Lesson 8 - How did Stalin consolidate and maintain his power?
Stalin inherited much of the machinery of totalitarian control from Lenin. The single party control over a new prerogative state was in place from 1919 and informal social control was exercised through censorship and propaganda. But Stalin went further. It can be argued that there were two key stages in Stalin's consolidation of power. The first began in 1928 with the launch of the First Five-Year Plan and his attack on the Right Opposition. The second stage came after the murder of Kirov in 1934 which led to the purges and show trials of the former Bolshevik leaders including Kamenev, Zinoviev and Bukharin..
Coercion - Formal Social Control
a. Coercive Legal Methods - Important during consolidation
New authoritarian laws - There was little new for Stalin to do here. Any constitutional guarantees that might have been expected in a liberal democracy had either never been effectiively introduced after the Tsar was removed in 1917 or had been abolished by Lenin between 1917 and 1924. Stalin's major contribution was his reform of the Soviet constitution in 1936. Stalin had declared 'it would be the most democratic in the world'. A commission was arranged and reviewed constitutions from around the world. In theory the constitution guaranteed free speech, a free press,and freedom of assembly but in reality and at the same moment Stalin launched the Yezhovshchina, the Great Purge. Article 126 defined the role of the Communist Party and was used to justify banning all other parties. The communists were the 'vanguard of the working people in their struggle to strengthen and develop the socialist system and representing the leading core of all organizations of the working people, both public and state' .
a. Coercive Legal Methods - Important during consolidation
New authoritarian laws - There was little new for Stalin to do here. Any constitutional guarantees that might have been expected in a liberal democracy had either never been effectiively introduced after the Tsar was removed in 1917 or had been abolished by Lenin between 1917 and 1924. Stalin's major contribution was his reform of the Soviet constitution in 1936. Stalin had declared 'it would be the most democratic in the world'. A commission was arranged and reviewed constitutions from around the world. In theory the constitution guaranteed free speech, a free press,and freedom of assembly but in reality and at the same moment Stalin launched the Yezhovshchina, the Great Purge. Article 126 defined the role of the Communist Party and was used to justify banning all other parties. The communists were the 'vanguard of the working people in their struggle to strengthen and develop the socialist system and representing the leading core of all organizations of the working people, both public and state' .
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New authoritarian institutions - Replacing of the old ‘normative’ state with the new authoritarian ‘prerogative’ state had largely been completed under Lenin. Legal coercion was important. As you can see in the diagram (source - Oxley, Russia, 2001) there were plenty of elections and the Sovnarkom was a government elected by the people. But in reality power lay in the Communist Party and its most important committee the Politburo. The party was run as it always had been secretively and hierarchically. It had begun as an organisation trying to evade the Tsarist state and then it had developed into a military machine set up to win a civil war.
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The most important positions in the Party were not decided democratically, but rather through hierarchical appointment. Stalin's powerbase was founded on his ability to control the appointment of those looking to make their career in the Party. Those he appointed owed their position to him; those who wanted promotion, needed to prove their loyalty and usefulness to him. After Stalin the most important person in the USSR was always the General Secretary.
As with many dictators it is often hard with Stalin to distinguish the aims of policy with the pursuit of power. The attempt to modernise Russia through the Five-Year Plans and collectivisation were extraordinarily ambitious economic policies which had enormous social consequences. (See next Lesson) But they also had a political intent. Ending the NEP provided Stalin with an opportunity to consolidate his position. As the historian James William Crowl has argued: 'Stalin With the defeat of Trotsky and the Left Wing in 1927, Stalin apparently began to look for a way to outmaneuver the final power bloc in the Party: the Right Wing led by Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky. It was not by accident that the economy provided him with the issues he needed to destroy his erstwhile allies.' (Spartacus)
As with many dictators it is often hard with Stalin to distinguish the aims of policy with the pursuit of power. The attempt to modernise Russia through the Five-Year Plans and collectivisation were extraordinarily ambitious economic policies which had enormous social consequences. (See next Lesson) But they also had a political intent. Ending the NEP provided Stalin with an opportunity to consolidate his position. As the historian James William Crowl has argued: 'Stalin With the defeat of Trotsky and the Left Wing in 1927, Stalin apparently began to look for a way to outmaneuver the final power bloc in the Party: the Right Wing led by Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky. It was not by accident that the economy provided him with the issues he needed to destroy his erstwhile allies.' (Spartacus)
New authoritarian people - Such was the hierarchical nature of the Party's control over the command economy that Stalin was able to appoint loyal supporters to key positions much as he had done to assure his rise to power in the 1920s. Vyacheslav Molotov held various important positions, including Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (Prime Minister) and Minister of Foreign Affairs. Lazar Kaganovich had a leadership roles in Soviet industrialization. He played a significant role in the construction of the Moscow Metro (See below) and other major infrastructure projects. Andrei Zhdanov was known for promoting Stalinist ideology and enforcing strict cultural and artistic controls through the Zhdanov Doctrine. In 1934 he was promoted to Leningrad party chief following the assassination of Sergei Kirov. Kliment Voroshilov played a role in purging the Red Army of potential rivals. Nikolai Yezhov was head of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) during the height of the Great Purge (1936-1938).
b. Coercive Force.
The First Five-Year Plan was launched in 1928 as a radical shift away from the NEP. It aimed to rapidly industrialize the Soviet Union, with an emphasis on heavy industry (steel, machinery, etc.), collectivisation of agriculture, and centralised planning. The First Five-Year Plan itself came with significant social and economic costs, including forced collectivisation of agriculture, forced labour, mass displacement of peasants, and the consolidation of power under a centralised state apparatus. For example, after 1932 an internal passport was introduced that helped the state control the movement of citizens.
