Propaganda & Censorship under Stalin

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Official Culture and Education

Even after the terror events, there is evidence that ordinary people believed in the power of the USSR. The government had complete control over information and propaganda, and this had great influence over ordinary people’s attitude to the regime.

Stalin's control

The government's influence brought Stalin close to running a ‘totalitarian’ state, with complete control over the country.
- In reality, Russia was too complex for this to be the case all the time.
‘Socialist realism’ was the official art form of the regime. Its artist included Kozma Petrov-Bodkin, Isaak Brodsky, Alexander Samokhvalov and Yuri Pimenov.

Socialist realism

Stalin’s decree ‘On the Reconstruction of Literary and Art Organization’ (1932) placed socialist realism at its centre.
They were easy to understand and focused on workers in everyday situations. These workers were depicted as the heroes of Soviet society.
The same rules applied to novels and music. Stalin called official artists ‘engineers of souls’.

The Cultural Revolution

In education, the so-called Cultural Revolution required school students to denounce their teachers for not supporting communism.
Strangely, discipline was relaxed in schools, and middle class young people were often expelled from school.
The aim was to prioritise the education of workers, which had largely been achieved by the mid-1930s.

Stalin in schools

Once the education of workers was complete, Stalin reintroduced the rules which had previously applied, including school uniforms.
New textbooks rewrote history to praise Stalin as Lenin’s loyal assistant.
The core curriculum was shaped in Stalin’s world view.

Religion under Stalin

With regard to religion, the Communists (as atheists) opposed the Orthodox Church and attacked Muslims and Jews.

The Orthodox Church

Communists opposed the Orthodox Church. Many churches were shut down, and priests were imprisoned and even shot.
Only 500 churches were open by 1941, a reduction of almost 50,000 since the beginning of the First World War.
The Kazan Cathedral gave way to Red Square for military parades to take place in the centre of Moscow. But the church could not be destroyed entirely because too many Russians were members.

Islam

Muslims were also attacked. The Sufi sect of Islam was particularly affected in the southern parts of the USSR.
As the government hated foreigners, Muslims were especially at risk as their religion was loyal to forces outside the USSR.
The use of Arabic writing was frowned upon and many non-Russian speakers were ‘re-educated’ to speak Russian.
Muslim schools and places of worship were closed down, and participating in the Haaj pilgrimage to Mecca was forbidden.

Judaism

With regard to Judaism, anti-Semitism was illegal, but many religious Jews were discriminated against.
Stalin wanted to remove Jews to a designated region in the East called the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, but this idea failed.

The Media and the New Constitution

The media - newspapers, novels, poetry, plays - was heavily censored. In 1936, the new constitution was enacted.

Censorship

The media needed to be supportive of Stalin and the Party.
Works written by those who had been purged were banned, including those of Trotsky. Trotsky was even removed from photographs.
‘Glavlit’ (Main Administration for Literary and Publishing Affairs) controlled publication of statistics.
- This included economic data, which meant that no one could check the claims of the government about the economy.

The 'official truth'

Given government control of information, people did not know what to believe.
Most people tended to believe the government’s message because there was no alternative.
- Many had only a limited education, and were not confident in questioning the ‘official truth’.

The new constitution of 1936

After waves of mass arrests, this constitution had very little value. People's rights were theoretically enshrined, but Stalin had no intention of honouring them in practice.
The new constitution seems to have been introduced as a way to show that the Soviet Union had changed since the 1924 constitution.
A secret ballot for party elections made the country ‘seem’ democratic, especially to those living in dictatorships abroad.