'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
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
Stalin's Cult
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
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
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
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
Common People
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
Great Purges
People or groups who tried to fight against Stalin were executed
People who were a threat to Stalin were
also executed or felt too scared to continue
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
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
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.
Propaganda was based upon Marxism/Leninism
Propaganda was enforced
Instead of the truth, falsehoods were spread repetitively
Radio
You were almost forced to listen to the radio, as important
information such as food rationing was mentioned there
Propaganda was almost like advertisement breaks,
they would fill every small pause with propaganda
Newspapers
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
Pravda
Pravda was a propaganda-fed newspaper created
by the Communist party. It was often used to
spread propaganda and supress opposition
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"
Meetings/Demonstrations
Meetings may have seemed dull, but it
made people feel important and informed
Lectures or demonstrations, similar to meetings, helped people
become informed and propaganda was spread thoroughly
Schools/Churches
Even at a young age, youths were encouraged to follow the Communist way
Even teachers were forced to enforce Communist teachings
Posters
Huge posters created propaganda even for the illiterate
Art
Often depicting a happy future, art continued to give
hope to the Russian people even in bad-looking times
Art was almost enforced to be propaganda,
as it was funnelled in that direction
Other
Performances in theatre and cinema often depicted the
'greatness' of Communism and the 'downfall' of everything else
Books were not controlled as quickly as the newspapers, but libraries
ended up being purged from opposing books or other threatening novels
Glavlit
Removed unwanted information
Ensured propaganda was everywhere
Animal Farm
Squealer
Squealer was the persuasive pig who continuously
convinced the other animals that everything was okay
Every time the 'Seven Commandments' were changed, Squealer would make
them question their memory instead of question if they had changed
This memory-questioning strategy continued when Napoleon started to blame Snowball for everything that went wrong
Most of Squealer's speeches or just propaganda-fed conversations ended with
something similar to 'Otherwise, comrades, Farmer Jones would come back!'
This put an end to most questions, as none of the animals wanted Farmer Jones to return
Squealer ended up even giving fake statistics about how they were getting
more food and less labour than in the days of Farmer Jones
Executions
Napoleon forced the animals to 'confess' to being in league with
Snowball. They were executed on the spot by the dogs
Napoleon
Napoleon secretly trained nine dogs to be his guards.
These dogs were often the stop to arguments
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