Communist propaganda
Encyclopedia
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
aimed to advance the ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
of communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, communist worldview and interests of the communist movement.
A Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
theoretician, Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Russian Marxist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and Soviet politician. He was a member of the Politburo and Central Committee , chairman of the Communist International , and the editor in chief of Pravda , the journal Bolshevik , Izvestia , and the Great Soviet...
, in his The ABC of Communism
The ABC of Communism
The ABC of Communism is a book written by Nikolai Bukharin and Yevgeni Preobrazhensky in 1920 during the Russian Civil War. Originally written to convince the proletariat of Russia to support the Bolsheviks, it became "an elementary textbook of communist knowledge"...
wrote:
The State propaganda of communism becomes in the long run a means for the erodication of the last traces of bourgeois propaganda dating from the old régime; and it is a powerful instrument for the creation of a new ideology, of new modes of thought, of a new outlook on the world.
Communist propaganda as defined by Bolsheviks
The Great Soviet EncyclopediaGreat Soviet Encyclopedia
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia is one of the largest and most comprehensive encyclopedias in Russian and in the world, issued by the Soviet state from 1926 to 1990, and again since 2002 .-Editions:There were three editions...
defines the communist propaganda in an opposition to what is called bourgeois propaganda described as manipulation of the masses in the interests of certain groups, in fact, in the interests of the ruling class
Ruling class
The term ruling class refers to the social class of a given society that decides upon and sets that society's political policy - assuming there is one such particular class in the given society....
. On the contrary, the communist propaganda is defined as a scientifically-based system of the dissemination of the communist ("Marxist-Leninist") ideology with the purpose of education, training and organizing of the masses.
Purposes
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia identifies the following functions of the Communist propaganda:- The link of the Communist party with the worker class and other working people
- Incorporation of the Scientific Socialism into the worker movements and revolutionary activities of the masses
- Unification and organization of national divisions of the workers', communist, and democratic movements
- Coordination of the activities of the above mentioned movements, exchange of information and experience
- Expression of the public opinionPublic opinionPublic opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population. Public opinion can also be defined as the complex collection of opinions of many different people and the sum of all their views....
of the worker class, working people, their needs and interests - Spread opposition to the bourgeois and revisionist propaganda
- Dissemination of propaganda about the socialist society (i.e., the one of a communist stateCommunist stateA communist state is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of a communist party and a professed allegiance to a Leninist or Marxist-Leninist communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state...
).
Targets
As a common trait of any propaganda and its analogue, advertisingAdvertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
, Communist propaganda goals and techniques are tuned according to the target audience. The most broad classification of targets is:
- Domestic propaganda of the Communist states
- External propaganda of the Communist states
- Propaganda of the Communist supporters outside the Communist states
A more detailed classification of specific targets (workers, peasants, youth, women, etc.) may be found in the Communist Party documents, usually presented at the Congresses of the communist Party.
Use of Marxist ideology
The creation of the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
was presented as the most important turning event in human history, based on the Marxist theory of historical materialism
Historical materialism
Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans...
. This theory identified means of production
Means of production
Means of production refers to physical, non-human inputs used in production—the factories, machines, and tools used to produce wealth — along with both infrastructural capital and natural capital. This includes the classical factors of production minus financial capital and minus human capital...
as chief determinants of the historical process. They led to the creation of social class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
es, and class struggle
Class struggle
Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....
was the 'motor' of history. The sociocultural evolution
Sociocultural evolution
Sociocultural evolution is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and social evolution, describing how cultures and societies have changed over time...
of societies had to progress inevitably from slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, through feudalism
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
and capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
to communism. Furthermore, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
became the protagonist of history, as a "vanguard of the working class", according to development of this theory by Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
. Hence the unlimited powers of the Communist Party leaders were claimed to be as infallible and inevitable as the history itself. It also followed that a worldwide victory of communist countries is inevitable.
