People under communism; Thought control in the Soviet Union

This is people under communism a series of documentaries interviews and talks based upon documented evidence and expert knowledge about the power and intentions of the Soviet Union. The series is presented transcribed by the National Association of educational broadcasters in consultation with scholars from the Russian Research Center Harvard University the Russian Institute Columbia University and the Hoover Institute and library Stanford University. The program in people under communism which you're about to hear is on thought control in the Soviet Union. It's a talk by Dr Alex Inglis author of public opinion in Soviet Russia and lecturer in sociology at Harvard. This is also research director of the Harvard Project on the Soviet social system. Members of the project I've interviewed hundreds of former Soviet citizens who escaped to the west. Here is Dr. Ellis and thought control in the Soviet Union.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union has developed an enormously elaborate and complex apparatus designed to guide and shape the thinking of the Soviet people. Highly centralized carefully controlled and vigorously utilized this apparatus is guided by a central theory and is motivated by a single purpose to mobilize popular support behind the domestic and foreign programs of the Soviet rulers. The recent emphasis on exposing the role of force in Soviet society has been a desirable antidote to the on realistic pictures of Soviet life so frequently drawn during the 30s and the war years. But in so far as this emphasis leads to a neglect of the role of propaganda in Soviet society. Our next gain may be a small one for we cannot have an adequate assessment of Soviet strengths and weaknesses unless we take full account of

Soviet efforts at mass persuasion. It is widely and mistakenly assumed in the West that Soviet leaders are disinterested in public opinion. In fact communist theory and Soviet practice reveal a most intense interest in the state of popular thinking. The crucial difference between east and west in this regard lies not in the presence or absence of interest but in the nature of that interest in public opinion. For the Soviet leaders are not interested in public opinion in order to follow it. Their interest in public opinion lies in molding it in conducting propaganda and agitation to bring the masses of the people to the requisite state of support for. Or as Lenin phrased it of benevolent neutrality towards the policies of the Communist Party and the Soviet regime. The instrument of force is of course always kept in reserve or

at least sufficiently in evidence to hasten the process of persuasion. This is the true meaning of Lennon's description of the Soviet regime as resting on a balance of coercion and persuasion. To effect its goals of propaganda and mass agitation in the Soviet Union the Communist Party has established a special department of propaganda and agitation within the framework of policy decisions set down by the Polit Bureau the department of propaganda and agitation unifies and gives a central direction to the multiform activities designed to influence public opinion carried on by the party the government and agencies like the trade unions at every level of the Soviet administrated structure down to the level of a simple factory a collective farm. Each communist party unit has any equivalent section to direct the

local work of propaganda and agitation in conformity with the directives issued by the central authorities in Moscow. These local units must bring the decisions of the party and the government to the people seek to explain them and attempt to win popular support for them. And finally they must effect the mobilization of the population to secure the fulfilment of the orders that come from Moscow. The media of mass communication in the Soviet Union are not only adjusted as they are everywhere to the facts of population and geography but are adapted as well to the social structure of the USSR and to the special purposes of the Communist Party. This is most strikingly illustrated in the regime's reliance on a unique system of oral agitation. The party maintains a huge core of Bolshevik agitators

who regularly number two million but whose ranks may swell to more than three million at the time of special campaigns such as those surrounding Soviet elections. The agitate or is the part time unpaid volunteer voice of the regime in the ranks of the masses of the population selected primarily from among party members. It is their task to bring the message of the party to the people through direct face to face contact. Before or after the change of shift or in the rest period in the plants and on the farms and even in the workers dormitories or at their apartments the agitator is expected to gather together small groups of his fellow workers or residents to conduct his agitation whether he reads aloud some article from the daily press describes some important recent decision of the party or government leads a critical discussion of the

work performance of his group or exhorts them to great effet he speaks in each case as the voice of the Communist Party the party's utilization of several million agitators. Naturally serves as a major supplement to the traditional media of communication which are by no means fully adequate to the task of reaching a population of almost 200 million scattered over some eight and a half million square miles of territory. And speaking well over 100 different languages and dialects. But the significance of the Bolshevik agitator is much greater than his role as a supplement to the radio and press group. Agitation is an unusual means of mass communication whose significance should be better understood in the West. Like all agitation and propaganda that of the Communist Party is

