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Control of the People - media, propoganda & religion - Coggle Diagram

- - - - 'Glavlit' (the govt censorship office) ensured that literature was inn keeping with the communist message
      - the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) has control over censorship from 1925, and they promoted a genre called 'socialist realism'
    - - new forms of art such as futurism emerged, experimenting with geometric and spatial forms
      - art and culture came increasingly under the political control of the Communist party
      - art which put workers at its centre was encouraged
    - - popoganda films were shown for free to factory workers, including films about the origins of the SU
        
        benefit of putting on free showings:
        
        many workers could not read. giving them books/leaflets explaining the socialist message or the origins pf the SU would not have been a good way of getting them to understand communism
        
        the state knew that if workers understood the socialist vision they would work harder and put up with poor conditions with less complaints. the idea that they were forging history and building a brighter world motivated them
      - many composers , particularly classical composers left Russia because their music was viewed as old fashioned
        
        the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM) was responsible for censorship of music
- - - - was presented as a wise leader who cared about the concern of ordinary people
      - creating a cult of personality around S also enabled the leadership of the party to exploit the Russian people religious sensibilities
      - problems in society could now be blamed on 'class enemies' rather than the leadership of the nation
    - - S was also presented as the new Lenin, someone who could taketh 'cult of Lenin' to new heights
        
        he was called the 'Leader, Teacher and Friend' pf the SU
      - the term 'vozhd' was used
        
        this meant ruler of authority
      - cult put S above all critique by the Russian population hew was the only person who could deliver true leadership to the people
      - during the war, Generalissimo' was used to emphasise Stalin's role as a military leader
    - - S was depicted as working alongside factories, farms and workers. this made him seem close to the people
      - he was often surrounded by the Russian youth in propaganda. applauded by workers and gazed at lovingly
      - he was presented as a genius who understood communism and it politics in a way that no-one else could. ge never used the word stalinism, he was merely a servant of marxist - leninism
  - - - despite K's many failings in economic, social and foreign policy, he enjoyed excessive praise from the state - controlled media
      - K often went over the Praesidium and ignored their suggestions-> the meting were an 'empty formality'
      - initially, this seems to have made K seem like a strong leader, which fuelled the cult of personality
    - - through his reorganisation of government and party bodies, he made them obsolete
      - historians have seen K's cult of personality as being based around the moral destruction of the opposition than terror
      - K did not use terror as S had done
    - - same criticism then levelled against him
      - the opposition now portrayed him as out-of-touch
        
        he was unpopular for his beef that he could ignore party rules
        
        he also ignored and patronised his comrades
      - K had criticised the cult of p around S
  - - - propoganda emphasised B's heroism fighting in the Great Patriotic War
      - also presented as a man pf peace who pursued a policy of detente
      - had begun his working life in the steel industry, so was presented as a true man of the people
    - - did not have intended effect
      - was clear to almost everyone that B was a bureaucrat and not a revolutionary leader - this led to ridicule of his cult
    - - B presented as a Leninist who would continue Lenin's work
      - propganda during B's rule looked to place B inn the same tradition as Lenin - there were frequent references to cult of L
      - tried to build up a cult, he tried to suggest he was carrying on Lenin's work and frequently referenced the cult of Lenin. his 'cult' was ridiculed. he did not wield the same intoxicating authority and power that other leaders such as Lenin and Stalin had done. he did not evoke intense emotions. he came across more as a bureaucrat than a revolutionary leader
- - - - did not just attack Christianity, initially supported attacks on Islam
      - then reversed this position, and even funded Islamic schools
      - communists did nt oppose Islam as strongly as the Orthodox Church
    - - nov 1917: they had Archpriest Ivan Kochurov murdered
      - jan 1918: metropolitan Vladimir was killed in Kiev
        
        in the same month , the bolsheviks massacred priests in Moscow, after Orthodox Church removed bolsheviks
      - also used by L to remove religious opposition
    - - he wanted people to commit entirely to communist ideology
        
        this was impossible for those with strong religious views
      - generally, he favoured policies which discriminated against the religious and the Church
      - thought that religion did not fit with his ideas go freedom and equality
    - - 1917 decree on land
        
        peasants could now take land from he church
      - 1918 decree concerning separation of church and state
        
        the Orthodox Church lost its privileges
    - - 1921: lenin founded it
      - was supposed to rival the Orthodox Church
        
        but the new church did not support the regime and could not attack many Russian followers
  - - - during periods of economic change such as collectivisation, church closures were seen as an acceptable price to create, eg more grain stores
      - during the terror, muslims suffered enormously
        
        Sufi groups, who lived in Turkestan, had been wiped out by 1936
    - - to maintain support of the Russian people S relaxed his anti-religious policies while the country was at war
      - he realised that Orthodox christianity was directly linked to citizens' feelings of patriotism
      - in total, S reopened 414 churches during this time
  - - - K led a campaign against religion
      - he victimised the church and its congregations
        
        the state closed Russian Orthodox Churches and monasteries
    - - the state tried to limit the power of priests
      - any who protested were imprisoned
    - - K targeted other strands of christianity, as well as Islam, in a similar way
      - atheism was now a subject n the school curriculum
      - people with string religious beliefs experienced discrimination in their university and job applications
  - - - instead of oppressing religious groups, B preferred to use scientific education to make sure that young people turned away from religion
    - - B started supporting Islamic groups in the Middle East
        
        this is because they were anti-American
      - the Board of Muslims of Central Areas and Kazakhstan was created
      - communists now saw Islam as a progressive and even revolutionary religion
      - can be argued that Brezhnev's religious policy was dictated largely by the Cold War content of his premiership