The First Five-Year Plan was launched in 1928 as a radical shift away from the NEP. It aimed to rapidly industrialize the Soviet Union, with an emphasis on heavy industry (steel, machinery, etc.), collectivisation of agriculture, and centralised planning. The First Five-Year Plan itself came with significant social and economic costs, including forced collectivisation of agriculture, forced labour, mass displacement of peasants, and the consolidation of power under a centralised state apparatus. For example, after 1932 an internal passport was introduced that helped the state control the movement of citizens.
1934 - The death of Sergei Kirov
This was Stalin's Reichstag Fire/Night of the Long Knives moment. Sergei Kirov, a very popular local party leader, was assassinated in Leningrad by Leonid Nikolaev, a disgruntled party member. The assassination marked the beginning of a period of intense political repression and purges known as the Great Purge. Stalin used the fear of conspiracies to target and eliminate thousands of individuals, including party members, intellectuals, military officers, and others. Some theories suggest that Stalin may have been involved in ordering the killing (Kirov had become too popular), while others propose that it was carried out by disgruntled party members without Stalin's direct involvement.
This was Stalin's Reichstag Fire/Night of the Long Knives moment. Sergei Kirov, a very popular local party leader, was assassinated in Leningrad by Leonid Nikolaev, a disgruntled party member. The assassination marked the beginning of a period of intense political repression and purges known as the Great Purge. Stalin used the fear of conspiracies to target and eliminate thousands of individuals, including party members, intellectuals, military officers, and others. Some theories suggest that Stalin may have been involved in ordering the killing (Kirov had become too popular), while others propose that it was carried out by disgruntled party members without Stalin's direct involvement.
NKVD
The NKVD, or People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs played a significant role in the Soviet government's efforts to maintain control and suppress dissent. The NKVD was established in 1934, following the merger of the GPU (State Political Directorate) and the OGPU (Unified State Political Directorate). It was responsible for a wide range of functions, including internal security, counterintelligence, border protection, and law enforcement. The NKVD was led by individuals who held high-ranking positions in the Soviet government. Notable leaders included Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai Yezhov, and Lavrentiy Beria. During the 1930s, the NKVD played a central role in the Great Purge, a campaign initiated by Joseph Stalin to eliminate perceived political enemies and consolidate his power. Thousands of people were arrested, imprisoned, or executed during this period. (See below). The NKVD was also responsible for overseeing the vast network of forced labor camps known as the Gulag.
The NKVD, or People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs played a significant role in the Soviet government's efforts to maintain control and suppress dissent. The NKVD was established in 1934, following the merger of the GPU (State Political Directorate) and the OGPU (Unified State Political Directorate). It was responsible for a wide range of functions, including internal security, counterintelligence, border protection, and law enforcement. The NKVD was led by individuals who held high-ranking positions in the Soviet government. Notable leaders included Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai Yezhov, and Lavrentiy Beria. During the 1930s, the NKVD played a central role in the Great Purge, a campaign initiated by Joseph Stalin to eliminate perceived political enemies and consolidate his power. Thousands of people were arrested, imprisoned, or executed during this period. (See below). The NKVD was also responsible for overseeing the vast network of forced labor camps known as the Gulag.
The Gulag
The Tsarist labour camps in Siberia were closed in 1917 only to be reopened by Joseph Stalin as Glavnoye Upravleniye Lagere (Gulag). It has been estimated that 18 million entered the Gulag and roughly 1.5 to 1.7 million perished and another 6 million were sent into exile in Siberia. (Anne Applebaum, in Gulag: A History) If the size of the secret police is an indication about the degree of totalitarianism, then Stalin's NKVD certainly exercised greater control than Hitler's Gestapo. At the end of the 1930s there was 1 Gestapo man per 2,500 of population. At the same period, 1 NKVD man per 500 of population, five times the saturation level of Nazi Germany. (Sheila Fitzpatrick).
The Tsarist labour camps in Siberia were closed in 1917 only to be reopened by Joseph Stalin as Glavnoye Upravleniye Lagere (Gulag). It has been estimated that 18 million entered the Gulag and roughly 1.5 to 1.7 million perished and another 6 million were sent into exile in Siberia. (Anne Applebaum, in Gulag: A History) If the size of the secret police is an indication about the degree of totalitarianism, then Stalin's NKVD certainly exercised greater control than Hitler's Gestapo. At the end of the 1930s there was 1 Gestapo man per 2,500 of population. At the same period, 1 NKVD man per 500 of population, five times the saturation level of Nazi Germany. (Sheila Fitzpatrick).
The Purges and Show Trials
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The Great Purge, also known as the Great Terror, was a campaign of political repression and mass killings orchestrated by Joseph Stalin and the Soviet government. It aimed to eliminate perceived enemies of the state, including political rivals, intellectuals, military leaders, and others who were deemed a threat to the regime. The purge involved mass arrests, forced labor camps (Gulags), executions, and the widespread use of torture to extract confessions from accused individuals. One of the notable aspects of the Great Purge was the use of show trials. These were highly publicized trials where the accused, often coerced or tortured, would make false confessions to crimes against the state. These trials were meant to serve as propaganda to justify the government's actions and to intimidate the population.
