Eastern Bloc media and propaganda

Eastern Bloc
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v t e

Eastern Bloc media and propaganda was controlled directly by each country's

Circumvention of dissemination controls occurred to some degree through samizdat and limited reception of western radio and television broadcasts. In addition, some regimes heavily restricted the flow of information from their countries to outside of the Eastern Bloc by heavily regulating the travel of foreigners and segregating approved travelers from the domestic population.

Background

Creation

Throughout the Eastern Bloc, both in the USSR and elsewhere, Russia was given prominence, and referred to as the naibolee vıdayuşayasya naciya (the most prominent nation) and the rukovodyaşy narod (the leading people).^[8] The Soviets encouraged the admiration of everything Russian and the reproduction of their own communist structural hierarchies in each of the Bloc states.^[8]

The defining characteristic of communism as implemented in the Eastern Bloc was the unique symbiosis of the state with society and the economy, resulting in politics and economics losing their distinctive features as autonomous and distinguishable spheres.

While over 15 million Eastern Bloc residents migrated westward from 1945 to 1949,[20] emigration was effectively halted in the early 1950s, with the Soviet approach to controlling national movement emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc.^[21] Furthermore, the Eastern Bloc experienced economic mis-development by central planners resulting in those countries following a path of extensive rather than intensive development and thus lagging far behind their western European counterparts in per capita Gross Domestic Product.^[22]

Media and information restrictions

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Media and information control

In the Eastern Bloc, the state owned and operated the means of mass communication.^[23] The ruling authorities viewed media as a propaganda tool, and widely practiced censorship to exercise almost full control over the information dissemination.^[23] The press in communist countries was an organ of, and completely reliant on, the state.^[24] Until the late 1980s, all Eastern Bloc radio and television organizations were state-owned (and tightly controlled), while print media was usually owned by political organizations, mostly by the local communist party.^[25]

Youth newspapers and magazines were owned by youth organizations affiliated with the communist party.

The communist party exercised control over the media and was responsible for censorship.[25] Media served as an important form of control over information and thus of society.^[26] Eastern Bloc authorities viewed the dissemination and portrayal of knowledge as vital to the survival of communism and thus stifled alternative concepts and critiques.^[26] Several state communist party newspapers were published. Radio was initially the dominant medium, with television being considered low on the priority list when compiling five-year plans during the industrialisation of the 1950s.

Censorship and squashing of dissent

In each country, leading bodies of the ruling communist party exercised hierarchical control of the censorship system.[29] Each communist party maintained a department of its central committee apparatus to supervise media.^[29] Censors employed auxiliary tools such as: the power to launch or close down any newspaper, radio or television station, licensing of journalists through unions and the power of appointment.^[29] Party bureaucrats held all leading editorial positions.^[29] One or two representatives of censorship agencies modeled on the Soviet GLAVLIT (Main Administration for the Protection of Official and Military Secrets) worked directly in all editorial offices.^[29] No story could be printed or broadcast without their explicit approval.^[29]

Initially, East Germany presented unique issues because of rules for the occupying powers in the divided Germany (e.g. regarding media control) that prevented the outright seizure of all media outlets.^[32] The Soviet occupation administration (SVAG) directed propaganda and censorship policies to East German censorship organs through its "sector for propaganda and censorship".^[33] While the initial SVAG policies did not appear to differ greatly from those in the western occupation zones governing denazification,^[34] censorship became one of the most overt instruments used to manipulate political, intellectual and cultural developments in East Germany.^[33] Art societies and associations that had existed prior to World War II were dissolved and all new theatres and art societies had to register with SVAG.^[35] Art exhibits were put under a blanket ban unless censorship organs approved them in advance.^[35]

After East Germany's official establishment, while the original constitution^[36] provided that "censorship of the media is not to occur", both official and unofficial censorship occurred, although to a lesser extent during its later years. Thereafter, official East German censorship was supervised and carried out by two governmental organizations, the Head office for publishing companies and bookselling trade (Hauptverwaltung Verlage und Buchhandel, HV), and the Bureau for Copyright (Büro für Urheberrechte). The HV determined the degree of censorship and the method of publishing and marketing works. The Bureau for Copyright appraised the work, then decided if it or another publication was permitted to be published in East Germany or in foreign country. For theatres, a "repertory commission" was created that consisted of the Ministerium für Volksbildung (MfV), the ruling SED party, the applicable theatre union and the East German office for theatrical affairs.^[37]

After a long visa procurement process, western visitors driving over the West German border to East Germany had their car strip-searched for prohibited Western "propaganda material".^[38] Nevertheless, the East German authorities found it extremely difficult to prevent their citizens listening to Western radio stations and Western TV was available across most of the GDR. Technical and diplomatic considerations meant attempts at jamming Western Stations were (unlike in other Eastern bloc countries) soon abandoned.

