State Control of Mass Media and Propaganda Under Stalin

Question 1

In the mid-1930s the works of which revolutionaries from the 1920s had to be purged from Soviet libraries?

Answer 1

Zinoviev
Kamenev
Trotsky

Question 2

What was rewritten under Stalin?

Answer 2

Soviet history was rewritten

Question 3

Why was Soviet history rewritten under Stalin?

Answer 3

To remove the contributions of Stalin’s opponents

To emphasise Stalin’s role in the revolution

Question 4

What was the Soviet media forbidden from publishing stories about? Why?

Answer 4

Suicides
Industrial accidents
Natural disasters or even bad weather

This was done to create the impression that the Soviet Union was a place in which only good things happened

Question 5

What did propaganda in the Stalin period focus on?

Answer 5

The leader

Question 6

What did the cult of Stalin turn him into?

Answer 6

A semi-divine figure - one whose unique vision and unique wisdom would lead the nation to socialism

Question 7

Propaganda also focused on __________ Soviet workers

Answer 7

Archetypal

Question 8

What did Socialist Realism depict Soviet people as?

Answer 8

muscular
heroic
dedicated
beautiful

The perfect embodiment of the society that Stalin was trying to build

Question 9

Give an example of a piece of art that exhibited the aims of Socialist Realism? What does it visually represent?

Answer 9

The Worker and the Collective Farm Woman (1937)

A strong male industrial worker and a female collective farm labourer holding a sheaf of wheat

Question 10

The Worker and the Collective Farm Woman (1937) - What does it symbolise/reflect?

Answer 10

The emphasis of Soviet propaganda on the combined efforts of urban and rural communities for socialist progress