Propaganda in the Soviet Union
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2008-06-12T11:27:14Z
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/* Indoctrination of children */
[[Image:Roses for Stalin by Vladimirskij.jpg|right|thumb|250px|"Roses for Stalin", [[Boris Vladimirski]], 1949]]
[[Image:Stalin jeschow molotow.jpg|thumb|right|Before 1940]]
[[Image:The Commissar Vanishes 2.jpg|thumb|right|After: [[NKVD|People's Commissar for the Interior]] [[Nikolai Yezhov]], the young man strolling with [[Stalin]] to his left, was shot in 1940. He [[Censorship of images in the Soviet Union|was edited out from a photo by Soviet censors]].<ref>[http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar_vanishes/vanishes.htm The Commissar vanishes] (The Newseum)</ref>]]
The [[communist propaganda]] 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. It penetrated even [[Suppressed research in the Soviet Union|social and natural sciences]] giving rise to various [[pseudoscience|pseudo-scientific theories]] like [[Lysenkoism]], whereas fields of real knowledge, as [[genetics]], [[cybernetics]], and [[comparative linguistics]] were condemned and forbidden as "[[bourgeois pseudoscience]]". With "truths repressed, falsehoods in every field were incessantly rubbed in in print, at endless meetings, in school, in mass demonstrations, on the radio" <ref name="reflections"/>.
Main Soviet censorship body, [[Glavlit]] employed seventy thousand full-time staff not only to eliminate any undesirable printed materials, but also "to ensure that the correct ideological spin was put on every published item". Telling anything against the "Party line" was punished by imprisonment. "Today a man only talks freely to his wife - at night, with the blankets pulled over his head", said writer [[Isaac Babel]] privately to a trusted friend <ref name="reflections"/>
According to [[Robert Conquest]], "All in all, unprecedented [[terror]] must seem necessary to ideologically motivated attempts to transform society massively and speedily, against its natural possibilities. The accompanying falsifications took place, and on a barely credible scale, in every sphere. Real facts, real statistics, disappeared into the realm of fantasy. History, including the [[History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|History of the Communist Party]], or rather ''especially'' the history of the Communist Party, was rewritten. [[Unperson]]s disappeared from the official record. A new past, as well as new present, was imposed on the captive minds of the Soviet population, as was, of course, admitted when truth emerged in the late 1980s".<ref name="reflections"> [[Robert Conquest]] ''Reflections on a Ravaged Century'' (2000) ISBN 0-393-04818-7, page 101-111</ref>
===Image of the Soviet Union abroad===
An important goal of Soviet propaganda was to maintain the progressive image of the Soviet Union abroad, as an ideal for all workers of the world. [[Tarek Heggy]], a liberal [[Egypt]]ian thinker, in his book "Culture, Civilization, and Humanity" demonstrates the success of Soviet propaganda to maintain this idealistic image with the help of two quotations of [[Andre Gide]] before and after his visit to the Soviet Union.
<blockquote>
"My faith in communism is like my faith in religion: it is a promise of salvation for mankind. If I have to lay my life down that it may succeed, I would do so without hesitation"
<br>
"It is impermissible under any circumstances for morals to sink as low as communism has done. No one can begin to imagine the tragedy of humanity, of morality, of religion and of freedoms in the land of communism, where man has been debased beyond belief"<ref>[[Andre Gide]] as [http://www.heggy.org/books/imperative/chapter_8.htm quoted by T. Heggy] in his book ''Culture, Civilization, and Humanity'' (2003) ISBN 0714655546</ref>
</blockquote>
===Indoctrination of children===
[[Image:Tov lenin ochishchaet.jpg|170px|right|thumb|“Comrade Lenin Cleanses the Earth of Filth”.]]
An important goal of Communist propaganda was to create [[New Soviet man| a new man]]. Schools and the Communist youth organizations, like [[Young Pioneer organization of the Soviet Union|Soviet pioneers]] and [[Komsomol]], served to remove children from the "[[petty-bourgeois]]" [[family]] and [[Indoctrination|indoctrinate]] the next generation into the [[collective]] way of life. One of schooling theorists stated:
:We must make the young into a generation of Communists. Children, like soft wax, are very malleable and they should be moulded into good Communists... We must rescue children from the harmful influence of the [[family]]... We must [[Nationalization|nationalize]] them. From the earliest days of their little lives, they must find themselves under the beneficient influence of Communist schools... To oblige the mother to give her child to the [[Soviet state]] - that is our task." <ref name="Figes"> [[Orlando Figes]] ''The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia'', 2007, ISBN 0-08050-7461-9, pages 20-31. </ref>.
Indoctrination of children in the [[cult]] of "[[Lenin|Uncle Lenin]]" began from the kindergarten. "Lenin's corners", "political [[shrine]]s for the display of propaganda about the god-like founder of the Soviet state" have been established in all schools <ref name="Figes"/>. Schools conducted marches, songs and pledges of allegiance to Soviet leadership. One of purposes was to instill in children the idea that they are involved in the World revolution, which is more important than any family ties. [[Pavlik Morozov]] who betrayed his father to the secret police [[NKVD]] was promoted as a great positive example <ref name="Figes"/>.
