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Page created by osanchez@ufl.edu
and kdawadzi@hotmail.com
.
Communist Media
(Stevenson, Chapter 8)
by Michelle Calcote, Michelle Barth
and Kathleen Ragsdale
SURVEY OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION
MMC 5306, Section 2979, Fall 1998 (3 credits)
COMMUNISM – THEORY AND HISTORY
To understand the theory and workings of communist media, one needs an understanding of Communism, its ideological basis of Marxism and the historical applications of Communism. To begin this discussion, a definition of Communism and Marxism will be useful as an initiation in exploring Communist media.
Definition
The Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defined Communism in several ways:
1.
a. a theory advocating elimination of private property
b. a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed
2.
a. a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the USSR
b. a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production
c. a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably
d. communist systems collectively
Marxism was defined by the same source as the political, economic and social principles and policies advocated by Marx, especially a theory and practice of socialism including the labor theory of value, dialectical materialism, the class struggle and dictatorship of the proletariat until the establishment of a classless society. Marxism-Leninism was defined as a theory and practice of Communism developed by Lenin from the doctrines of Marx.
In an article on Communism taken from the Britannica Online, Communism is explained as the “system of political and economic organization in which property is owned by the community and all citizens share in the enjoyment of the common wealth, more or less according to their need.” The origins of Communism arise from the Western idea of a classless society, such as that of the utopian socialists of the 19th century. Examples of utopian society are Brook Farm (1841-47) and New Harmony (1825) (Britannica Online). Communism acquired a new meaning with the publication of The Communist Manifesto, a document written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848 for the Communist League. In this document, the authors explained Socialism as the revolutionary historical phase necessary to bring about the end state of Communism. Communism, therefore, was the classless, stateless society in which people “would voluntarily work for the common good to the extent they were able under the understanding that they could receive whatever they needed for free (‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’)” (Brians, p. 2).
COMMUNISM, ACCORDING TO MARX
In Marx’s Communism, goods would be owned by the community, or the proletariat, and thus distributed amongst themselves. In history, certain “Communist” states have not proceeded according to this view. In the former Soviet Union, a single political party controlled the government, which in turn controlled the goods and means of production, and thus distributed them to the proletariat, or community.
According to Marx and Engels, Communism would occur as part of a historical process of class struggles. It would be the outcome of a lengthy, prolonged struggle between the exploiting class (Capitalists in the present age) and the exploited class (proletariat or workers) (Britannica Online). In Marx’s view, the cornerstone of history is the economic means of a state, the means of production or goods. Thus, institutions such as industrialization heighten and intensify the struggle between the proletariat and the ruling class.
According to Marx, Communism would be realized when the proletariat tired of being exploited, rose up against the Capitalists and established a “dictatorship of the proletariat” based on the communal ownership of wealth (Britannica Online).
VLADIMIR LENIN
The person who used Marx’s ideas to establish a state based on Communism was Vladimir Lenin. Lenin felt the working class could not bring about a revolution and thus needed a professional group of revolutionaries to guide it. Lenin and the Bolsheviks (Majorityists) came to power in 1917 and changed their name to the Communist Party. A dictatorship was established to convert the Soviet Union from Capitalism to Socialism (Britannica Online).
JOSEPH STALIN
Lenin’s successor, Joseph Stalin, forcibly accomplished the transition from Capitalism to Socialism through the nationalization of industry and the collectivization of agriculture. Stalin pushed rapid industrialization although it caused great material hardship. He also used police terror to suppress opposition (Britannica Online).
Communism spread after World War II, when the victorious Soviet Red Army liberated and sponsored the formation of Communist governments in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and North Korea. Other independent communist regimes were created in Yugoslavia and Albania. Stalinism, Stalin’s form of Communist rule, became the model for these newly formed Communist governments (Britannica Online).
CONFLICTS, CONFUSIONS AND MISCONCEPTIONS
Communism is a secret conspiracy
Among the terms Socialism, Communism and Capitalism, much confusion and conflict can arise. The misperception that many who hold conservative views have, according to Brians, is that Communism is a secret conspiracy. Brians found that the misperception probably arose at first due to the early radicals of the First International. These radicals were participants of a secret conspiratorial movement due to the nature of the time and political environment. And, in the Stalinist era, the Soviet government often recruited foreigners to commit espionage.