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The Moscow Trials (1936-1938):
These were a series of three show trials held in Moscow during the Great Purge. The most famous of these trials were the Trial of the Sixteen, the Trial of the Seventeen, and the Trial of the Twenty-One. Prominent Bolsheviks and former leaders, including Lev Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev, were accused of conspiring against Stalin and the Soviet government. In 1937, Bukharin was arrested during the height of the Great Purge and was accused of various anti-Soviet activities and conspiracies. He was subjected to a show trial and was forced to confess to crimes he did not commit. In 1938, Bukharin was executed by firing squad. (See film right) |
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Persuasion - Informal Social Control
My three short films below remind you of the basic generic ideas that will help you make sense of the key features of informal social control.
My three short films below remind you of the basic generic ideas that will help you make sense of the key features of informal social control.
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Persuasion - Informal social control.
Propaganda and censorship in the USSR were centrally organised. The distinction between the arts and propaganda, education and indoctrination began to break down. Mobilisation of the public in support of the regime was crucial because the Five-Year Plan required enormous effort and sacrifice and eveyone was expected to play their part in building socialism.
Agitprop and Glavlit - Agitprop was the abbreviated name of the Communist Party’s Department of Agitation and Propaganda. It referred to the production of propaganda materials designed to agitate a positive response from the public. Central Censorship Office, more commonly known as Glavlit was responsible for controlling what could be published in books and newspapers or on radio and in the cinema.
Vehicles of delivery
Newspapers
Lenin gained valuable experience with print, co-founding Iskra (The Spark) in 1900, which was edited in Munich, published in Leipzig and smuggled back into Russia. His experience with Iskra forced him to take the material, practice and function of an underground newspaper seriously.
Undoubtedly the most signficant Bolshevik propaganda vehicle was Pravda, which traced its origins back to 1903 when it first appeared as a cultural and literary journal of the arts published by a wealthy Moscow railway engineer. In 1912, following the expulsion of the Mensheviks, Lenin made Pravda the Party’s official organ (mouthpiece). Pravda eventually became the most important newspaper in the Soviet Union, achieving a circulation of 11 million at its height. Lenin was a frequent Pravda contributor (in May 1917 alone, Lenin wrote 48 articles).
Other significant print propaganda vehicles included Izvestia, which also began publication in February 1917 as the organ of the workers of the Petrograd Soviet. It quickly became the official organ of the government (the CEC of the Supreme Soviet of the the Soviet Union and Sovnarkom) and concentrated more on foreign relations. Trud became the primary organ of the trade unions and began publishing in 1921, while Bednota served as the vehicle for the Red Army and peasants. During the Civil War, Bednota’s circulation reached 750,000 and at its peak in the 1920s it had a staff of 4,000 before it merged in 1931 with another newspaper, becoming Socialist Agriculture.
In these newspapers and other journals, propaganda themes focused on building support for the revolution at home, while ‘Black Propaganda’ was produced to undercut support for the Capitalist West (see section 0.2.7). Turning citizens into the ideal images of the 'New Soviet Man' Homo Sovieticus and the 'New Soviet Woman,' and making citizens into 'good communists' generally, was the counterpoint to isolating and purging the country of identifiable class enemies and traitors in a sustained drive to create a utopian society. In fact, from the very beginning according to Martin Ebon in The Soviet Propaganda Machine (1987, p. 337), 'Generation after generation, the people of the Soviet Union have been the target of a propaganda campaign designed to create “a new Soviet man.”' According to Martin Ebon in The Soviet Propaganda Machine (1987), the ‘original blueprint,' in terms of the defining characteristics of the new Soviet man or women, was:
devoutness in their adherence to Marxism-Leninism
unquestioning obedience to shifts in Communist Party policies
diligent workers and devotion to collective activities
strongly opposition to bourgeois and imperialist temptations.
'Dictator literature': canons of another kind
In addition to the proliferation of broadsheets, newspapers and journals, was the publication of what Daniel Kalder in The Infernal Library: On Dictators, the Books They Wrote, and Other Catastrophes of Literacy (2018) considers was a 'dictator literature,' which provided an additional theoretical component to the socialist project often giving it an air of scientific legitimacy. Lenin’s major texts (those towering above all others) in sequence are:
What is to be Done (a 1903 plan of action for a revolutionary movement)
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (a 1917 critique of the capitalist war, a war that was considered a betrayal of Marxism)
The State and Revolution (a 1916–17 consideration of the role of the state in a revolutionary period, which was in response to a debate with Bukharin, during the transition to dictatorship).
Stalin’s earliest literary effort was a September 1901 contribution to Brdzola (Struggle) an underground Marxist newspaper that explored questions about raising worker consciousness. In the period between 1901 and 1913, he produced enough material for the first two volumes of his collective works (which paled in comparison to Lenin’s 15-volume output in a similar period). Stalin’s most significant early work was The National Question and Social Democracy (or Marxism and the National Question), a reasonably mature, reflective study that, as Kalder (p. 51) wrote, 'sketched out an approach to running a multinational, multiethnic Marxist state where national interests are subjugated to class interests as defined by the party center.' Publication of Stalin’s works began in 1920 and eventually ran to 20 volumes in 26 books and contained 1,500 documents. Lenin’s 'Collected Works' finished publication in 1965, and the fifth and final edition ran some 55 volumes and contained over 3,000 documents (with an additional 3,700 documents held in archives).