designed to affect attitudes and through attitudes to effect action contemporary American Research indicates that a group setting and particularly group discussion are generally more effective instruments for changing attitudes than are the radio and the newspaper to a large extent the work of the Bolshevik agitator. Since it includes regular contact in a group setting and provides an opportunity for group discussion creates a situation which should be conducive to effective attitude formation through its utilization of the Bolshevik agitator therefore the Communist Party has capitalized on one of the most effective of all instruments of mass communication. In addition the work of the agitator provides a personal link between the party and the people. Unlike the impersonal radio or newspaper he

serves as a convenient target against which his audience may in limited degree direct aggression hostility and discontent which otherwise might be directed. Even though covertly against the leaders of the regime itself the agitator also serves as a constant source of information on the attitudes and state of mind of the population. He is expected to keep a careful account of the questions asked and the problems in which the workers show special interest. These are collected and co-lead at the local level and are supposed to be passed up the party hierarchy to the highest echelons. Thus the core of agitators serves the party as a kind of substitute however limited for a system of real scientific public opinion testing since such testing is obviously not possible on the Soviet political

conditions. Let us consider next. The Soviet press the Soviet press is a unique phenomenon among the major press networks of the world. It is in no sense a business venture. Neither is it conceived of as an instrument for expressing the opinions of individual publishers nor as a means of mirroring public opinion. In the Soviet Union the press is view by the regime as a major social force which must be adapted and harnessed to facilitate the attainment of the goals set by the Communist Party. Lenin indeed spoke of the press as a collective propagandist agitator and organizer. And Stalin has characterized it as a driving belt between the party and the masses. This conception has had an impact on every aspect of newspaper

work in the Soviet Union Bolshevik theory rejects the notion of freedom of the press as it is understood in the West. Objectivity as a goal of journalistic effort is similarly rejected. The resultant conception of what is new is remarkably different from that held by Western journalists. The private affairs of prominent persons in political and artistic life and many other elements which are important as news in the United States play no role in the Soviet newspaper. The main ingredients of Soviet new are those events which have come to characterize the effort of the Communist Party to cement its control of Soviet society and to press the people on against all obstacles towards rapid industrialization of the country. Thus the Soviet newspaper is constantly full of reports on such matters as the progress of the sowing or harvesting campaigns or the so-called difficulties

experienced in building new industrial plants. If a lathe operator in some obscure plant in the Urals succeeds in increasing his production by 40 percent that fact may become front page news as the Soviet newspapers everywhere take up the story in an effort to get other lathe operators to adopt the new methods. There are more than 7000 daily and other newspapers in the Soviet Union with a total circulation in excess of 30 million for the average single issue. All of these 7000 papers almost 2000 are printed in languages other than the Russian language as part of the effort to provide each nationality group with its native language press and thus assure their exposure to the message of the party. The newspapers are also carefully divided along functional lines into special networks each ranging from a nation wide to the most local newspaper and each

network designed to reach a special audience on the basis of occupation age sex or some other social differentiation. For example there are about 150 newspapers published explicitly for the youth and they have a total circulation of about three million most of it daily. The parent newspaper in this case is a special model for young people of the Communist Party's problem called the Komsomol proverb that the printed newspapers are supplemented by a network of hundreds of thousands of Will newspapers put out in a single handwritten or typed copy on the bulletin boards of factories farms and housing developments. These Wall newspapers report on the production activities of their plant off farm give suggestions for the improvement of particular work proces criticize those workers or shops which are lagging behind and praise those whose work is

outstanding. They carry local notices of all kinds. It is characteristic of Soviet policy that these were all newspapers are not haphazard or uncontrolled phenomenon but are rather considered as integral parts of the total Soviet press apparatus and have regular part time editors and correspondents all closely supervised by the local party organisations like the Bolshevik agitator. The will newspaper has the advantage of flexibility and adaptability to local conditions and needs. It represents Another striking example of the Communist Party's intense effort to utilize meager local resources to extend the coverage of the regular means of communication and to increase their effectiveness. The elaborateness of the structure of the Soviet press is more than