But, Marx was against secrecy and believed a revolution could start only with the support of the majority of the population, and thus openness was necessary. The Communist Manifesto is testament to Marx’s belief in open discourse. Brians found that the responsibility of the ignorance of the public of Communist ideals lies in the hands of the Capitalist press who largely ignored Communist goals and ideas. The Capitalist press published actions or threats of the USSR, but almost never discussed the writing or theories behind Communism.
Communism is the opposite of Democracy
Another misperception of Communism is that it is the opposite of Democracy. And, although there are many stereotypes in history to justify this misconception, the belief is not true. In fact, the Communism that Marx advocated was a form of super-democracy, where there were no limitations to democracy. The main point was to democratize the economy as well as the government. Again, the media are responsible for much of this confusion, according to Brians. During the Cold War, anti-Communism advocates portrayed the conflict as a struggle between Democracy and Communism, while Communists saw the struggle occurring between Communism and Capitalism. The U.S. media, though, did not use the term Capitalism, choosing instead to use phrases such as “free enterprise” and “market economy” (Brians). And, although many “Communists” may have decried and condemned the idea of democracy, the original socialists were inspired by the ideal and strove to achieve it through socialism.
Communism would never work because it goes against human nature.
A third conflict and argument against Communism is that the system would never work because it goes against human nature. This argument claims that people are naturally more competitive than cooperative. Marx addressed this point in The Communist Manifesto, by arguing that there is no such thing as a fixed “human nature” (Brians). He argued that human nature changes according to the economic system of the time period. For example, hunter-gatherer and village societies depended on cooperation far more than they did competition. And, in many cultures, prestige and authority are more highly regarded and valued than property and competition is expressed through selfless acts such as giving away all one’s material possessions.
Europeans used to value and believe in the divine right of kings, the need for permanent feudal ties and submission to the Church and this changed, so too argues Brian can Capitalists’ value of individual self-interest, competition and private property change.
All Socialists are Communists
A final misperception is that all Socialists are Communists. Brians said the more accurate statement would be that all Communists are Socialists. Brians found that advocates of mixed economies use the term Socialism to indicate a system where capitalism is regulated by a government to protect the public welfare.
PROFESSIONAL ROLES OF RUSSIAN AND U.S. JOURNALISTS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY
In a study in the Autumn 1996 volume of the Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Wu et al studied Russian and U.S. journalists’ perspectives of their professional roles. Several findings are worth attention. First, in Russia, the term professionalism is uncertain because many previous journalists were discredited and many new, untrained reporters have entered the profession. In both countries, disseminating information quickly was listed as the chief concern of the journalists. The most striking difference was the distinction of importance of the political agenda setting role. Russian journalists ranked that role 12 times more important than did U.S. journalists. Wu et al found that may be due to the position of Russian journalists – they are considered part of the country’s intelligentsia, and therefore are independent societal leaders. A last point is Russian journalists’ respect for the role of disseminator of information. Wu et al found this might be due to the days when information and facts were highly valued commodities, many times inaccessible.
COMMUNIST MEDIA
Before the Russian revolution, 19th-century Russian journalism was extremely active. But, with the Communist government’s desire to control information, Soviet propaganda abounded, and many independent newspapers were abolished. The remaining two powerful newspapers were the Pravda (Truth) and the Izvestiya (News). With both Lenin’s and Stalin’s work on the Pravda at different time periods, the newspaper was an important organ of the Bolshevik movement and thus the Communist party. The paper ceased publication in July 1996, mainly due to the demise of Communist power in the USSR (Britannica Online). Pravda, during its prime, offered information on science, economics, cultural topics and literature. Also important were letters from readers and official materials designed to inculcate and instruct readers on Communist theory and programs (Britannica Online). The paper encourages unity of thought by providing information along the party line.
The letters in the Pravda are significant due to the amount of time dedicated by Pravda journalists determining which letters to publish, and the letters generally carry significant political weight (Pravda).