Stalin’s key writings as propaganda vehicles were:
The Foundations of Leninism (1950)
The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course (1938)
The first was pitched as an homage to Lenin, but was really part of Stalin’s attempt to project an image of himself as Lenin’s obvious heir and, as part of the cult of Lenin, Stalin founded the Lenin Institute in January 1924. Later that year he gave a series of lectures on The Foundations of Leninism at Moscow’s Communist University. The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course, was a mid 1930s venture with a commissioned team of historians, with Stalin as its ‘director,’ charged with writing the official history of the Soviet Union, which was serialised and ran in Pravda in September 1938 and produced in book form (12 chapters) a month later.
Propaganda posters
Propaganda posters were used to create the society the Bolsheviks wanted to project through the State’s lens. Stephen White’s The Bolshevik Poster (1998) examined the pre-revolutionary influence on the emergence of the Bolshevik poster, which he argues reached its heyday during the Russian Civil War.
Stalin’s image came to represent Bolshevik values and he was the embodiment and personification of a new revolutionary society. The Stalin celebrated in posters differed markedly from the man of humble beginnings. Stalin appears in posters (see below) as a towering, wise and nurturing figure, the fearless leader of the people, the truest successor to Lenin with a legitimate hold on power, and the individual who brings the national minorities into the Soviet nation without favour.
Film
The earliest Soviet film production and distribution organisation until 1924 was Goskino. It was succeeded by several other agencies: Sovkino (1924–1930), Soyuzkino (1930–1933); the Chief Directorate of the Film and Photo industry (until 1939); the Central Committee for Cinema Affairs (until 1946), then in 1946 the Ministry of the Cinema became to film production and distribution arm.
Through film, the Soviets targeted the masses. Lenin, in particular, had always felt that film was the best way to reach the illiterate peasants. Soviet films promoted ‘socialist realism’ and nationalism, and were also used as a propaganda vehicle against the masses to portray capitalist countries in a negative light.
Censorship of Soviet film began in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution and with the onset of the Civil War. Religion was heavily censored, any technological superiority of the West was downplayed, Russian wartime battle losses were doctored or omitted, while Soviet famines like the Holodomor were downplayed to promote Russian nationalism and undermine the resolve of national minorities to forge independent states. While Glavlit censored print, Stalin often acted at the chief censor of film.
Radio
The People’s Commissariat for Posts and Telegraphs controlled radio resources in Russia in the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution. Lenin had recognised its early days that radio had great potential. Lenin and the Bolsheviks established the first All-Union radio station in November 1924, and radio was seen over the following decades as a key outlet for bringing their ideas to the masses.
Agit-trains, agit-streetcars and agit-boats
Trains were used extensively for many purposes during the Civil War. In fact, Leon Trotsky established a train as his permanent Red Army headquarters so that he and his generals could move quickly through the countryside as the front lines shifted. Beginning in August 1918, the Bolshevik government sent locomotives with auxiliary cars (usually 16–18 cars in length) outfitted for propaganda purposes to the countryside, Siberia and elsewhere. Leading Bolshevik artists were commissioned to paint the car exteriors and the most famous train was called the 'October Revolution.'
These brightly painted agit-trains carried leaflets, books and other materials to the peasants to promote Soviet policies and programmes. They included a complaints department to hear peasant concerns and many also had mobile movie theatres. The trains also had garages on them with motorcycles and cars so that the propaganda materials could reach those towns and centres further from the railines. Agit-trains were used through the 1920s to promote the NEP, before falling into disuse, only to be revived again during World War II. They were used again during the Cold War and pushed into Eastern Europe where agitprop stations were established. Printing presses and radios on the trains were used to communicate with Moscow enabling those on board to tailor their propaganda to address local concerns.
Building upon the early success of the agit-cars, a programme for agit-boats was initiated in 1919 and agit-streetcars also eventually appeared. The most successful of the agit-boats was a steamer called the Red Star, which spent months travelling up and down the Volga River during the summers of 1919 and 1920, showing films more than 400 times. Many leading Party luminaries, including Molotov and Krupskaya (Lenin’s wife), joined these trips.
Making good communist children
The Soviets also strongly asserted their control over various apparatuses to mould communist children. The educational system was brought under Bolshevik control and compulsory primary education was adopted in 1930, which doubled the number of students attending to 18 million by 1933. Illiteracy, which reached 75 per cent in 1917, was virtually eradicated by the eve of World War II.
The Youth League of the Communist Party, the Komsomol, was established to facilitate the proper education of the tomorrow’s leaders and those even younger were pushed into the fledgling Young Pioneers.
The Aktiv
Within the Party, were the aktiv, from which the collective noun ‘activist’ was taken. They were individuals in various propaganda vehicles who were charged with the responsibility to 'call to action, to rouse [others] to greater efforts'.
Komsomol youth were expected to assume key leadership positions serving the interests of the state and promoting a new socialist order. Many aktiv also served as workers’ and peasants’ correspondents and, according to Sheila Fitzpatrick in Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times; Soviet Russia in the 1930s (1999), also in the wives’ volunteer movements. As propaganda vehicles and promoters of the state the aktiv were used in a watchdog capacity to report on transgressors, and one of the responsibilities of Soviet socialist youth was to keep tabs on their elders.
The myth of Pavlik Morozov
Pavlik Morozov was a mythic figure (see section 0.2.3). He was a 14-year-old boy from a Siberian village who turned his own father in for treason and was subsequently murdered along with his brother (supposedly by kulaks) and later found in the woods near the village of Gerasimovka along the Ural–Western Siberia border. Morozov was held up by the State as the ideal Soviet youth, a dutiful citizen who put the State’s interests first. Manufactured during a period of revolutionary Bolshevism, during the mid 1930s as the Bolsheviks returned to more traditional family values, Morozov’s story was reinvented, downplaying some aspects. To ensure the preservation of his legacy in Soviet society, Pavlik Morozov Museum was established in 1941 in Gerasimovka, which was revived and expanded decades later.
