Historian Kenez, who in two previous works charted the course of
the Bolshevik Revolution in southern Russia, here succeeds in a
more ambitious task: an examination of the ways in which the
revolutionary elite tried to bring its utopian message - that a
better world awaited - to the mass of Soviet workers and peasants,
many of whom couldn't even read. Kenez reminds us that "propaganda"
- the means for transforming the common man's opinions and
attitudes - wasn't always a pejorative word, and can only be
properly defined within a specific historical context. And the
context for his straightforward analysis of countless newspapers,
books, posters, and films is nothing less than the formative years
of what has become one of the world's most repressive states, where
information is still controlled by a centralized government. From
the early days of the revolution, the Bolsheviks exploited the
burgeoning popular press, which provided a forum for the exiled and
prolific Lenin, who insisted time and again that this form of
propaganda should be "an instrument of the dictatorship of the
proletariat." After the October Revolution, this principle - which
defined the goal of all forms of Soviet propaganda - accounted for
the almost immediate censorship of the press, a story told in
detail by Kenez. Illiterate Russians, especially those in the vast,
nearly uncontrollable countryside, were the focus not only of
catechismal-like indoctrination campaigns, which were to teach them
how to read; they were also subjected to other means of coercion:
an oral-agitational network that traveled by ship and train, and
numerous "volunteer" organizations, such as the student group (the
Komsomol) whose direct control by the Party Kenez carefully
documents. Other, less successful forms of propaganda included the
Soviet cinema during the late 20's when the great directors -
Vertov, Pudovkin, Dovzhenko, and Eisenstein - were allowed to
flourish, even though they failed to please the regime. Kenez has
organized his voluminous research into a lucid, anecdotal
narrative, complete with a user-friendly scholarly apparatus
(glossary, bibliography, etc.). A must for Sovietologists, but
students of popular culture and mass communications will also find
much of value here. (Kirkus Reviews)
In this first comprehensive study of the early development of the Soviet propaganda system, Peter Kenez describes how the Bolshevik Party went about reaching the Russian people. Throughout he is more concerned with the experience of the Soviet people than with high-level politics. The book is both a major contribution to our understanding of the genius of the Soviet state, and of the nature of propaganda in the modem world.
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