Political Persona: Joseph Stalin Political

Political Persona: Joseph Stalin

Political Persona:

Joseph Stalin

From 1909 to 1991 were defined as political instruments by the Communist Party leadcrship to further political and ideological aims. Directed from above, the structure of the Soviet communication system reflected the understanding of media as a specialization and mobilization force.

The most important characteristics of the media system were (a) saturation of the vast territory of the Soviet Union, (h) centralized and hierarchical political control, (c) journalistic training and norms, including self-censorship, and (d) leadership misunderstanding of the effect of media messages. These explain the decree to which Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, and (both desired and were able to control the content and use of media messages).

Soviet leaders from Stalin to Gorbachev believed the control of communications was essential for the development of the Soviet state. What became clear over time was that the effect of Soviet media messages varied significantly in terms of understanding and acceptance by the Soviet population. Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of openness in the media was introduced to engage the Soviet population in solving significant economic and political challenges, but had unintended consequences that undermined one-party rule in the Soviet Union, contributing significantly to the breakup of the U.S.S.R.

(1982-1984) and Chernenko (1984-1985) similarly used mass media to promote their own political campaigns, policies, and agendas. By the time Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985, the number of serious challenges to the Soviet system had grown. Like his predecessors, Gorbachev used the media to publicize and promote his own policy initiatives. One of his policies, called glasl1ost, or openness, was directly related to how mass media covered, explained, and analyzed Soviet life. According to Gorbachev, the goal was to shed light on problems within Soviet society and to encourage Soviet citizens to participate in finding solutions to these problems. What happened in a relatively short period of time, however, was that media began to question components of the one official ideology. Newspaper journalists wrote about an increasingly wide range of political, economic, and historical topics that had previously been taboo. Television journalists developed programming that appealed to the desires of the audience more fully. The questioning and criticism helped to create an environment in which the system, based as it was on one official ideology, would not survive. Thus, glasnost and the media contributed to the demise of the Soviet Union.

Soviet Understanding of the Role of Media and Communications

All Soviet leaders shared a belief that media were vital to the successful transformation of the Soviet people and for the development of socialism in the country. Therefore, leaders promoted media saturation of the country. In addition, Communist Party political leaders maintained centralized and hierarchical political control over the communications system. Journalists were a part of this system and their training and political development fell under the jurisdiction of the Party as well. Because the media were seen as so powerful, it is perhaps ironic that political leaders did not attempt to gauge the effects of media messages throughout most of the Soviet period. Only gradually (and late) did Soviet leaders understand that media messages were not always received, understood, and accepted, as previously taken for granted. An attempt to remedy this situation contributed to the changes.

Saturation

The Soviet leadership perceived media to be central to the socialization of the Soviet citizen and to the mobilization of the masses in support of Communist Party objectives. The press was seen as agitator, propagandist, and organizer, tied inextricably and hierarchic- ally to the leader and the Party.

In fact, Soviet leaders believed that media would help transform the population of the country into new socialist people, transcending cultural, ethnic, and other differences.

The functions of media, as defined by the political elite, determined, to a large degree, the structure and workings of the communication system in the Soviet Union. Party leaders, beginning with Lenin, had curtailed and then eliminated all media not owned and con- trolled by the Communist Party. All communications media were to be used to develop the new Soviet man and all political leaders used the media to intro- duce and support particular political campaigns and policies.

Press

Because of the importance attached to media, Soviet political leaders made the penetration of the vast territory of the Soviet Union a priority. They did this in two ways. First, they reached as much of the population as possible.

For example, in 1928 the First Five-Year Plan contained a plan for the press, and Stalin is quoted as saying 'the press should grow not by the day, but by the hour, for it is the sharpest and most powerful weapon of our Party.' The large number of Party-dominated newspapers that appeared in the decade and a half following World War II confirmed the government's commitment to using the press as an outlet for expressing official views. As literacy improved, so did the reach of newspapers. In 1920, approximately 60% of the population was illiterate, but by 1980 that number was less than 1%). In fact, newspapers led in providing information to the masses until the 1960s. The second way the Soviet media system penetrated the population was by the specialization of newspapers, magazines, and journals. The press was designed to target specific audiences, including children, women, and military personnel, and individual newspapers were associated with particular organizations. At the national level, for example, Praida (Truth) was the official daily newspaper of the Communist Party and was, therefore, the most important for disseminating the Party line. Izvestia was the official government press, Trml represented the trade union, was the newspaper of the Young Communist League (the Komsomol). Newspapers also existed at the provincial and local levels. Even though individual papers might have different affiliations or audiences, each had to reflect the Party's line.