Alexei Stakhanov
The propaganda machine and its Five Year plans also created heroes as ‘cultural icons,’ for example Alexei Stakhanov, who the Stakhanovite movement named itself after. Stakhanov was a coal miner from the Donbass region, who purportedly extracted his quota 14 times over (102 tons in six hours) in September 1935 during the Second Five Year Plan. As a result of his achievement, Stakhanov made the cover of Time magazine in December 1935, and following the creation of the title in 1938 was made a Hero of Socialist Labour, the highest civilian distinction for exceptional contribution to the fields of the economy and culture.
Stakhanovites were recognised and honoured for outstanding production. A Stakhanovite conference took place in November 1935 at the Kremlin to celebrate their contribution to the national economy. As a propaganda vehicle, the Stakhanovite movement spread like wildfire across the country in the 1930s foreshadowing similar developments later in Russia and elsewhere: a two-hundreders movement emerged in Russia during World War II (recognising those individuals who exceeded their shift quotas by more than 200 per cent) and in China a series of similar cultural icons emerged in the military (such as Lei Feng) and in civil society through the 1950s and 1960s.
In Soviet Russia and elsewhere, female Stakhanovites appeared less frequently than male, and a disproportionate number were associated with the rural economy. Soviet individuals recognised in a similar manner as Stakhanovites and held up as ‘cultural icons’ included:
Alexander Busygin (the automobile industry)
I.I. Gudov (the machine tool industry)
K. Borin (agriculture)
V.S. Musinsky (the timber industry)
P. Kryvonos (the railroad industry)
Pasha Angelina (first women to operate a tractor).
Radio Free Europe on Stalin
Australian National University on Cult of Stalin in Posters
Propaganda and censorship in the USSR were centrally organised. The distinction between the arts and propaganda, education and indoctrination began to break down. Mobilisation of the public in support of the regime was crucial because the Five-Year Plan required enormous effort and sacrifice and eveyone was expected to play their part in building socialism.
Agitprop and Glavlit - Agitprop was the abbreviated name of the Communist Party’s Department of Agitation and Propaganda. It referred to the production of propaganda materials designed to agitate a positive response from the public. Central Censorship Office, more commonly known as Glavlit was responsible for controlling what could be published in books and newspapers or on radio and in the cinema.
Vehicles of delivery
Newspapers
Lenin gained valuable experience with print, co-founding Iskra (The Spark) in 1900, which was edited in Munich, published in Leipzig and smuggled back into Russia. His experience with Iskra forced him to take the material, practice and function of an underground newspaper seriously.
Undoubtedly the most signficant Bolshevik propaganda vehicle was Pravda, which traced its origins back to 1903 when it first appeared as a cultural and literary journal of the arts published by a wealthy Moscow railway engineer. In 1912, following the expulsion of the Mensheviks, Lenin made Pravda the Party’s official organ (mouthpiece). Pravda eventually became the most important newspaper in the Soviet Union, achieving a circulation of 11 million at its height. Lenin was a frequent Pravda contributor (in May 1917 alone, Lenin wrote 48 articles).
Other significant print propaganda vehicles included Izvestia, which also began publication in February 1917 as the organ of the workers of the Petrograd Soviet. It quickly became the official organ of the government (the CEC of the Supreme Soviet of the the Soviet Union and Sovnarkom) and concentrated more on foreign relations. Trud became the primary organ of the trade unions and began publishing in 1921, while Bednota served as the vehicle for the Red Army and peasants. During the Civil War, Bednota’s circulation reached 750,000 and at its peak in the 1920s it had a staff of 4,000 before it merged in 1931 with another newspaper, becoming Socialist Agriculture.
In these newspapers and other journals, propaganda themes focused on building support for the revolution at home, while ‘Black Propaganda’ was produced to undercut support for the Capitalist West (see section 0.2.7). Turning citizens into the ideal images of the 'New Soviet Man' Homo Sovieticus and the 'New Soviet Woman,' and making citizens into 'good communists' generally, was the counterpoint to isolating and purging the country of identifiable class enemies and traitors in a sustained drive to create a utopian society. In fact, from the very beginning according to Martin Ebon in The Soviet Propaganda Machine (1987, p. 337), 'Generation after generation, the people of the Soviet Union have been the target of a propaganda campaign designed to create “a new Soviet man.”' According to Martin Ebon in The Soviet Propaganda Machine (1987), the ‘original blueprint,' in terms of the defining characteristics of the new Soviet man or women, was:
devoutness in their adherence to Marxism-Leninism
unquestioning obedience to shifts in Communist Party policies
diligent workers and devotion to collective activities
strongly opposition to bourgeois and imperialist temptations.
'Dictator literature': canons of another kind
In addition to the proliferation of broadsheets, newspapers and journals, was the publication of what Daniel Kalder in The Infernal Library: On Dictators, the Books They Wrote, and Other Catastrophes of Literacy (2018) considers was a 'dictator literature,' which provided an additional theoretical component to the socialist project often giving it an air of scientific legitimacy. Lenin’s major texts (those towering above all others) in sequence are:
What is to be Done (a 1903 plan of action for a revolutionary movement)
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (a 1917 critique of the capitalist war, a war that was considered a betrayal of Marxism)
The State and Revolution (a 1916–17 consideration of the role of the state in a revolutionary period, which was in response to a debate with Bukharin, during the transition to dictatorship).
