiled a list of banned books

Question 4

What happened to banned books during Lenin’s era?

Answer 4

Politically dangerous books were held in ‘book gulags’ (new special holding libraries)

Question 5

What happened to Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky and Lenin’s works in the ’30s?

Answer 5

Z,K,T were purged from soviet libraries. Lenin’s works were edited to remove complimentary statements about Stalin’s opponents

Question 6

Examples of ‘bad news’ that soviet media was not allowed to publish during Stalin

Answer 6

Natural disasters

Bad weather

Suicides

Question 7

Example of a socialist realist piece of art and how were soviets depicted in it

Answer 7

The worker and the collective farm woman. Depicted as beautiful, hardworking and heroic

Question 8

Why were magazines encouraged to publish readers’ letters

Answer 8

An attempt to create a consumer society

Question 9

What did readers’ letters expose in the ’50s and ’60s?

Answer 9

Long term societal issues e.g. male alcoholism, scarcity of consumer goods, domestic violence

Question 10

What did khrushchev’s media do in response to complaints in readers’ letters?

Answer 10

They focused on male hypocrisy and a lack of devotion to communism

Question 11

Under khrushchev in WW2 related media, who was the main focus?

Answer 11

Ordinary soviets

Question 12

Give examples of how Brezhnev used media to his advantage?

Answer 12

Kept tight control over the coverage of the war in Afghanistan to hide the horrors going on there

His speeches were transmitted in full

He was at the centre of a lot of domestic media coverage

Question 13

How did brezhnev’s use of media backfire?

Answer 13

The cameras showed that he was physically weak. He struggled to finish speeches and in the last week of his life, it showed him struggling to get up the stairs of Lenin’s mausoleum

Question 14

1917 decree on press

Answer 14

All non socialist newspapers banned but by the 1920s all non bolshevik newspapers were banned too

Question 15

1918 revolutionary tribunal of press

Answer 15

Had powers over censorship and journalists could be arrested for not conforming with this

Question 16

What did Pravda and Izvestiya do throughout the period?

Answer 16

Highlighted the achievements of socialism

Question 17

What did magazines never tolerate under Khrushchev?

Answer 17

Political attacks on himself or communism

Question 18

Example of a prohibited negative topic under Khrushchev

Answer 18

1957 Kyshtum disaster- waste storage tank explosion which killed 200 people. The places effected by the explosion removed off of maps.

Question 19

What did TVs under Brezhnev focus on? Why did Brezhnev introduce a range of radio stations?

Answer 19

Achievements of socialism and social programmes. Introduced a range of radio stations to compete with the BBC

Question 20

Number of TVS from 1950 to 1958

Answer 20

1950: 10 000
1958: 3 million

Question 21

Number of government sponsored radios under Khrushchev vs Brezhnev

Answer 21

1 under Khrushchev and 3 under Brezhnev

Question 22

What did ROSTA do under Lenin to produce propaganda

Answer 22

Produced cartoons which supported the revolution eg Verton

Question 23

Example of a heroic story under stalin

Answer 23

Eisenstein’s Red October (1927)- film

Question 24

Were the Soviets aware that political rivals were killed/imprisoned?

Answer 24

Yes

Question 25

Impact of technological development

Answer 25

Resulted in sharing information which meant that it was harder to control and control over the people began to decline