Agitprop

Agitprop (/ˈædʒɪtprɒp/;^[1]^[2]^[3] from Russian: агитпроп, romanized: agitpróp, portmanteau of agitatsiya, "agitation" and propaganda, "propaganda")^[4] refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in the Soviet Union where it referred to popular media, such as literature, plays, pamphlets, films, and other art forms, with an explicitly political message in favor of communism.^[5]

For other uses, see Agitprop (disambiguation).

The term originated in the Soviet Union as a shortened name for the Department for Agitation and Propaganda (отдел агитации и пропаганды, otdel agitatsii i propagandy), which was part of the central and regional committees of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.^[6] Within the party apparatus, both agitation (work among people who were not Communists) and propaganda (political work among party members) were the responsibility of the agitpropotdel, or APPO. Its head was a member of the MK secretariat, although they ranked second to the head of the orgraspredotdel.^[7] Typically Russian agitprop explained the ideology and policies of the Communist Party and attempted to persuade the general public to support and join the party and share its ideals. Agitprop was also used for dissemination of information and knowledge to the people, like new methods of agriculture. After the October Revolution of 1917, an agitprop train toured the country, with artists and actors performing simple plays and broadcasting propaganda.^[8] It had a printing press on board the train to allow posters to be reproduced and thrown out of the windows as it passed through villages.^[9] The first head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) was Evgeny Preobrazhensky.^[10]

It gave rise to agitprop theatre, a highly politicized theatre that originated in 1920s Europe and spread to the United States; the plays of Bertolt Brecht are a notable example.^[11] Russian agitprop theater was noted for its cardboard characters of perfect virtue and complete evil, and its coarse ridicule.^[12] Gradually, the term agitprop came to describe any kind of highly politicized art.

Use of the press: Bolshevik strategy from the beginning was to gain access to the primary medium of dissemination of information in Russia: the press. The socialist newspaper Pravda resurfaced in 1917 after being shut down by the Tsarist censorship three years earlier. Prominent Bolsheviks like Kamenev, Stalin and Bukharin became editors of Pravda during and after the revolution, making it an organ for Bolshevik agitprop. With the decrease in popularity and power of Tsarist and Bourgeois press outlets, Pravda was able to become the dominant source of written information for the population in regions controlled by the Red Army .^[14]

[13]

During the Russian Civil War agitprop took various forms:

Agit-train

Blue Blouse

Propaganda in the Soviet Union

Left Column (theater troupe)

(ROSTA)

Russian Telegraph Agency

Schütz, Gertrud (1988). Kleines Politisches Wörterbuch. Berlin: Dietz Verlag. 978-3-320-01177-2.

ISBN

Kenez, Peter (November 29, 1985). . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 342. ISBN 978-0-521-31398-8.

The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929

(1973). Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes. New York: Vintage Books. p. 320. ISBN 978-0-394-71874-3.

Ellul, Jacques

(1977). The Art of War. Translated by Samuel B. Griffith. Oxford University Press. p. 197. ISBN 978-0-19-501476-1.

Tzu, Sun

Lasswell, Harold D. (April 15, 1971). . M.I.T. Press. p. 268. ISBN 978-0-262-62018-5.

Propaganda Technique in World War I

(1958). Brave New World Revisited. New York: Harper & Row.

Huxley, Aldous

Andrew, Christopher; Mitrokhin, Vasili (September 20, 2005). The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World. New York: Basic Books. p. 736. 978-0-465-00311-2.

ISBN

Andrew, Christopher (March 1, 1996). . New York: HarperPerennial. ISBN 978-0-06-092178-1.

For the President's Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush

Riedel, Bruce (March 15, 2010). The Search for Al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future (2nd ed.). Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. 978-0-8157-0451-5.

ISBN

Clark, Charles E. (2000). Uprooting Otherness: The Literacy Campaign in Nep-Era Russia. Susquehanna University Press.

The Soviet Propaganda Machine, Martin Ebon, McGraw-Hill 1987, 0-07-018862-9

ISBN

Rusnock, K. A. (2003). . In Millar, James (ed.). Encyclopedia of Russian History. Gale Group, Inc. ISBN 0-02-865693-8.

"Agitprop"

Vellikkeel Raghavan (2009). Agitation Propaganda Theatre. Chandigarh: Unistar Books. 81-7142-917-3.