Stalin’s earliest literary effort was a September 1901 contribution to Brdzola (Struggle) an underground Marxist newspaper that explored questions about raising worker consciousness. In the period between 1901 and 1913, he produced enough material for the first two volumes of his collective works (which paled in comparison to Lenin’s 15-volume output in a similar period). Stalin’s most significant early work was The National Question and Social Democracy (or Marxism and the National Question), a reasonably mature, reflective study that, as Kalder (p. 51) wrote, 'sketched out an approach to running a multinational, multiethnic Marxist state where national interests are subjugated to class interests as defined by the party center.' Publication of Stalin’s works began in 1920 and eventually ran to 20 volumes in 26 books and contained 1,500 documents. Lenin’s 'Collected Works' finished publication in 1965, and the fifth and final edition ran some 55 volumes and contained over 3,000 documents (with an additional 3,700 documents held in archives).
Stalin’s key writings as propaganda vehicles were:
The Foundations of Leninism (1950)
The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course (1938)
The first was pitched as an homage to Lenin, but was really part of Stalin’s attempt to project an image of himself as Lenin’s obvious heir and, as part of the cult of Lenin, Stalin founded the Lenin Institute in January 1924. Later that year he gave a series of lectures on The Foundations of Leninism at Moscow’s Communist University. The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course, was a mid 1930s venture with a commissioned team of historians, with Stalin as its ‘director,’ charged with writing the official history of the Soviet Union, which was serialised and ran in Pravda in September 1938 and produced in book form (12 chapters) a month later.
Propaganda posters
Propaganda posters were used to create the society the Bolsheviks wanted to project through the State’s lens. Stephen White’s The Bolshevik Poster (1998) examined the pre-revolutionary influence on the emergence of the Bolshevik poster, which he argues reached its heyday during the Russian Civil War.
Stalin’s image came to represent Bolshevik values and he was the embodiment and personification of a new revolutionary society. The Stalin celebrated in posters differed markedly from the man of humble beginnings. Stalin appears in posters (see below) as a towering, wise and nurturing figure, the fearless leader of the people, the truest successor to Lenin with a legitimate hold on power, and the individual who brings the national minorities into the Soviet nation without favour.
Film
The earliest Soviet film production and distribution organisation until 1924 was Goskino. It was succeeded by several other agencies: Sovkino (1924–1930), Soyuzkino (1930–1933); the Chief Directorate of the Film and Photo industry (until 1939); the Central Committee for Cinema Affairs (until 1946), then in 1946 the Ministry of the Cinema became to film production and distribution arm.
Through film, the Soviets targeted the masses. Lenin, in particular, had always felt that film was the best way to reach the illiterate peasants. Soviet films promoted ‘socialist realism’ and nationalism, and were also used as a propaganda vehicle against the masses to portray capitalist countries in a negative light.
Censorship of Soviet film began in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution and with the onset of the Civil War. Religion was heavily censored, any technological superiority of the West was downplayed, Russian wartime battle losses were doctored or omitted, while Soviet famines like the Holodomor were downplayed to promote Russian nationalism and undermine the resolve of national minorities to forge independent states. While Glavlit censored print, Stalin often acted at the chief censor of film.
Radio
The People’s Commissariat for Posts and Telegraphs controlled radio resources in Russia in the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution. Lenin had recognised its early days that radio had great potential. Lenin and the Bolsheviks established the first All-Union radio station in November 1924, and radio was seen over the following decades as a key outlet for bringing their ideas to the masses.
Agit-trains, agit-streetcars and agit-boats
Trains were used extensively for many purposes during the Civil War. In fact, Leon Trotsky established a train as his permanent Red Army headquarters so that he and his generals could move quickly through the countryside as the front lines shifted. Beginning in August 1918, the Bolshevik government sent locomotives with auxiliary cars (usually 16–18 cars in length) outfitted for propaganda purposes to the countryside, Siberia and elsewhere. Leading Bolshevik artists were commissioned to paint the car exteriors and the most famous train was called the 'October Revolution.'
These brightly painted agit-trains carried leaflets, books and other materials to the peasants to promote Soviet policies and programmes. They included a complaints department to hear peasant concerns and many also had mobile movie theatres. The trains also had garages on them with motorcycles and cars so that the propaganda materials could reach those towns and centres further from the railines. Agit-trains were used through the 1920s to promote the NEP, before falling into disuse, only to be revived again during World War II. They were used again during the Cold War and pushed into Eastern Europe where agitprop stations were established. Printing presses and radios on the trains were used to communicate with Moscow enabling those on board to tailor their propaganda to address local concerns.
Building upon the early success of the agit-cars, a programme for agit-boats was initiated in 1919 and agit-streetcars also eventually appeared. The most successful of the agit-boats was a steamer called the Red Star, which spent months travelling up and down the Volga River during the summers of 1919 and 1920, showing films more than 400 times. Many leading Party luminaries, including Molotov and Krupskaya (Lenin’s wife), joined these trips.
Making good communist children
The Soviets also strongly asserted their control over various apparatuses to mould communist children. The educational system was brought under Bolshevik control and compulsory primary education was adopted in 1930, which doubled the number of students attending to 18 million by 1933. Illiteracy, which reached 75 per cent in 1917, was virtually eradicated by the eve of World War II.