In the Soviet Union, in accordance with the official ideology and politics of the

• Romanian poet who grew disillusioned with Romanian communist doctrine after 1949,^[39] and was repeatedly sanctioned for disobedience.^[40][41] In 1985, after being beaten for weeks on end by the Romanian Police, he was transported to the Jilava jail hospital, where he died of peritonitis later in the day.^{[42][43][44][45][46]}
• Night of the Murdered Poets - thirteen writers, poets, artists, musicians and actors were secretly executed on orders from Joseph Stalin.
• Hungarian Prime Minister who had supported Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, was later arrested by Soviet authorities after leaving the Yugoslavian embassy, and then secretly tried, found guilty, sentenced to death and was executed by hanging in June 1958.^[47] His trial and execution were made public only after the sentence was carried out.^[48]
• Ion Valentin Anestin - His work centered on denouncing Stalin and the Soviet Union, in a series titled Măcelarul din Piaţa Roşie ("The Red Square Butcher") published by the magazine Gluma.^[49][50][51] Following the start of Soviet occupation of Romania, Anestin was barred from publishing for a five-year period (1944–1949), and ultimately imprisoned.^[49][50][51] He died soon after his release.^[49][50]
• Ukrainian artist arrested in 1946 for possessing a caricature of Joseph Stalin his friend had drawn on a cigarette box, Getman was sent to Siberian Gulag camps. He is one of the few artists to record life in the Gulag, where he survived by sketching propaganda
  for the authorities.
• Ukrainian Helsinki group
  , was sentenced to ten years more imprisonment and was subsequently beaten to death in a Soviet forced labor camp.
• Romanian
  poet who was imprisoned in 1958, at the age of 74, spending four years in prison, where he became ill, and died of cancer a few months after his release.
• Lubyanka (KGB)
  prison in 1951.
• Lena Constante - During repeated interrogations by the Securitate, Constante tried to fend off false accusations of "Titoism" and "treason", but, the victim of constant beatings and torture^[52] (much of her hair was torn from the roots),^[53] and confronted with Zilber's testimony — which implicated her — she eventually gave in and admitted to the charges.^[54]
• Hungary to a crowd during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956
  , and was executed the next year.
• Enn Tarto - An Estonian dissident who was imprisoned from 1956 to 1960, 1962 to 1967, and again from 1983 to 1988 for anti-Soviet activity.
• Romania clergyman openly critical of the Communist regime, Durcovici was placed under surveillance in 1947, arrested by the Securitate in 1949 during a congregation visit, died from torture and prison deprivation and was buried in an unmarked grave.^[55][56] Communist authorities subsequently attempted to erase all evidence of his stay in prison, and most documents were destroyed.^[55]
• Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda
  , jailed for six years with two years exile, jailed again in 1983 for violating Article 62 of the Soviet penal code, Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda and sentenced to ten years imprisonment and five years of exile, after which he became ill, was moved to a hospital after international pressure, where he died.
• Estonian
  businessman and former politician critical of Soviet rule who was executed by the Soviet Union in 1941.
• Lithuanian
  archbishop critical of Bolshveism who was arrested in 1947 and sentenced to eight years in a Soviet prison, where he died in 1953.
• Ukrainian
  arrested in 1949 for purported Ukrainian nationalist rhetoric and sentenced to 20 years of hard labor in copper mines.
• Georgi Markov - a Bulgarian writer and journalist who defected to the West to work for the BBC and became an outspoken critic of Bulgarian Communism. He was assassinated on Waterloo Bridge in London in 1978.
• Służba Bezpieczeństwa
  (Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs).

Other artists, such as Geo Bogza, used subtle imagery or allegories within their works to criticize regimes. This did not prevent state scrutiny, as with the case of Bogza coming under the scrutiny of the Securitate.^[57]

List of media entities

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The major newspapers were traditionally the daily official publications of the local communist party.