Marxism was widely used to justify political repression
Political repression
Political repression is the persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take political life of society....
s. For example, the peasantry was represented as an incarnation of backwardness, an enemy class that must be brought under control, for example in the Soviet Union, Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
and Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
. Millions died as a result of Soviet dekulakization
Dekulakization
Dekulakization was the Soviet campaign of political repressions, including arrests, deportations, and executions of millions of the better-off peasants and their families in 1929-1932. The richer peasants were labeled kulaks and considered class enemies...
policy that included execution, imprisonment, and deportation to Siberia of better off peasants called "kulaks". Lev Kopelev
Lev Kopelev
Lev Zalmanovich Kopelev was a Soviet author and a dissident.- Biography :...
, who was personally involved in actions against starving villagers in 1930s explained his motivation as a result of the Communist propaganda :
- "It was excruciating to see and hear all this. And even worse to take part in it.... And I persuaded myself, explained to myself. I must not give in to debilitating pity. We were realizing historical necessityMarx's theory of historyThe Marxist theory of historical materialism understands society as fundamentally determined by the material conditions at any given time - this means the relationships which people enter into with one another in order to fulfill their basic needs, for instance to feed and clothe themselves and...
. We were performing our revolutionary dutyRevolutionA revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
. We were obtaining grain for our socialistSocialismSocialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
Fatherland. For the Five Year PlanFive-Year Plan (USSR)The Five-Year Plans for the National Economy of the Soviet Union were a series of nation-wide centralized exercises in rapid economic development in the Soviet Union. The plans were developed by a state planning committee based on the Theory of Productive Forces that was part of the general...
. Our goal was the universal triumph of the CommunismCommunismCommunism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, and for the sake of that goal everything was permissible - to lie, to steal, to destroy hundreds of thousands and even millions of people... everyone who stood in the way".
Polarized values
Détente
Détente is the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. The term is often used in reference to the general easing of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s, a thawing at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War...
, the Communist propaganda was centered around a number of polarized dichotomies: virtues of the Communist world vs. vices of the Capitalist world, such as:
- communists for peace, the West for war
- communists for cooperation, the West is based on exploitation
Still another polarization was focused on the real and alleged essence of various terms, such as "freedom", "democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
", often counterpointing, e.g., "bourgeois democracy" vs. "true democracy" or "people's democracy". The latter term is seen, e.g., in the expression "countries of people's democracy" as applied to what is called "communist states" in the West.
Self-criticism
In Jacques EllulJacques Ellul
Jacques Ellul was a French philosopher, law professor, sociologist, lay theologian, and Christian anarchist. He wrote several books about the "technological society" and the interaction between Christianity and politics....
's book Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes is a landmark work on the subject of propaganda by French philosopher,theologian, and sociologist Jacques Ellul. This book appears to be the first attempt to study propaganda from a sociological approach as well as a psychological one...
complete propaganda can only be achieved when it is ably to win over the adversary or at least integrate him into the new frame of reference created by propaganda. This was achieved by Soviet propaganda in the self-criticism of its opponents so that the enemy of a regime can be made to declare, while he is still the enemy, that the regime was right and his opposition was criminal. ." The enemy accepts his condemnation as just and converts to a supporter of the regime as a result of totalitarian propaganda.
Means
Communist propaganda was delivered via:- Printed media
- Manuals
- Newspapers and magazines
- Books
- Radio and TV broadcasting
- Congresses and conferences of various internationational organizations under various Communist umbrellas, such as World Peace CouncilWorld Peace CouncilThe World Peace Council is an international organization that advocates universal disarmament, sovereignty and independence and peaceful co-existence, and campaigns against imperialism, weapons of mass destruction and all forms of discrimination...