The Youth League of the Communist Party, the Komsomol, was established to facilitate the proper education of the tomorrow’s leaders and those even younger were pushed into the fledgling Young Pioneers.
The Aktiv
Within the Party, were the aktiv, from which the collective noun ‘activist’ was taken. They were individuals in various propaganda vehicles who were charged with the responsibility to 'call to action, to rouse [others] to greater efforts'.
Komsomol youth were expected to assume key leadership positions serving the interests of the state and promoting a new socialist order. Many aktiv also served as workers’ and peasants’ correspondents and, according to Sheila Fitzpatrick in Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times; Soviet Russia in the 1930s (1999), also in the wives’ volunteer movements. As propaganda vehicles and promoters of the state the aktiv were used in a watchdog capacity to report on transgressors, and one of the responsibilities of Soviet socialist youth was to keep tabs on their elders.
The myth of Pavlik Morozov
Pavlik Morozov was a mythic figure (see section 0.2.3). He was a 14-year-old boy from a Siberian village who turned his own father in for treason and was subsequently murdered along with his brother (supposedly by kulaks) and later found in the woods near the village of Gerasimovka along the Ural–Western Siberia border. Morozov was held up by the State as the ideal Soviet youth, a dutiful citizen who put the State’s interests first. Manufactured during a period of revolutionary Bolshevism, during the mid 1930s as the Bolsheviks returned to more traditional family values, Morozov’s story was reinvented, downplaying some aspects. To ensure the preservation of his legacy in Soviet society, Pavlik Morozov Museum was established in 1941 in Gerasimovka, which was revived and expanded decades later.
Alexei Stakhanov
The propaganda machine and its Five Year plans also created heroes as ‘cultural icons,’ for example Alexei Stakhanov, who the Stakhanovite movement named itself after. Stakhanov was a coal miner from the Donbass region, who purportedly extracted his quota 14 times over (102 tons in six hours) in September 1935 during the Second Five Year Plan. As a result of his achievement, Stakhanov made the cover of Time magazine in December 1935, and following the creation of the title in 1938 was made a Hero of Socialist Labour, the highest civilian distinction for exceptional contribution to the fields of the economy and culture.
Stakhanovites were recognised and honoured for outstanding production. A Stakhanovite conference took place in November 1935 at the Kremlin to celebrate their contribution to the national economy. As a propaganda vehicle, the Stakhanovite movement spread like wildfire across the country in the 1930s foreshadowing similar developments later in Russia and elsewhere: a two-hundreders movement emerged in Russia during World War II (recognising those individuals who exceeded their shift quotas by more than 200 per cent) and in China a series of similar cultural icons emerged in the military (such as Lei Feng) and in civil society through the 1950s and 1960s.
In Soviet Russia and elsewhere, female Stakhanovites appeared less frequently than male, and a disproportionate number were associated with the rural economy. Soviet individuals recognised in a similar manner as Stakhanovites and held up as ‘cultural icons’ included:
Alexander Busygin (the automobile industry)
I.I. Gudov (the machine tool industry)
K. Borin (agriculture)
V.S. Musinsky (the timber industry)
P. Kryvonos (the railroad industry)
Pasha Angelina (first women to operate a tractor).
Radio Free Europe on Stalin
Australian National University on Cult of Stalin in Posters
Censorship
Censorship means that the state suppresses information or opinion which is offensive or contrary to the views of those in authority. It might be considered a negative form of propaganda.
Censorship means that the state suppresses information or opinion which is offensive or contrary to the views of those in authority. It might be considered a negative form of propaganda.
Propaganda
Propaganda is a conscious attempt to influence the opinions of an audience (and indirectly their actions) in a way that is designed to serve the interests of those who create and spread the propaganda. Although propaganda is a cultural phenomenon - it concerned with thoughts, ideas and beliefs expressed through newspapers and radio, posters and film - propaganda is also designed to impact on political and social life, albeit indirectly. The more ambitious the regime is in its desire to control the individual, the more important the mobilisation of the public in support of the regime. This is propaganda as totalitarian mobilisation. At the other extreme is propaganda that is less ambitious and simply meant to depoliticise and entertain. In ancient Rome this was summed up by the expression 'give them bread and circuses and they will never rebel'.
The myth of Pavlik Morozov and the heroic worship of Alexei Stakhanov are interesting examples worth researching in this respect.
Propaganda is a conscious attempt to influence the opinions of an audience (and indirectly their actions) in a way that is designed to serve the interests of those who create and spread the propaganda. Although propaganda is a cultural phenomenon - it concerned with thoughts, ideas and beliefs expressed through newspapers and radio, posters and film - propaganda is also designed to impact on political and social life, albeit indirectly. The more ambitious the regime is in its desire to control the individual, the more important the mobilisation of the public in support of the regime. This is propaganda as totalitarian mobilisation. At the other extreme is propaganda that is less ambitious and simply meant to depoliticise and entertain. In ancient Rome this was summed up by the expression 'give them bread and circuses and they will never rebel'.
The myth of Pavlik Morozov and the heroic worship of Alexei Stakhanov are interesting examples worth researching in this respect.
Charismatic leadership
By comparison, in Stalin, wrote Wolfe (1948, p. 426), 'we are dealing with the most striking example in all history of a man who has succeeded in inventing himself. The entire governmental apparatus, the printing press, cinema, textbooks, schools, paintings, etc., of a great and centrally directed nation have been employed in the task of remolding its ruler’s past closer to his heart’s desire. There is none to challenge, for textual criticism is ‘treason’ and challenger and evidence are destroyed together.' This was propaganda being pushed at levels not seen in democratic societies.
