Media Flashcards
(25 cards)
After the Civil war what happened to freedom of the press?
It got worse.
What did Glavlit do from 1922?
Oversaw the systematic censorship
Examples of glavlit’s censorship under Lenin?
All books were investigated for anti Communist bias.
The GPU compiled a list of banned books
What happened to banned books during Lenin’s era?
Politically dangerous books were held in ‘book gulags’ (new special holding libraries)
What happened to Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky and Lenin’s works in the ’30s?
Z,K,T were purged from soviet libraries. Lenin’s works were edited to remove complimentary statements about Stalin’s opponents
Examples of ‘bad news’ that soviet media was not allowed to publish during Stalin
Natural disasters
Bad weather
Suicides
Example of a socialist realist piece of art and how were soviets depicted in it
The worker and the collective farm woman. Depicted as beautiful, hardworking and heroic
Why were magazines encouraged to publish readers’ letters
An attempt to create a consumer society
What did readers’ letters expose in the ’50s and ’60s?
Long term societal issues e.g. male alcoholism, scarcity of consumer goods, domestic violence
What did khrushchev’s media do in response to complaints in readers’ letters?
They focused on male hypocrisy and a lack of devotion to communism
Under khrushchev in WW2 related media, who was the main focus?
Ordinary soviets
Give examples of how Brezhnev used media to his advantage?
Kept tight control over the coverage of the war in Afghanistan to hide the horrors going on there
His speeches were transmitted in full
He was at the centre of a lot of domestic media coverage
How did brezhnev’s use of media backfire?
The cameras showed that he was physically weak. He struggled to finish speeches and in the last week of his life, it showed him struggling to get up the stairs of Lenin’s mausoleum
1917 decree on press
All non socialist newspapers banned but by the 1920s all non bolshevik newspapers were banned too
1918 revolutionary tribunal of press
Had powers over censorship and journalists could be arrested for not conforming with this
What did Pravda and Izvestiya do throughout the period?
Highlighted the achievements of socialism
What did magazines never tolerate under Khrushchev?
Political attacks on himself or communism
Example of a prohibited negative topic under Khrushchev
1957 Kyshtum disaster- waste storage tank explosion which killed 200 people. The places effected by the explosion removed off of maps.
What did TVs under Brezhnev focus on? Why did Brezhnev introduce a range of radio stations?
Achievements of socialism and social programmes. Introduced a range of radio stations to compete with the BBC
Number of TVS from 1950 to 1958
1950: 10 000
1958: 3 million
Number of government sponsored radios under Khrushchev vs Brezhnev
1 under Khrushchev and 3 under Brezhnev
What did ROSTA do under Lenin to produce propaganda
Produced cartoons which supported the revolution eg Verton
Example of a heroic story under stalin
Eisenstein’s Red October (1927)- film
Were the Soviets aware that political rivals were killed/imprisoned?
Yes
