‘Political Education’, Agitation and Propaganda

Abstract

Propaganda was acknowledged to be a high priority by the Bolshevik leadership. During the Civil War it had been a crucial, even decisive, tool for winning support among ordinary people, especially in the remoter rural areas of the Soviet Union. ‘Agit-trains’, touring theatre companies and propaganda films were all used between 1918 and 1920 to win recruits for the Red Army and consolidate support for the new regime in front-line areas.¹ To staff these units, propagandists had to be trained in their thousands, a task undertaken by the party schools and later the Communist universities. The lessons learned during the Civil War continued to be applied after 1920. Indeed, a ‘campaign’ style characterised much Bolshevik propaganda in the Stalin period. But the priorities changed as the country began to recover from its post-revolutionary crisis. By 1925 the prime purpose of ‘political education’ was to prepare potential party members for administrative positions. More broadly, agitation among the ‘non-party mass’ aimed to raise general literacy, increase awareness of current issues and build support for party policy.