Stalin’s continual onslaught of self-promotion fostered the idea that one of the greatest achievements of the Revolution was the merging together of the national republics into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922, for which Stalin took credit. The 1924 Constitution solidified this merger. Stalin also founded the Lenin Institute, cleverly further aligning himself as Lenin’s heir by delivering a series of lectures on on the topic of 'The Foundation of Leninism' at the Moscow Communist University. He projected an image of himself as a plebeian figure, with real working-class roots, unlike many of his adversaries.
And yet the creation of Stalin the ‘charismatic leader’ was largely an invention by a Bolshevik Party that was beset by both internal and external challenges it had to overcome. Because it was a party in need of someone who could rally the nation and bring it together, the manufacture of Stalin was the result. While Stalin became the quintessential 'cult of personality' maker by the 1930s, he too was set on a path supported and defined in part by others.
But Stalin too fell well short what might be recognised as being ‘charismatic.' Aesthetically, he was short and pock-marked, traits he tried to conceal in his propaganda movies of the 1930s and 1940s, and by all accounts was an uninspiring public speaker. Up close, Stalin’s leadership style projected a certain hesitancy and calm. He spoke softly, letting others air their opinions, then guided participants on a path toward consensus. In the 1930s, that guidance meant continuing to transform the basis of the Soviet leadership from the old Revolutionary guard to a new group of supporters, especially in the Politburo, where everyone showed themself to be a follower of the leader.'
Stalin could be ill-tempered, but held a romantic view of the Soviet system throughout his life. He laboured intensely, often working 16 hours a day, which is in contrast to an indolence that has been remarked upon in Hitler. Stalin furthered his goals through the construction of massive lists of enemies, which grew exponentially as the focus of attack sharpened in three successive waves of purges. Historian Isaac Deutscher (Stalin (1949) wrote that 'Stalin offered the people a mixed diet of terror and illusion.' As many historians have noted, Stalin also played favorites within the Party. He looked for opportunities to spread disagreement among his colleagues, was studious, deft and took full advantage of personalities and egos in order to promote his own interests. The treatment of his opposition varied widely and was dependent upon a range of circumstances.
By comparison, in Stalin, wrote Wolfe (1948, p. 426), 'we are dealing with the most striking example in all history of a man who has succeeded in inventing himself. The entire governmental apparatus, the printing press, cinema, textbooks, schools, paintings, etc., of a great and centrally directed nation have been employed in the task of remolding its ruler’s past closer to his heart’s desire. There is none to challenge, for textual criticism is ‘treason’ and challenger and evidence are destroyed together.' This was propaganda being pushed at levels not seen in democratic societies.
Stalin’s continual onslaught of self-promotion fostered the idea that one of the greatest achievements of the Revolution was the merging together of the national republics into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922, for which Stalin took credit. The 1924 Constitution solidified this merger. Stalin also founded the Lenin Institute, cleverly further aligning himself as Lenin’s heir by delivering a series of lectures on on the topic of 'The Foundation of Leninism' at the Moscow Communist University. He projected an image of himself as a plebeian figure, with real working-class roots, unlike many of his adversaries.
And yet the creation of Stalin the ‘charismatic leader’ was largely an invention by a Bolshevik Party that was beset by both internal and external challenges it had to overcome. Because it was a party in need of someone who could rally the nation and bring it together, the manufacture of Stalin was the result. While Stalin became the quintessential 'cult of personality' maker by the 1930s, he too was set on a path supported and defined in part by others.
But Stalin too fell well short what might be recognised as being ‘charismatic.' Aesthetically, he was short and pock-marked, traits he tried to conceal in his propaganda movies of the 1930s and 1940s, and by all accounts was an uninspiring public speaker. Up close, Stalin’s leadership style projected a certain hesitancy and calm. He spoke softly, letting others air their opinions, then guided participants on a path toward consensus. In the 1930s, that guidance meant continuing to transform the basis of the Soviet leadership from the old Revolutionary guard to a new group of supporters, especially in the Politburo, where everyone showed themself to be a follower of the leader.'
Stalin could be ill-tempered, but held a romantic view of the Soviet system throughout his life. He laboured intensely, often working 16 hours a day, which is in contrast to an indolence that has been remarked upon in Hitler. Stalin furthered his goals through the construction of massive lists of enemies, which grew exponentially as the focus of attack sharpened in three successive waves of purges. Historian Isaac Deutscher (Stalin (1949) wrote that 'Stalin offered the people a mixed diet of terror and illusion.' As many historians have noted, Stalin also played favorites within the Party. He looked for opportunities to spread disagreement among his colleagues, was studious, deft and took full advantage of personalities and egos in order to promote his own interests. The treatment of his opposition varied widely and was dependent upon a range of circumstances.
Activity
The activity for this lesson will be a class based lecture. Make sure to put your notes - supplemented from here if necessary - in your OneNote.
The activity for this lesson will be a class based lecture. Make sure to put your notes - supplemented from here if necessary - in your OneNote.
Extension (essential for IB students.)
As IB students you need to start looking out for similarities and differences between the different examples of authoritarian states. The films below provide you with a generic, conceptual overview of how power can be consolidated. My pages on the IB section of the site also provide you with more details.
As IB students you need to start looking out for similarities and differences between the different examples of authoritarian states. The films below provide you with a generic, conceptual overview of how power can be consolidated. My pages on the IB section of the site also provide you with more details.
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