Despite outward similarities in press policy, large differences existed in the roles and functions of the mass media in Eastern Bloc countries.^[60] Where the press was allowed more freedom, such as in Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, a national subtext and a significant element of entertainment flourished.^[60] In some cases, newspapers and magazines served as the most visible part of liberalizing forces, such as in Poland in 1956 and 1980–81, in Hungary in 1956, and in Czechoslovakia in 1968.^[60]

In many instances toward the end of the Eastern Bloc's existence, the ruling communist parties' messages in the press increasingly diverged from reality, which contributed to the declining faith of the public in communist rule.^[60] At the same time, some press in the Eastern Bloc became more open in the 1980s in countries such as Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.^[60] In Yugoslavia, the press after Tito's reign turned increasingly nationalistic.^[60] Only in Romania and Albania did the press remain under tight dictatorial control right up until the end of the Eastern Bloc.^[60]

In East Germany, where initial control could be less overt because of shared allied occupation rules, the Soviet SVG set up the Deutsche Verwaltung für Volksbildung (DVV) in the fall of 1945.^[33] The SVAG and DVV controlled and approved all publication licenses needed to publish newspapers, books, journals and other materials.^[61] Those agencies also provided the top publishing priorities and would apportion paper used for printing to the various publications in accordance with those priorities.^[61] The SVAG initially licensed some private publishers which required the employment of a greater number of censors.^[62]

Notable Communist Party newspapers in the Soviet Union

Media	Country	Logo[1]	Notes
Pravda	Russian SFSR / USSR		Official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party
Trud			Mouthpiece for the Soviet Labor Unions
APN			Press agency under the Soviet Information Bureau
Radianska Ukraina	Ukrainian SSR		Official newspaper of the Communist Party of Ukraine
Zvyazda	Byelorussian SSR		Official newspaper of the Communist Party of Belarus
Sovetskaya Belorussiya – Belarus' Segodnya			Official Russian language newspaper of the Communist Party of Belarus
Moldova Socialistă	Moldavian SSR		Official newspaper of the Communist Party of Moldova
Rahva Hääl	Estonian SSR		Official newspaper of the Communist Party of Estonia
Sovetskaya Estonia			Official publication of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia in Russian
Cīņa	Latvian SSR		Official publication of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Latvia in Latvian
Sovetskaya Latviya			Official publication of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Latvia in Russian
Tiesa	Lithuanian SSR		Official organ of the Lithuanian Communist Party, the Supreme Soviet of Lithuanian SSR and the Council of Ministers of the Lithuanian SSR
Kauno Tiesa			Lithuanian SSR newspaper, printed in Kaunas
Czerwony Sztandar [pl]			Polish language newspaper to Sovietized Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union
Totuus	Karelo-Finnish SSR		-
Komunisti	Georgian SSR		-
Sovetakan Hayastan	Armenian SSR		Official organ of the Armenian Communist Party, the Supreme Soviet of Armenian SSR and the Council of Ministers of the Armenian SSR
Kommunist	Azerbaijani SSR		-
Sotsialistık Qazaqstan	Kazakh SSR		-
Kyrgyz Tuusu	Kyrgyz SSR

Other notable newspapers in the Soviet Union

Media	Purpose	Country	Logo[2]	Notes
Krasnaya Zvezda	military	Russian SFSR / USSR		-
Vo Slavu Rodiny	military	Byelorussian SSR		-

Notable electronic media in the Soviet Union

Media	Type	Country	Logo[3]	Notes
Latvijas Radio 1	radio	Latvian SSR		Radio station by Latvijas Radio since 1925
Lietuvos radijas		Lithuanian SSR		Started by Lithuanian National Radio and Television In 1926
Radio Belarus		Byelorussian SSR		Started in 1962 by Belteleradio
Radio Moscow		Russian SFSR		Official international broadcasting station of the Soviet Union
Belarusian Television	TV	Byelorussian SSR		TV channel by National State Teleradiocompany (started in 1956
ETV 1		Estonian SSR		First Estonian TV station (1955) by Eesti Televisioon
LTV1		Latvian SSR		Started in 1954 by Latvijas Televizija (color since 1974)
Lietuvos Televizija		Lithuanian SSR		Started by Lithuanian National Radio and Television In 1957
UT-1		Ukrainian SSR		Started by Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (1956–1965 start)
Soviet Central Television		Russian SFSR		Main Soviet Union TV channel
Soviet TV Channel 1				Main (of four) Soviet TV channel (1938)
All Union Programme				Second (of four) Soviet TV Channel (1960)
Moscow Programme				Third (of four) Soviet TV Channel
Fourth Programme				Fourth (of four) Soviet TV Channel
Gosteleradio	TV/radio			The official TV and radio broadcaster of the Soviet Union
Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union	wire service	Soviet Union		Established by the Soviet Socialist Republics
Belarusian Telegraph Agency		Byelorussian SSR		Affiliated with TASS
ELTA		Lithuanian SSR		Affiliated with TASS