- Local communist parties and fellow-travellers
Communist manuals
During the years 1938 - 1953 the History of the CPSU(B). Short Course was an obligatory explanation of Soviet ideology. The book was translated into many languages.Communist periodicals
A number of periodicals were printed by communist states, either exclusively for distribution abroad or with versions tailored for foreign audiences. While the Soviet Union and the Communist China were the major contributors, other communist states contributed their share as well. The lists below are for early 1960s compiled by J. Clews. The list contains mostly English language titles, but many of these journals were edited in many languages.Soviet Union
- Culture and Life
- International Affairs
- Moscow NewsMoscow NewsThe Moscow News, which began publication in 1930, is Russia’s oldest English-language publication newspaper. Many of its feature articles used to be translated from the now defunct Russian Moskovskiye Novosti.-History:...
- The New TimesThe New Times (Russia)The New Times, or Novoye Vremya , is a Russian language magazine in Russia established in 1943 in the Soviet Union. It is a small, liberal, independent Russian weekly news magazine, publishing for Russia and Armenia. During the Soviet times it followed the official line...
- Oeuvres et opinions
- Soviet Film
- Soviet Literature
- Soviet Union
- Soviet Woman, in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish
- Femmes de nous jours
- Sputnik - not allowed in GDR and Cuba during glasnostGlasnostGlasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
.
People's Republic of China
- China Pictorial
- China Reconstructs
- Peking Review
- People's China
- China's Sports
- Women in China
- Evergreen
Other
(Partial list)- People's Republic of PolandPeople's Republic of PolandThe People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
- Daily News
- Demokratis
- Polish Review
- CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
- In the Heart of Europe
- Czechoslovak Life
- Czechoslovak Woman
- BulgariaBulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
- Bulgaria Today
- New Bulgaria (in English, French, Arabic)
- East Germany
- Al Najallah (for Arabic-speaking countries)
- GDR REview
- Democratic German Report
- Jena Review
- Saut- as-Sadaka (Arabic)
- Voix de l'Amitie (French, for Africa)
- Picture News (English, for Asia)
- Echo d'Allemagne (French)
- North KoreaNorth KoreaThe Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
- Korea Today
- Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Periodical)
Radio broadcasting
A 1952 article "Communist broadcasts to Italy" reported that as of June 1952 the total communist radio broadcast to Italy amounted 78 hours per week, as compared to 23 hours of the Voice of AmericaVoice of America
Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...
and BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, noting that Italy occupied a pivotal position in the East-West conflict of the time. These broadcasts originated not only from Moscow, but also from the countries of the Soviet Bloc, as well as from fake "underground resistance" radios probably located within the Soviet Bloc as well rather than in the West.
Film and stage
Soviet leaders believed that film was an important tool of propaganda http://www.jstor.org/pss/1213694, see Cinema of the Soviet UnionCinema of the Soviet Union
The cinema of the Soviet Union, not to be confused with "Cinema of Russia" despite Russian language films being predominant in both genres, includes several film contributions of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union reflecting elements of their pre-Soviet culture, language and history,...
. Soviet films helped to create the legends of the revolution: The Battleship Potemkin
The Battleship Potemkin
The Battleship Potemkin , sometimes rendered as The Battleship Potyomkin, is a 1925 silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and produced by Mosfilm...
, October: Ten Days That Shook the World, The End of St. Petersburg
The End of St. Petersburg
The End of St. Petersburg is a 1927 silent film directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin and produced by Mezhrabpom. Commissioned to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, The End of St Petersburg was to be Pudovkin's most famous film and secured his place as one of the foremost Soviet...
. Roman Karmen
Roman Karmen
Roman Lazarevich Karmen was a Soviet war camera-man and film director and one of the most influential figures in documentary film making; insofar as his propaganda is concerned he could be considered USSR's answer to Leni Riefenstahl, though the comparison is by no means absolute.-Communist...
was a war cameraman and film director and one of the most influential figures in documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
making; he could be considered USSR's answer to Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
. Obyknovennyy fashizm (Common Fascism aka A Night of Thoughts or Triumph Over Violence
Triumph Over Violence
Triumph Over Violence is a 1965 Soviet film directed by Mikhail Romm.The film is also known as Echo of the Jackboot in the United Kingdom and Trumps Over Violence in the USA....