matched by the system of control and censorship. The editor of every Soviet newspaper and journal including the wall newspaper is carefully selected by the Communist Party and the editors of the more important news papers are usually members of the Executive Committee of the corresponding level of the Communist Party organisation. Each newspaper's work is directly controlled by the party unit. At the same level. And is supervised by the party organisation at the next higher level each of the larger newspapers is expected to supervise the work of the newspaper is of lesser importance. In the same press network finally there is the supervision of the relevant press sections of the department of agitation and propaganda and of the government censorship agency. The party thus seeks to ensure that the instructions it issues will be effectively carried

out at all levels of the press and that the newspapers will serve as willing instruments of the party in its efforts to mobilize the masses of the population. The radio in its turn in the Soviet Union is not regarded as being either a source of amusement or a means of recreation for the population. Like the press it is conceived of as being primarily a channel of communication between the party and the people. Another one of those communist driving belts by which the party seeks to mobilize the population under its control despite its recognition of the importance of radio as a means of mass communication. The Soviet regime has been far from successful in covering the nation with an adequate Radio Network. The entire country has only about one hundred twenty five broadcasting stations and there are under seventy five receivers per thousand of population

as against 200 in many European countries and a much higher rate in the United States. But what it lacks in size the Soviet radio system largely compensates for in its unique structure. More than 80 percent of the equipment capable of receiving radio programs in the Soviet Union does not consist of radio sets at all but is rather made up of Wired speakers each speaker is connected with a central exchange of which there are more than 10000. Much in the manner of a telephone system. In addition to re transmitting regular broadcasts the central exchanges are able to send their own programs over the wires to their subscribers. Thus giving the Soviet radio i higher degree of flexibility in adjusting the content of its broadcasts to the precise composition of the local radio audience serviced by any exchange at the same

time. The system of Wired speakers gives the regime a powerful instrument for the control of what the Soviet radio audience may hear. For the owner of a wired speaker cannot freely tune in on the airwaves to select his program. He can hear only those programmes carried on the wires of his exchange. This effectively cuts off the vast majority of the Soviet radio audience from contact with all non Soviet stations including the Voice of America. The Soviet film is as closely controlled by the Communist Party as are the radio and the newspaper. The film In The USSR is not regarded primarily as a source of recreation for the population but rather as another weapon in the propaganda arsenal of the regime. Thus the minister of cinematography characterized the tasks of the Soviet film in the postwar period as being that of producing

films which rally the Soviet audience for what he called great sacrifices in the struggle for transforming our country into the most powerful and advanced in the world. The position of a director of Soviet films is relative to the Communist Party not unlike that of the newspaper editor. The film director for example is subject to the orders of the minister of cinematography who himself is instructed by the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The film director is also held personally responsible for carrying out the instructions of the party and is supervised in this respect by the film sector or of the department of propaganda and agitation of the Communist Party. In addition the film directors work along with every stage of the filmmaking process is supervised by a special art council made up largely of personnel specially selected by the party to

ensure the ideological correctness of Soviet films. The impact of such communist party control on Soviet film directors can well be imagined. Difficulties with the ideological correctness of their work as the Soviets phrase it creates such strains on the film produces as to seriously hamper their productivity. It is not surprising for example that film comedies have not been produced with any great success in the Soviet Union for the party has ordered that even the amusing material in it in any film must in their words organize the thoughts and feelings of the audience in their required proletarian direction. In other words only proletarian humor is permissible. As a result of shifts in the party line many films are abandoned in the midst of production and others are completed but are never shown. A striking example was presented in the postwar period when the film a great life after having gone through

all the stages of film control and censorship. It was made the subject of a special party decision found by communist standards to be extremely weak artistically and ideologically perverted and ordered withdrawn. In addition to its utilization of the Bolshevik agitator the newspaper radio and film the Communist Party in the Soviet Union has harnessed literatura the drama and even the plastic and pictorial arts. The whole presents an imposing picture of universal adaptation of the media of mass communication to the party's ends and the party has equally adapted to its purposes. The content of Soviet mass communication it is not as many mistakenly believe and tiredly taken up with heavy treatises on Marxist theory. The party does not hesitate. Indeed it is all too quick to draw on such time tested formulas as nationalism and

patriotism. The central concern is always with finding materials that will strengthen the control of the Communist Party over the nation and will aid it in mobilizing the people to fulfill the tasks which the party has set for them. It is of course true but there are serious chinks in the Soviet propaganda arm the agitator for example is caught between the direct pressures and hostilities of the population from below and the constant pressure of the party from above demanding that he exhort and goad on the tired population to still great efforts and sacrifice as a result thousands of agitators each year abandon their work. Editors must constantly be reprimanded for ideological deviations in the newspapers. Films cannot be shown. Books must be withdrawn and the regime is in many respects a prisoner of its own

