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Stalin, Propaganda and the Cult of Personality

Film

Film was used extensively by Stalin as a means of Propaganda.

However, film production in Russia decreased while he was in power – this was because the censorship process took so long – the films would be checked by censors, members of the Politburo and by Stalin himself both before and after production.

An example: Chapaev

Directed by the Vasilev brothers in 1933

Heroes

  • The film was the most popular film of it’s time – having a great influence on young people in particular.
  • It was about Chapaev, a Civil War hero, who was portrayed as witty and brave. 
  • The film involved action, war, comedy and romance.
  • It encouraged nationalism – and for young people to join the army.

One way in which Stalin tried to encourage people to work and fight hard was to set up heroes for them to copy.

Posters

Alexei Stakhanov

For example?

Posters were not used for elections – why not?

Instead they were used to raise the popularity of Stalin – or simply to make one of his projects look good.

Look at the posters which follow and try to think of:

  • The message of each.
  • Why / how it is effective.

Art

Stalinist Propaganda

The main style of art encouraged in Russia was ‘Socialist Realism’.

Radio

Why do you think that propaganda might have been crucially important to Stalin?

  • Like Hitler, Stalin liked making speeches – and he too broadcast them on the radio.
  • But, unlike Hitler, Stalin was a very boring, monotonous speaker.
  • He was not a Orator! Which meant that the content of the speeches was more important than the flamboyant rabble-rousing of Hitler.
  • What notable change in message have we recently discussed?

Would the following have been possible without Stalin's propaganda?

The Terror

The Five Year Plans

Collectivisation

The War Effort

What is Propaganda?

  • WordNet describes it as “information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause."

The Camera Never Lies

Architecture

  • It is media or publicity used to promote a point of view.

Newpapers

Stalin sought to make people feel good about the country by encouraging new architecture.

There are two newspapers you should know about:

The Moscow Metro

  • It can be used to make one person, group or action look good – or to make someone or something else look bad.

Pravda

the Dnieper Dam

Izvestia

A more independent publication

An official government newspaper

However Pravda was still heavily censored – and still published much propaganda material, such as this poem, printed in 1935:

O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples

Thou who broughtest man to birth …

Thou who makest bloom the spring,

Thou who makest vibrate the musical chords …

Thou, splendour of my sun, O thou,

Sun reflected by millions of hearts

  • It plays a crucial part in controlling people – why is this?

Written Word

  • This is Gelya Markizova, photographed giving Stalin flowers when aged 3.
  • Not long after this photo was taken her father was arrested by the secret police and never seen again.
  • Some years later her mother was investigated – the NKVD (secret police) were worried that she was getting cocky because she had been given a number of pictures of Stalin when her daughter was photographed.
  • Lavrenti Beria, head of the NKVD, wrote ‘Eliminate her’ on the police report.
  • Gelya came home to find her mother lying in a pool of blood with her throat cut.

Authors and Poets

Stalin thought that writers were very dangerous. Why do you think this was?

Writers had to produce work glorifying Russia, the achievements of socialist workers and peasants or the Revolution.

Books such as 'How the Steel ws Tempered' by Nicolai Ostrovsky did just this.

If you used art to criticise the regime or to rebel against the system you could be shot or sent to a labour camp, as happened to Osip Mandelstam, the poet.

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