Propaganda in Russia and Animal Farm

Russia
1. Propaganda Themes
  1. New Man
    1. 'New Man' or 'New Woman' was the ideal Communist worker - somebody who could do extremely hard labour. People who created record breaking days of labour were seen as idols
      1. Alexey Stakhanov was the first well-known 'New Man'. He set a record-breaking day in mining coal which created the Stakhanovite movements
        This movement created pressure to increase production on both managers and workers
        'New Men' such as Alexey Stakhanov were praised in Communist propaganda newspapers such as Pravda. This gave production lines a will to work harder
  2. Stalin's Cult
    1. During Lenin's life he had formed a personality cult. When he died, his body was put on display to exploit the belief that 'Saint's bodies don't die'. Stalin acted as if he was as closely related to Lenin as possible, so that people in Lenin's personality cult moved on to form Stalin's personality cult
      1. As time went on, pictures and posters went from having Lenin dominating over Stalin to them both being equal. Soon after, it was Stalin being the dominating figure
      2. Lenin's biographies were quickly mass-produced. Soon after, biographies about Stalin were produced too, only they only contained carefully selected facts that promoted Stalin as the leader of Russia
      3. During World War II, the personality cult continued to grow. Stalin made some visits to the front of the battlefield so that the Propagandists could claim that he 'risked his life for his people on the front lines of the war'. Stalin then went on to ensure that his 'leadership in the war' was always mentioned so that none of the actual generals in the war could be credited and therefore become political rivals
  3. Common People
    1. Stalin and other Communist figures were depicted as common men, working along with everyone else. This meant that the 'peasants' could relate to them more easily and therefore trust them
2. Great Purges
  1. People or groups who tried to fight against Stalin were executed
    1. People who were a threat to Stalin were also executed or felt too scared to continue
    2. Some people or groups had to be driven out in a different way. Stalin controlled a secret police force which he used for his own gain
      1. Other major figureheads, such as Trotsky, were driven out of the country using this police force and clever manipulation of chanting masses amongst other things
    3. A lot of these people were forced to 'confess' to their crimes, or 'confess' that they were in league with the state's 'enemies', such as Trotsky.
3. Propaganda was based upon Marxism/Leninism
4. Propaganda was enforced
  1. Instead of the truth, falsehoods were spread repetitively
    1. Radio
      1. You were almost forced to listen to the radio, as important information such as food rationing was mentioned there
      2. Propaganda was almost like advertisement breaks, they would fill every small pause with propaganda
    2. Newspapers
      1. The very first law the Communists created was to stop all newspapers against them. This then had to be replaced with a milder law later
      2. Pravda
        Pravda was a propaganda-fed newspaper created by the Communist party. It was often used to spread propaganda and supress opposition
      3. U.S.S.R. In Construction
        From 1930 to 1941, U.S.S.R. In Construction was circulated to feed propaganda to people outside of the country, to "reflect in photography the whole scope and variety of the construction work now going on the USSR"
    3. Meetings/Demonstrations
      1. Meetings may have seemed dull, but it made people feel important and informed
      2. Lectures or demonstrations, similar to meetings, helped people become informed and propaganda was spread thoroughly
    4. Schools/Churches
      1. Even at a young age, youths were encouraged to follow the Communist way
      2. Even teachers were forced to enforce Communist teachings
    5. Posters
      1. Huge posters created propaganda even for the illiterate
    6. Art
      1. Often depicting a happy future, art continued to give hope to the Russian people even in bad-looking times
      2. Art was almost enforced to be propaganda, as it was funnelled in that direction
    7. Other
      1. Performances in theatre and cinema often depicted the 'greatness' of Communism and the 'downfall' of everything else
      2. Books were not controlled as quickly as the newspapers, but libraries ended up being purged from opposing books or other threatening novels
5. Glavlit
  1. Removed unwanted information
  2. Ensured propaganda was everywhere
Animal Farm
1. Squealer
  1. Squealer was the persuasive pig who continuously convinced the other animals that everything was okay
    1. Every time the 'Seven Commandments' were changed, Squealer would make them question their memory instead of question if they had changed
      1. This memory-questioning strategy continued when Napoleon started to blame Snowball for everything that went wrong
    2. Most of Squealer's speeches or just propaganda-fed conversations ended with something similar to 'Otherwise, comrades, Farmer Jones would come back!'
      1. This put an end to most questions, as none of the animals wanted Farmer Jones to return
    3. Squealer ended up even giving fake statistics about how they were getting more food and less labour than in the days of Farmer Jones
2. Executions
  1. Napoleon forced the animals to 'confess' to being in league with Snowball. They were executed on the spot by the dogs
3. Napoleon
  1. Napoleon secretly trained nine dogs to be his guards. These dogs were often the stop to arguments
    1. There came a point where the other animals were too scared to say anything because of these dogs. This removed most of Napoleon's opposition

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Propaganda in Russia and Animal Farm

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	Created by Paul Joakim about 7 years ago