system. For in so far as it wishes to judge the state of popular thinking it must rely on the reports of the agitators and the newspaper editors. Yet these same men are responsible for maintaining a positive public opinion in their own districts often to report the true facts is to expose themselves to criticism and stronger forms of reprimand for falling down on the job. The result is that they frequently withhold the truth or present false glowing pictures of their success. Indeed it is really doubtful that the men in the Kremlin have anything like an accurate picture of the state of mind of the Soviet public. Despite such deficiencies However there remains the hard fact of the regime's absolute monopoly of mass communication and its consequent ability to control what the Soviet citizen sees and hears about events in the outside world. The strength of this monopoly is

nowhere bet it illustrated than in the recent efforts of the American government to reach the Soviet people through the Voice of America. Those efforts began with a tremendous handicap for at least 80 percent of the potential audience for The Voice of America in Russia could not hear the broadcasts for the simple reason that their wired speakers could not pick up any regular broadcast then even that part of the audience which could hear the broadcasts was largely cut off by Soviet jamming. Increased expenditures for more stations and for more technical innovations may enable us to circumvent the Soviet radio jamming and the effort will be well worthwhile because that part of the Soviet radio audience which owns sets potentially capable of hearing the Voice of America is probably the most important segment of the Soviet population for it is composed largely of party members of intellectuals of leading workers and others who are themselves

primarily responsible for mobilizing public opinion among the rank and file of the population. But beyond the radio limited as that is there is virtually no means by which we can communicate with the Soviet population. Short of extreme measures such as dropping leaflets from the air. What then are our chances of counteracting the regime's monopoly of communications within the Soviet Union to find the answer. One must look not so much to American counter propaganda as to fact or is internal to the Soviet system. For the contradiction between the promise of Soviet propaganda and the realities of Soviet life is the greatest weakness in the regime's effort to secure the allegiance and support of its population. The amazing repetitiveness of Soviet mass communication strongly suggests that the leaders have little faith in the extent to which the people have adapted the maxims put to them or how

far they can be expected on the basis of their own experience to continue believing in them without constant reiteration. After more than 30 years of Soviet rule the party finds that it still cannot relax its extraordinary controls over mass communication. Indeed it must periodically increase the intensity of those controls so long as the contradiction persists the repetitiveness and the control will persist. But so long as they persist the tendency towards disillusion disbelief and avoidance of the official channels of mass communication will also persist and perhaps increase. This is revealed even in Soviet sources which carry many reports indicating that agitators find it difficult to get as many as even half of the people who should be attending their sessions to appear for them. And also in reports that the attendance at movie showings falls off drastically when the people learn

that the bill is made up largely of propaganda films rather than regular feature length movies. This fact is indicated as well in the reports of many Americans who have had contact with Soviet citizens within the USSR. One American is stationed in Murmansk toward the end of the war. Reports for example that he overheard two Russians arguing in the street. The men separated with the argument unresolved and as they did so one shouted down the street to the other. You lie like the radio lies. But the most dramatic evidence of the failure of the regime to convince the Soviet masses is to be found in the hundreds of thousands of Soviet refugees who accepted the overwhelming hardships and uncertainties of life as displaced persons rather than return to the Soviet Union. How many still at home have lost the predisposition to believe is unknown but the number must be large. And since the predisposition to believe on the

part of the audience is the most crucial factor in determining the chances for effective mass communication. The Soviet apparatus of propaganda faces a difficult task indeed. Thought control in the Soviet Union. An analysis by Dr. Alex Inglis research director of the Harvard Project on the Soviet social system and author of public opinion in Soviet Russia. Drink was talk was another transcribed program in the series people under communism. The series as a whole was prepared in consultation with scholars from the Russian Institute of Columbia University the Hoover Institute and library Stanford University and the Russian Research Center Harvard University. Your program producer was telling me this is Parker Wheatley. These programs in people under communism are prepared and distributed by the National

Association of educational broadcasters and are made possible under a grant from the fund for adult education an independent organization established by the Ford Foundation. This is the N A B tape network.