Notable communist party newspapers in the Eastern Bloc

Media	Country	Logo[4]	Notes
Laiko Vima	People's Republic of Albania		Greek newspaper, organ of the Party of Labour of Albania
Zëri i Popullit			Propaganda organ of the Party of Labour of Albania
Rudé právo	Czechoslovak Socialist Republic		Official newspaper of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
Pravda			Publication of the Communist Party of Slovakia
Czechoslovak Press Agency			Press agency controlled by the federal government through its Presidium
Lidová Demokracie			Published by the Czechoslovak People's Party
Práce			Published by the Revolutionary Trade Union Movement
Svobodné Slovo (1948-1989)			Published by the Czechoslovak Socialist Party
Neues Deutschland	East Germany		Official paper of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED)
Berliner Zeitung			East Germany newspaper printed in East Berlin
Rabotnichesko Delo	People's Republic of Bulgaria		Propaganda organ of the Bulgarian Communist Party
Népszabadság	People's Republic of Hungary		Organ of the Hungarian Working People's Party
Esti Budapest			Organ of the Hungarian Working People's Party in Budapest
Trybuna Ludu	People's Republic of Poland		Official media outlet of the Polish United Workers' Party
Scînteia	People's Republic of Romania		Official voice of the Communist Party of Romania

Notable Electronic Media in the Eastern Bloc

Media	Type	Country	Logo[5]	Notes
Berliner Rundfunk	radio	East Germany		Radio station by Rundfunk der DDR since 1946
Deutschlandsender (later Stimme der DDR)				Radio station by Rundfunk der DDR since 1926 (intended primarily for West German consumption)
Radio DDR 1				Radio station by Rundfunk der DDR since 1953
DT64				Radio station by Rundfunk der DDR since 1964
Radio Berlin International				International broadcaster for East Germany since 1959 (final broadcast bitter about "takeover")
Radio Tirana		People's Republic of Albania		Started by Radiodifuzioni Shqiptar in 1938
Radio Bulgaria		People's Republic of Bulgaria		Official international broadcasting station of Bulgaria since 1930
Horizont				Since 1930 by the Bulgarian National Radio
Kossuth Rádió		People's Republic of Hungary		First radio station by Magyar Rádió in 1925
Radio Polonia		People's Republic of Poland		Official international broadcasting station of Poland since 1936
Program 1 Polskiego Radia				Easy listening by Polskie Radio since 1926
Radio Bucuresti-România Radio România Actualități		People's Republic of Romania		Started by Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company in 1928
Radio Bucuresti Programul 2 Radio România Cultural				Started by Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company in 1952
Radio Bucuresti Programul 3 Radio3Net				Started by Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company in 1963 and rebranded in 1973
ČST1	TV	Czechoslovak Socialist Republic		Started by Československá televize in 1953 (color 1975)
ČST2				Started by Československá televize in 1970 (color 1973)
DFF		East Germany		By Fernsehen der DDR starting in 1956
DFF2				By Fernsehen der DDR starting in 1969 (in color)
Televizioni Shqiptar		People's Republic of Albania		Started by Radio Televizioni Shqiptar in 1960 (color 1981)
BNT 1		People's Republic of Bulgaria		Official Bulgarian TV since 1959 by the Bulgarian Communist Party
BNT 2				Second Channel by Bulgarian National Television (1974 start)
m1		People's Republic of Hungary		First channel by Magyar Televízió in 1957
m2				Second channel by Magyar Televízió in 1971
TVP1		People's Republic of Poland		First Polish TV channel (since 1952) by Telewizja Polska
TVP2				Second Polish TV channel (since 1970) by Telewizja Polska
TVR1		People's Republic of Romania		Started by Televiziunea Româna in 1956
TVR2				Started by Televiziunea Româna in 1968
Radio i Telewizja Polska	TV/radio	People's Republic of Poland		Governed TV and radio broadcasts by Telewizja Polska

Notable Media for the Youth Organizations and Movements in the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union