Radio and Television

Soviet leaders also encouraged the development of radio and television, seeing them as ways to communicate over the vast territory of the Soviet Union. Radio could reach those places within the country that had trouble receiving newspapers and, importantly, served that portion of the population that was illiterate. Radio spread a unified message designed for political resocialization over a disparate territory.

This was also the case for television, which became very important to the leadership beginning in the 1960s. At this time, the development of the Soviet television system began in earnest; satellite transmission enabled full penetration of the country by the 1980s. In 1960, only 5% of the Soviet population had access to television, but by 1986 that number had risen to 93%.

Not only did satellite technology allow television to reach a large percentage of the population, it also allowed the leadership to centralize television. In the Soviet Union, there were two main national networks. Channel One, or First Program, began broadcasting in 1960 and reached the entire Soviet territory.

It was the most important channel because it had the most extensive reach. Channel Two, or Second Program, began in 1982. Residents of Moscow could also receive Third Program, with its educational offerings, starting in the mid-1960s; Fourth Program, covering sports and cultural events, beginning in 1967; and the Leningrad channel. Color television was introduced in 1967.

Centralized and Hierarchical Political Control

Political control over the communications system extended beyond the penetration of the Soviet territory by media organs. The Party also maintained control over form, function, and content. This could be accomplished because the Party had formal supervision not only of production but also of themes, stories, and programs. Beginning with Stalin, Soviet leaders- operating at the head of the parallel bureaucratic and institutional infrastructures of Party and government- ultimately determined the tone of coverage and the major political campaigns of the mass media.

On the Party side, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, under the direction of the General Secretary and the Politburo, set the ideological tone through departments of propaganda and culture.

The Propaganda Department allocated budgets, over- saw media content, and appointed some of the leading editors. On the government side, state committees were established under the direction of the U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers in the areas of book publishing (Cjoskomizdat, the State Committee for the Affairs of Publishing Houses, Printing and the Book Trade) and in radio and television broadcasting (Gostelradio, the State Committee for Television and Radio). In addition, editors and the heads of radio and television were Party members who could be relied upon to extend Party control. Glavlit (the Chief Administration for the Affairs of Literature and Publishing Houses), the official organ for censorship established in 1922, set specific and clearly articulated rules for the exclusion of material for publication or broadcast.

The Party also controlled the content of publications and broadcasts through institutions such as TASS (the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union), which oversaw the dissemination of political information beginning in 1935. TASS correspondents worked in all the republican and provincial capitals as well as in other cities. Novosti (Novosti Press Agency) was developed in 1961 as a supplemental agency to TASS and served as a public relations organization, supplying information to foreign publications and government agencies. Domestically, Novosti disseminated information on life in other countries and on life in the Soviet Union. All of these institutional structures fell under the authority of the Party.

The television system in the Soviet Union was centrally controlled through the State Committee for Tele- vision and Radio (Gostelradio), which coordinated the communication of the ideological message sent down from above. The reorganization and elevation of this committee to the all-union level in 1970 made the Chairman of Gostelradio directly responsible to the General Secretary of the Communist Party and the Politburo. (Indeed, the Chairman of Gostelradio had on his desk a series of telephones, one connected directly to the General Secretary.) Directives were passed down to various departments which produced the television programs that aired on Soviet television.

The state owned all of the equipment, paid all salaries, and monitored all broadcasts. In addition to centralized control over the mass media structure, the Party closed off information from outside of the state. Because outside media messages were seen as antithetical to the purpose of socializing the Soviet population, foreign newspapers were not permitted and foreign radio broadcasts were jammed. The degree of control ebbed and flowed over the years, as leaders and policies changed. In addition, in time leaders were less able to control the spread of unauthorized information that came with foreign broadcasting, copy machines, faxes, VCRs, and computers.

Media Personnel

Communist Party control meant that journalists presented the Party line and were seen as Party workers. In journalism schools and on the job, journalists were taught that they were to serve the interests of the leadership. Leadership roles in the press and in broadcasting were filled by members of the nomenclature. Party nomenclature lists contained the names of those with acceptable Party credentials. In addition to following clear directives from above, journalists also employed self-censorship. Particularly after the centralization and terror of the Stalinist system, journalists were wary of offending persons in positions of authority.

