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
Khrushchev -
Give an example of a satirical magazine
Krokodil
Khrushchev -
Give an example of a popular non-political magazine
Rabotnitsa = ‘The Woman Worker’
Brezhnev -
What was the focus of media/ propaganda?
- nostalgic - victory of WW2
- soviet cinema also made films set in fashionable/ rich Russia
Brezhnev -
What was censorship like under Brezhnev?
- western magazines introduced e.g Vogue
- flourishing black market trade meant that Western ideas were less closely monitored
- increase to 3 radio stations available, including Radio Maiak which played some fo
Name 3 newspapers of the Communist regime
- Pravda (truth) = communist party
- Isvestiya (news) = government paper
- Trud (labour) = gov. controlled trade union paper
How influential were party newspapers?
- very
- cheap and widely available to ensure high readership (see further flashcards)
Give 2 statistics on the circulation of newspapers.
1983 = Pravda = 10.7 million 1983 = Trud = 13.5 million
Give 2 examples of soviet achievements celebrated in the media.
- production figures/ meeting economic targets
2. successful expeditions to the arctic/ northern Russia in search of gold and oil
Give an example of a disaster the Soviet media didn’t report on.
1957 = nuclear storage tank exploded in Kyshtym
What were the main methods of media for circulating the government message
- Newspapers
- Magazines
- Radio
- Television (1950s onwards)
Give 2 examples of Lenin’s use of radio
- started broadcasting in 1921
- installed louspeakers in public places
- effective method considering around 65% of the population were illiterate
Give 2 examples of Stalin’s use of radio
- broadcast a speech when Germans were 50 miles from Moscow in WW2. this gave the people hope.
- new apartments wired with radio reception to government stations only
How did the amount of people with access to television change?
1950 = 10,000 1958 = almost 3 million