Media	Type	Country	Logo[6]	Notes
Komsomolskaya Pravda	Russian SFSR / USSR		Official organ of the Central Committee of the Komsomol
Pionerskaya Pravda			Official organ of the Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization
Pioner Kanch’	Armenian SSR		Armenian Pioneer daily
Noorte Hääl	Estonian SSR		Estonian Komsomol daily
Sovetskaya Molodëz	Latvian SSR		Latvian Komsomol daily
Komjaunimo Tiesa	Lithuanian SSR		Lithuanian Komsomol daily
Mladá fronta	Czechoslovak Socialist Republic		of the Socialist Union of Youth
Scînteia Tineretului	People's Republic of Romania		Romanian Union of Communist Youth newspaper
Junge Welt	German Democratic Republic		German Free German Youth newspaper

Control of information flow out of the Eastern Bloc

Beginning in 1935,

Communist leaders in the Eastern Bloc openly discussed the existence of propaganda efforts. Communist propaganda goals and techniques were tuned according to the target audience. The most broad classification of targets was:[69]

• Domestic propaganda
• External propaganda
• Propaganda of communist supporters outside the communist states

Communist Party documents reveal a more detailed classification of specific targets (workers, peasants, youth, women, etc.).^[69]

Because the communist party was portrayed under

Communist theoretician Nikolai Bukharin in his The ABC of Communism wrote:^[73]

The State propaganda of communism becomes in the long run a means for the eradication of the last traces of bourgeois propaganda dating from the old régime; and it is a powerful instrument for the creation of a new ideology, of new modes of thought, of a new outlook on the world.

Some propaganda would "retell" the western news, such as the

In response, one month later, the Soviet Information Bureau published Falsifiers of History.^[76][82] Stalin personally edited the book, rewriting entire chapters by hand.^[82] The book claimed, for instance, that American bankers and industrialists provided capital for the growth of German war industries, while deliberately encouraging Hitler to expand eastward.^[76][78] The book also included the claim that, during the Pact's operation, Stalin rejected Hitler's offer to share in a division of the world, without mentioning the Soviet offers to join the Axis.^[83] Historical studies, official accounts, memoirs and textbooks published in the Soviet Union used that depiction of events until the Soviet Union's dissolution.^[83]

The book referred to "the American falsifiers and their British and French associates",^[84] claimed "[a]s far back as in 1937 it became perfectly clear that a big war was being hatched by Hitler with the direct connivance of Great Britain and France",^[85] blasted "the claptrap of the slanderers"^[86] and stated "[n]aturally, the falsifiers of history and slanderers are called falsifiers and slanderers precisely because they do not entertain any respect for facts. They prefer to gossip and slander."^[87]

In East Germany, the Soviet SVAG and DVV initially controlled all publication priorities.^[61] In the initial months of 1946, the Soviets were unsure how to merge propaganda and censorship efforts in East Germany.^[61] The SVAG engaged in a broad propaganda campaign that moved beyond customary political propaganda to engage in the practice at unions, women's organizations and youth organizations.^[61]

Bypassing censorship

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Clandestine information passing

Magnitizdat (in Russian магнитиздат) is the process of re-copying and self-distributing live audiotape recordings in the Soviet Union that were not available commercially. The process of magnitizdat was less risky than publishing literature via samizdat, since any person in the USSR was permitted to own a private reel-to-reel tape recorder, while paper duplication equipment was under the control of the state. "Tamizdat" refers to literature published abroad (там, tam, meaning "there"), often from smuggled manuscripts.

Western role in propaganda war

Western countries invested heavily in powerful transmitters which enabled broadcasters to be heard in the Eastern Bloc, despite attempts by authorities to

RFE was developed out of a belief that the Cold War would eventually be fought by political rather than military means.[92] In January 1950, it obtained a transmitter base at Lampertheim, West Germany and on July 4 of the same year, RFE completed its first broadcast aimed at Czechoslovakia^[93] Broadcasts were often banned in Eastern Europe and communist authorities used sophisticated jamming techniques in an attempt to prevent citizens from listening to them.^[94] In late 1950, RFE began to assemble a full-fledged foreign broadcast staff and became more than just a "mouthpiece for exiles" who had fled Eastern Bloc countries.^[95] While RFE was cleared of charges that it gave Hungarian listeners false hope during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, its Broadcast Analysis Division was established to ensure that broadcasts were accurate and professional while maintaining the journalists' former autonomy.^[96]

A 1960 study concluded that RFE possessed considerably more listeners than the BBC or VOA.^[97] The study concluded that the BBC was regarded as the most objective and the VOA had suffered a notable decline since it stopped critical broadcasts on the communist world after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, focusing instead on world news, American culture and jazz.^[97]

Notes

1.^ The logo used here is the logo of the media in the USSR during the Eastern Bloc era. Most of the media had already dissolved or changed its name and logo.

References