) (1965) by Mikhail Romm
Mikhail Romm
Mikhail Ilych Romm was a Soviet film director.He was born in Irkutsk. His father was a social democrat of Jewish descent who had been exiled there. He graduated from gymnasium in 1917 and entered the Moscow College for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture...
described totalitarian propaganda on the example of Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
.
In 2007 a high ranking intelligence officer and defector from the Eastern Bloc, Ion Mihai Pacepa
Ion Mihai Pacepa
Ion Mihai Pacepa is the highest-ranking intelligence official ever to have defected from the former Eastern Bloc. He is now a United States citizen, a writer, and a columnist....
, stated that in February 1960, Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
authorized a covert plan (known as Seat 12
Seat 12
Seat 12 also known as Operation Seat 12 was an alleged disinformation campaign of communist propaganda during the Cold War to discredit the moral authority of the Vatican because of its outspoken anti-communism...
) to discredit the Vatican because of its strong anti-communism, with Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII
The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....
as the prime target. As part of that plan General Ivan Agayants
Ivan Agayants
Ivan Ivanovich Agayants was a leading Soviet NKVD/KGB intelligence officer of Armenian origin....
, chief of the KGB’s disinformation department, created the outline for what was to become the play, The Deputy
The Deputy
The Deputy, a Christian tragedy , also known as The Representative, is a controversial 1963 play by Rolf Hochhuth which indicts Pope Pius XII for his failure to take action or speak out against The Holocaust. It has been translated into more than twenty languages...
, which although fictional purports to cast doubt on the Pontiff's moral credibility with regard to the Holocaust.
International organizations, congresses and festivals
During the Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
the World Festivals of Youth and Students were held, with some exceptions, in capitals of Communist state
Communist state
A communist state is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of a communist party and a professed allegiance to a Leninist or Marxist-Leninist communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state...
s and were a powerful tool of Communist propaganda.
Education
Education in the Communist states included a considerable amount of indoctrinationIndoctrination
Indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology . It is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned...
, both in special political/philosophical courses and in properly crafted courses of general education: history, geography, world literature, etc. Soviet ideology was taught in the Soviet Union divided into three disciplines: Scientific Communism
Scientific Communism
Scientific communism was one of the three major ingredients of Marxism-Leninism as taught in the Soviet Union in all institutions of higher education and pursued in the corresponding research institutions, and departments...
, Marxism-Leninism
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
(mostly in form of Leninism
Leninism
In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a direct-democracy dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of socialism...
) and Communist Political Economy) and was introduced as part of many courses, e.g., teaching Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
' or Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
's views on topics of science or history. The Soviet format of education was imposed (although with varying success) onto other satellite states.
Culture and arts
From the early days of the first Communist-ruled state, Soviet RussiaRussian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....
, arts were recognized as a powerful means of propaganda and placed under strict control and censorship in all Communist states. Lenin and Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
were preferred subject, almost all Stalin's images and monuments removed and/or destroyed after his death, mostly in 1956.
Kukryniksy
Kukryniksy
The Kukryniksy were three caricaturists/cartoonists in the USSR with a recognizable style."Kukryniksy" was a collective name derived from the combined names of three caricaturists The Kukryniksy were three caricaturists/cartoonists in the USSR with a recognizable style."Kukryniksy" was a...
were three propaganda caricaturists/cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
s, who attacked all enemies of the Soviet Union.
Financial means
J. Clews cites German, French and British estimates of early 1960s on the amount of money spent in the world for Communist propaganda and political activities in the non-Communist world, estimating to about $2,000 million, i.e., about $2 per person outside the Communists states, with major spenders being the Soviet Union and People's Republic of ChinaPeople's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
.