===Propaganda of extermination===
Some historians believe, an important goal of communist propaganda was "to justify [[political repression]]s of entire [[social group]]s which Marxism considered antagonistic to the class of [[proletariat]]"<ref name="Black">Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, [[Stéphane Courtois]], ''The [[Black Book of Communism]]: Crimes, Terror, Repression'', [[Harvard University Press]], 1999, ISBN 0-674-07608-7</ref>, as in [[decossackization]] or [[dekulakization]] campaigns <ref name="reflections"/> <ref name="Figes"/>. [[Richard Pipes]] wrote: "a major purpose of Communist propaganda was arousing violent political emotions against the regime's enemies."<ref>[[Richard Pipes]] (1993) "Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime", p. 309.</ref>
[[Image:GPU.jpg|GPU poster|right|thumb|170px|Soviet poster of the 1920s: The [[State Political Directorate|GPU]] strikes on the head of a [[Wrecking (Soviet crime)|"wreckler"]]]]
The most effective means to achieve this objective "was the denial of the victim's humanity through the process of [[dehumanization]]", "the reduction of real or imaginary enemy to a zoological state". <ref>Black Book, page 749.</ref>. In particular, [[Vladimir Lenin]] called to exterminate enemies "as harmful insects", "lice" and "bloodsuckers".<ref name="Black"/> According to writer and propagandist [[Maksim Gorky]], ''"Class hatred should be cultivated by an organic revulsion as far as the enemy is concerned. Enemies must be seen as inferior. I believe quite profoundly that the enemy is our inferior, and is a degenerate not only in the physical plane but also in the moral sense"''.<ref name="Black"/> He also called to use [[enemy of the people]] as ''"human [[guinea pig]]s"'' for [[human experimentation]] in the USSR Institute of Experimental Medicine in 1933, which would be "a true service to humanity", according to him <ref name="Black"/>. According to [[The Black Book of Communism]], an example of such demonizing animal rhetoric were speeches by state procurator [[Andrey Vyshinsky]] during Stalin's [[show trial]]s. He said about the suspects<ref>Black Book, page 750.</ref>:
:"Shoot these rabid dogs. Death to this gang who hide their ferocious teeth, their eagle claws, from the people! Down with that vulture [[Trotsky]], from whose mouth a bloody venom drips, putrefying the great ideals of Marxism!... Down with these abject animals! Let's put an end once and for all to these miserable hybrids of foxes and pigs, these stinking corpses! Let's exterminate the mad dogs of capitalism, who want to tear to pieces the flower of our new Soviet nation! Let's push the bestial hatred they bear our leaders back down their own throats!"
==Soviet propaganda abroad==
Propaganda abroad was partly conducted by Soviet intelligence agencies. [[GRU]] alone spent more than $1 billion for propaganda and [[peace movements]] against [[Vietnam War]], which was a "hugely successful campaign and well worth the cost", according to GRU defector [[Stanislav Lunev]] <ref name="Lunev"> [[Stanislav Lunev]]. Through the Eyes of the Enemy: The Autobiography of Stanislav Lunev, Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1998. ISBN 0-89526-390-4 </ref>. He claimed that "the GRU and the KGB helped to fund just about every [[antiwar movement]] and organization in America and abroad". <ref name="Lunev"/> According to [[Oleg Kalugin]], "the Soviet intelligence was really unparalleled. ... The KGB programs -- which would run all sorts of [[congress]]es, peace congresses, youth congresses, [[festival]]s, [[women's movement]]s, [[trade union]] movements, campaigns against U.S. missiles in Europe, campaigns against neutron weapons, allegations that [[AIDS]] ... was invented by the [[CIA]] ... all sorts of [[forgeries]] and faked material -- [were] targeted at politicians, the academic community, at the public at large." <ref name="Kalugin"> [http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/21/interviews/kalugin/ Interview of Oleg Kalugin on CNN] </ref>
Propaganda against the [[United States]] included the following actions <ref name="Mitrokhin"> Mitrokhin, Vasili, Christopher Andrew (2000). The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West. Gardners Books. ISBN 0-14-028487-7. </ref>:
*Promotion of false [[Kennedy assassination theories|John F. Kennedy assassination theories]], using writer [[Mark Lane (author)|Mark Lane]].
*Discreditation of the [[CIA]], using historian [[Philip Agee]] (codenamed PONT).
*Spreading rumors that [[FBI]] director [[J. Edgar Hoover]] was a homosexual.
*Attempts to discredit [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]] by placing publications portraying him as an "[[Uncle Tom]]" who was secretly receiving government subsidies.
*Stirring up racial tensions in the United States by mailing bogus letters from the [[Ku Klux Klan]], placing an exposive package in "the Negro section of New York" (operation PANDORA), and spreading conspiracy theories that [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]]'s assassination had been planned by the US government.
*Fabrication of the story that [[AIDS]] virus was manufactured by US scientists at [[Fort Detrick]]; the story was spread by Russian-born biologist [[Jakob Segal]]
*Senior [[SVR]] officer [[Sergei Tretyakov (intelligence officer)|Sergei Tretyakov]] made the claim to writer Pete Earley that the KGB "created the myth of [[nuclear winter]]" as disinformation (see [[Sergei Tretyakov (intelligence officer)|Sergei Tretyakov]] for details), although Earley said that the accuracy of this claim "is impossible to discern",<ref name="Comrade J">Pete Earley, "Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War", Penguin Books, 2007, ISBN-13 978-0-399-15439-3, pages 169-177</ref> and subsequent studies using more advanced climate models have continued to support the hypothesis (see [[nuclear winter]]).
==See also==
[[Agitprop]]
==References==
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Propaganda of the Soviet Union]]