Media + Propaganda Flashcards
What was Lenin’s attitude to the press?
- saw press as central to advancing the revolution and ensuring the Communists retained power
What 4 decrees did Lenin introduce to establish government control over the press?
- Decree on Press 1917
- The Revolutionary Tribunal of the Press 1918
- Established ROSTA 1918
- Established Glavit 1922
Lenin -
Explain how the Decree on Press helped the government control the press.
- gave the government the power to close any newspapers that supported ‘counter revolution’
- initially closed tsarist/ bourgeois newspapers, but by 1920’s shut down other socialist newspapers also
Lenin -
Explain how the Revolutionary Tribunal of the Press (1918) helped the government control the press.
- gave the state the power to censor the Press.
- Journalists and editors who committed ‘crimes against the people’ could be punished by the CHEKA
Lenin -
Explain how ROSTA (1918) helped the government control the press.
- ROSTA = All-Russian Telegraph Agency
- gave the state control of all advertising and news reporting
Lenin -
Explain how Glavit (1922) helped the government control the press.
Glavit employed professional censors to examine all books, old and new, for anti-communist ideas
Lenin -
Summarise Lenin’s approach to propaganda
- often experimental
- used new artistic techniques to spread the Communist message
- new technology e.g Radio
Lenin -
Give 3 examples of Lenin’s use of propaganda.
- Gustav Klutsis used photomontage to create posters advertising Lenin’s electrification plan.
- ROSTA produced cartoon films to support the revolution
- technology = agitprop trains
Stalin -
How did media + propaganda change under stalin?
censorship was tightened under Stalin
it also grew in scale and breadth
Stalin -
Give 3 examples of tightened censorship
- From 1928, Glavit controlled access to economic data.
- Restrictions on what you could report on introduced. Soviet media was forbidden from reporting on natural disasters/ suicides, industrial accidents or even bad weather, in order to create the impression that only good things happened in the Soviet Union.
- banned books by rivals
Stalin -
Give an example of Stalin increasing his breadth of censorship/ propaganda.
- Lenin’s works edited to remove complimentary statements about Stalin’s rivals
- Edited the history of the revolution from 1938-1940 to emphasise his role in the revolution
- edits rivals out of pictures
- re-writes history textbooks
Stalin -
What was the focus of propaganda?
focussed on idealised images of workers and peasants happily building socialism in modern factories and farms.
How did the press change under Lenin?
- massive extension in the bureaucracy around censorship
Summarise Khrushchev’s attitude to the media/ censorship.
- initially much of the media was heavily politicised, focussing on the achievements of Khrushchev’s policy/ the Soviet union internationally.
- later more domestic content introduced such as magazines publishing readers letters
- some relaxation as non-political magazines allowed, some of which highlighted problems in society
Khrushchev -
What was the focus of propaganda?
- still focused on traditional themes e.g WW2
- shift in emphasis, celebrating the role of the Russian people, rather than the role of the leaders
- ALSO, rather than presenting idealised workers, satirical cartoons were allowed. They ridiculed poor workers e.g alcoholic men
