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The Modernization of Party Propaganda in the USSR

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Ellen Mickiewicz
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Lenin was one of the first political theorists to emphasize the enormous potential impact that manipulation of modern communications channels could have on a recipient population. It may therefore not be surprising that indices of penetration by the communications networks of the world's states suggest that the Soviet pattern is unique. For example, The World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators places groups of states on a developmental spectrum and finds that the Soviet Union, as well as Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia, are “industrial revolution” societies, one stage behind the more developed “high mass-consumption” societies, where the United States, Canada, and much of Western Europe have been placed. It is true that according to the indices of Gross National Product and urbanization the Soviet-type states do cluster in the range that includes such states as Italy, Argentina, and Venezuela. However, if we look at percentage adult literacy or percentage voting, the Soviet-type states easily rank with the highest “high mass-consumption” societies.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , June 1971 , pp. 257 - 276
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1971

References

1. Russett, Bruce M., Alker, Hayward R. Jr., Deutsch, Karl W., and Lasswell, Harold D., The World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators (New Haven, 1964)Google Scholar. In this collection of data the Soviet Union seems to rank surprisingly low in radios per thousand and circulation of daily newspapers per thousand. This is probably because these variables fail to take into account the impressive exposure of the population to each radio or newspaper. To rank the Soviet Union accurately one would have to do a careful study of audience per medium of communication; the Soviet Union and Communist China have pioneered the techniques of maximum exposure. Further, the World Handbook is of limited use in bringing Soviet data into a framework of comparative data, because United Nations sources are almost wholly relied on. For scholars and students who require more complete data, a collection will be published by the Free Press : Handbook of Soviet Social Science Data, edited by Ellen Mickiewicz, with contributions by Stanley Cohn, Warren Eason, Mark Field, Gayle Hollander, Roger Kanet, Roy Laird, Ellen Mickiewicz, Henry Morton, Jonathan Pool, and Jeremy Azrael.

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4. These criteria are linked to modernization within the domain of governmental rule and authority in Communications and Political Development, ed. Lucian W. Pye (Princeton, 1963), p. 17.

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8. Quoted in Zev Katz, “Party Political Education in Soviet Russia,” unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 19S7, p. 13.

9. No precise date can be established for the change, but two students of Soviet politics have offered suggestions. Hopkins, Mark W., in his Mass Media in the Soviet Union (New York, 1970)Google Scholar, places the change between the spring of 1966 and August of that year (p. 351, a 69). Aryeh L. Unger suggests a slightly earlier date of May 1966 (“Politinformator or Agitator : A Decision Blocked,” Problems of Communism, September-October 1970, p. 33).

10. “Tam gde my zhivem,” Pravda, July 30, 1968.

11. For a discussion of this expansion of adult political education, see my Soviet Political Schools (New Haven, 1967). In a recent article Erik P. Hoffmann argues that Khrushchev's reform of adult political education was for the most part an attempt to create more reliable parallel channels of communication : “Communication Theory and the Study of Soviet Politics,” in Communist Studies and the Social Sciences, ed. Frederic J. Fleron, Jr. (Chicago, 1969). It is true that new channels with new administrators were installed, but it is unlikely that the purpose was simply to acquire more relevant and detailed information. Khrushchev's reforms in adult political education were part of a wider equalizing program that far exceeded in scope the communications goal that Hoffmann suggests. Khrushchev initiated sweeping reforms in several areas to cut through the hardening boundaries of social stratification. For reforms affecting the military see Roman, Kolkowicz, The Soviet Military and the Communist Party (Princeton, 1967)Google Scholar. For reforms embodied in the party program see Robert, Feldmesser, “Stratification and Communism,” in Prospects for Soviet Society, ed. Allen Kassof (New York, 1968)Google Scholar. For reforms in education see Barghoorn, Frederick C., Politics in the USSR (Boston, 1966)Google Scholar, chap. 3.

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24. Mickiewicz, Soviet Political Schools, pp. 127-31.

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27. Ibid., pp. 237-38.

28. Ibid., p. 241.

29. Ibid., p. 236.

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31. Rodionov, “Partiinoe rukovodstvo ideologicheskoi raboty,” p. 14.

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39. For studies of the problem see George, Fischer, The Soviet System and Modern Society (New York, 1968)Google Scholar, and Fleron, Frederic Jr., “Representation of Career Types in Soviet Political Leadership,” in R. Barry Farrell, ed., Political Leadership in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (Chicago, 1970), p. 108–39.Google Scholar

40. Mickiewicz, Soviet Political Schools, p. 15.

41. For examinations of this problem, see the works by Fischer, Gehlen, and Fleron previously mentioned, and Borys Lewytskyj, “Generations in Conflict,” Problems of Communism, January-February 1967, pp. 36-40.

42. Robert Conquest, “Immobilism and Decay,” Problems of Communism, September- October 1966, pp. 35-37.