Aware of the consequences associated with upsetting the political leadership, journalists would not take risks. After Stalin's death, a journalistic union was formed, and in 1959 the first All-Union Congress of Soviet Journalists was held in Moscow. Also during the 1950s, schools and faculties of journalism were established. But little of this challenged the basic principles of the Soviet press that included:

* Party-mindedness or Party loyalty (Partiil1ost)

* High ideological content (ldcil1ost)

* Patriotism

* Truthfulness (to Leninist theory) (Praudiuost)

* Popular character

* Accessibility to the masses (Massouost)

* Criticism and self-criticism

Of course, during different periods of time and under different leaders, more or less emphasis was placed on these important characteristics. Soviet leaders could and did replace media personnel who displeased them. Under Stalin, editors of news- papers had to satisfy the leader and spoke with him often for directions. When disappointed, Stalin would have newspaper staff members arrested. Khrushchev removed some editors and replaced them with those more to his liking, including his son-in-law Alexei Adzhubei, who became the editor of Izustia. Brezhnev, who viewed the media as a stabilization force rather than a force for change or dynamism, appointed a new ideology secretary, Mikhail Suslov, who was much more conservative than his predecessors under Khrushchev.

Editors appointed by Khrushchev were sacked and replaced, including Akzhubei who was removed as soon as Khrushchev was ousted from power in 1964. When Gorbachev came to power, he, too, shook up media personnel. Changes were made at Gostelradio, a number of newspapers and journals, the Union of Writers, and the Ministry of Culture among others. Between March 1985 and December 1991 there were five Chairs of Gostelradio: Segei Lapin, Aleksandr Akscnov, Mikhail Ncnashev, Leonid Kravchenko, and Yegor Yakovlev. D.

Media Effects

Because they believed media messages directed from above would transform the masses, early Soviet leaders did not see a need to ascertain the degree to which the masses understood or accepted these messages. Under Stalin, for example, research on public opinion was prohibited. This is not to say that there were no feed- back mechanisms set in place. Although hardly representative, letters to the newspapers and write-in polls were used. The lack of knowledge about the public's perceptions changed slowly with the development of social science inquiry and the analysis of public opinion. With more research on the degree to which media messages were effective came some limited changes in the structure and content of those messages.

By the 1960s and 1970s, Soviet specialists and scholars began to study public opinion and the effect of mass media messages on the public. These scholars found that the commonly accepted hypodermic model of media transmission was seriously flawed.

The hypodermic model asserted that media messages would be received and accepted as the medicine from a hypodermic needle.

Public opinion research told a different story. Audience members did not necessarily understand the political messages, and the credibility of the messages was not high. For example, people were suspicious of media that ignored disasters, crashes, and other crises that they knew had happened or existed. This gap between what was experienced and what was reported was profound and contributed to the skepticism with which many citizens received the news.

Audiences also desired more than domestic political fare and wanted more human interest, entertainment, and international programming. The lack of timeliness also eroded the effectiveness of media messages. Despite enormous attention to the control of the media and the suppression of sources and ideas that contradicted the official line, rumor was very important as a means through which information was communicated. By the late 1970s, Soviet leaders finally recognized that media were not as effective as desired, and there were attempts to address the more glaring weaknesses. In the wake of two major resolutions on the mass media in 1979 and 1983, programs appeared that were critical of some aspects of Soviet life, including corruption and productivity problems. Additional programming was developed that covered the world more broadly. (Today ill the World) was one such program, airing short stories about foreign affairs. Vrcmya, the nightly news, shortened its stories and included more video coverage than in the past. After Brezhnev's death, Yurii Andropov attempted to use the media to invigorate the economy and discipline the society by launching a policy campaign against corruption and laziness. So, for example, camera crews would follow people who were supposed to be at work but were not, and journalists would interview them about why they were not working and, therefore, not contributing to Soviet society.

Conclusion

From 1979, when Stalin's power was clearly consolidated, until the surprise German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, Soviet media reported the good news of Soviet accomplishments in industrializaticm and fostered the image of Stalin as benevolent father of the new Soviet state. Some scholars note that this changed the nature of communication from one of promoting revolutionary action to one of maintaining the status quo. Newspapers reported the fulfillment and over fulfillment of Five-Year Plans, lauding the accomplishments of the workers. Stalin's picture and his words were prominently displayed, and he was shown taking flowers from school children, as the best friend of all Soviet youngsters. His picture was often placed with that of Lenin on the front page of newspapers, tying Stalin to the leader of the Revolution. This excessive adoration of Stalin would later be called Stalin's cult of personality. In the arts and literature, socialist realism was adopted to structure content. Socialist real- ism called for the correct depiction of the accomplishments and achievements of the Soviet state and its heroes, leading the country to socialism. The press did not report on extensive opposition to collectivization or on the famine in Ukraine from 932 to 1934. Bad news was not permitted because the role of media was to support and herald the achievements of the Soviet state and the Communist Party. Accidents, disasters, crime, human interest, society news, and advertising were not covered in the Soviet media.