Perception in the West
The basic aspects of the communist ideology, such as violent means for attaining its goals (revolution), abolition of the private property and animosity towards religion were against the traditional valuesTraditional values
Traditional values refer to those beliefs, moral codes, and mores that are passed down from generation to generation within a culture, subculture or community.-Summary:Since the late 1970s in the U.S., the term "traditional values" has become synonymous...
of the Western world
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
and have met with strong opposition, including attempts to make the communist propaganda illegal in some states. For example,
- In 1937, the CanadianCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
province of QuebecQuebecQuebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
enacted the "Padlock LawPadlock LawThe Padlock Law The Padlock Law (officially called "Act to protect the Province Against Communistic Propaganda") The Padlock Law (officially called "Act to protect the Province Against Communistic Propaganda") (QcFr: "La loi du cadenas" / "Loi protégeant la province contre la propagande...
", which enabled police to prevent the use of any premises for the promotion of Communism or Bolshevism. The Supreme Court of CanadaSupreme Court of CanadaThe Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court of Canada and is the final court of appeals in the Canadian justice system. The court grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts, and its decisions...
struck down the Padlock Law as unconstitutional in 1957. - In 1962, the U.S.United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
state of LouisianaLouisianaLouisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
passed a law identifying Communist propaganda as a subversive activity and declared that "it shall be a felony for any person to knowingly, willfully and intentionally deliver, distribute, disseminate or store communist propaganda in the state of Louisiana except under the specific exemptions hereinafter provided."
Specific examples
- Propaganda in the Soviet UnionPropaganda in the Soviet UnionCommunist propaganda in the Soviet Union was extensively based on the Marxism-Leninism ideology to promote the Communist Party line. In societies with pervasive censorship, the propaganda was omnipresent and very efficient...
- Propaganda in the People's Republic of ChinaPropaganda in the People's Republic of ChinaPropaganda in the People's Republic of China as interpreted in Western media refers to the Communist Party of China's use of propaganda to sway public and international opinion in favor of its policies. Domestically, this includes censorship of proscribed views and an active cultivation of views...
- Propaganda in the People's Republic of PolandPropaganda in the People's Republic of PolandCommunist propaganda played an important role in the People's Republic of Poland , one of the largest and most important communist satellite states of the Soviet Union...
- Propaganda in North KoreaPropaganda in North KoreaThe propaganda in North Korea is extensively based on the Juche ideology to promote the Workers' Party of Korea line. From its beginning to this day the propaganda is omnipresent.-Cult of personality:...
- AgitpropAgitpropAgitprop is derived from agitation and propaganda, and describes stage plays, pamphlets, motion pictures and other art forms with an explicitly political message....
- Agitprop theatre
See also
- Imperialist propaganda
- Soviet historiographySoviet historiographySoviet historiography is the methodology of history studies by historians in the Soviet Union . In the USSR, the study of history was marked by alternating periods of freedom allowed and restrictions imposed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , and also by the struggle of historians to...
Censorship:
- Eastern Bloc information disseminationEastern Bloc information disseminationEastern Bloc information dissemination was controlled directly by each country's Communist party, which controlled the state media, censorship and propaganda organs...
- Censorship in the Soviet UnionCensorship in the Soviet UnionCensorship in the Soviet Union was pervasive and strictly enforced.Censorship was performed in two main directions:*State secrets were handled by Main Administration for Safeguarding State Secrets in the Press was in charge of censoring all publications and broadcasting for state...
Further reading
- Harry Hodgkinson (1955) Doubletalk (USA title: The language of Communism), Pitman Publishing
- Hans Koch (1959) Theorie Taktik Technik des Weltkommunismus Ilmgauverlag, Pfaffenhofen an der IlmPfaffenhofen an der IlmPfaffenhofen an der Ilm is a municipality in Bavaria, Germany, capital of the district Pfaffenhofen. It is located on the river Ilm, and had a population of 23,282 in 2004.Composer Ralf Yusuf Gawlick was born here in 1969....
, Germany