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What Was The Role Of Propaganda During The Russian Revolution

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Propaganda in the Soviet Union helped the regime and its dictators (particularly Stalin) create Homo Sovieticus. This essay will discuss how propaganda contributed to the Homo Sovieticus (NB  I assume that Homo Sovieticus is a negative term to describe the product of Soviet policies).
First of all, it is crucial to take note of the role of ‘Pravda’ in fostering the revolutionary spirit in Russia since 1912. This newspaper helped Lenin spread anti-tsarist Marxist ideas around Russia and became a leading soviet Newspaper after the October Revolution in 1917. The overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II after the February revolution allowed Pravda to reopen. However, the original editors were replaced by the new editors (Stalin, Kamenev and Muranov) 1. …show more content…

For example, Lenin’s April Thesis, condemning the Provisional Government as “Counter-Revolutionary”, was published in the Pravda and the newspaper from then on followed the editorial choices of Lenin. The newspaper circulation, at its peak, reached 60,000 per day with an average circulation of 40,000 per day2. Pravda laid the foundation for the formation of Homo Sovieticus mainly due to its high daily circulation. After the revolution it became mandatory for state-run institutions to subscribe to the newspaper and other forms of this newspaper appeared for different sections of the population (such as Trud for Trade Unions, Izvestiya which covered foreign news, etc.) and almost all of them were run by the central government. Billington states that by the time of Lenin’s death (1924)

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