The Izvestiya was the Russian daily newspaper published in Moscow and the official national publication of the Soviet government until 1991. The paper was used as an instrument of education and information on Soviet government policies, including foreign policy due to its extensive international coverage. After the 1991 demise of the Soviet Union, the Izvestiya became independently owned by its employees (Britannica Online).
TASS, the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union, was the official news agency from 1925 to 1991. Before 1991, TASS was the main source of news for all Soviet newspapers and radio and television stations. It had bureaus and correspondents in more than 100 countries, and its news was translated into Russian, English, French, German, Spanish and Arabic. After the breakup of the union in 1991, TASS was reorganized into two branches, one dedicated to Russia and the other to the Commonwealth of Independent States (Britannica Online).
On TASS’s Web site, the news agency claims that according to UNESCO, TASS is one of the world’s largest information agencies. Now called ITAR-TASS, the Information-Telegraph Agency of Russia, the agency claims to have added new elements to its character as a result of the new economic and political changes in Russia such as access to information and new computer and telecommunications technologies (TASS on-line). The agency says: “What used to be accessible to only a small circle of privileged people is now offered to the mass media and all the departments, organizations and private individuals, both inside and outside of Russia, who are interested in what we can provide” (TASS, on-line).
COMMUNIST THEORIES OF THE PRESS
Agitprop (from Russian agitatsiya propaganda, “agitation propaganda,”) is a common Communist political strategy used to influence and mobilize public opinion (Britannica Online). In Lenin’s What Is to Be Done?, he explains the role of the propagandist. He said the propagandist’s primary medium is print, used to explain the causes of social inequalities (unemployment or hunger). In contrast, according to Lenin, the agitator’s primary medium is the spoken word, used to seize the emotional aspects of issues to arouse audiences to fury and action. Therefore agitation uses political slogans and half-truths, and propaganda uses historical and scientific arguments geared toward the enlightened and educated of society, also used for political education and training of party members.
Agitprop originated as a shortened form of the Agitation and Propaganda Section of the Central Committee Secretariat of the Communist Party of the USSR This committee determined the content of all official information, oversaw political education in schools, watched over mass communication and mobilized public support for party programs (Britannica Online).
Samizdat was the literature that was secretly written, copied and circulated in the former Soviet Union. Samizdat was critical of the Soviet government and normally was created on carbon copies of typewritten sheets and passed from reader to reader. KGB surveillance and harassment of the samizdat movement heightened in the 1970s, but then virtually ceased to exist after Gorbachev’s instituted his policy of glasnost, or openness (Britannica Online).
MEDIA IN THE SOVIET UNION
Mickiewicz (1988) found that the media in the Soviet Union had distinctive and officially prescribed functions. The primary mission of the media, according to Mickiewicz, was the socialization of the person receiving the message. So, the media were educators, just as schools, the courts of law, the family and other institutions of education. In the Soviet Union, Mickiewicz found that education was the primary mission for all of these aforementioned institutions because they have a delegated authority from the state to socialize and educate according to the established criterion (p. 27). The source of this authority dates back to Lenin and his premature revolution according to orthodox Marxist theory. Marx believed the revolution would occur when the proletariat was in a state of commonality, when common social bonds united them, eliminating deviance, dissatisfaction, selfishness and acquisitiveness. Since Lenin’s revolution occurred before this state of commonality of the proletariat, Lenin believed the changes in the popular mentality had to be changed from a higher authority, and thus the imposition of a delegated authority to socialize and educate (Mickiewicz, p. 27).
The media had several functions in the USSR One function was to integrate the expansive, multi-lingual country that was to be the first socialist state. Overall, the media’s task had two principal dimensions, according to Mickiewicz. First, the media had to change the ethical and moral outlook of the population. She said of this dimension: “The psychological orientation underlying the society of the future, when full communism has been achieved, requires cooperation and collectivism and eschews selfishness, careerism, greed, and, in general, the development of an individual that might supersede the societal collective” (p. 28). The second dimension of the media’s task was to rouse the population to contribute to the economic goals of the state. Thus, mobilizing the population to meet production goals became a critical role of Soviet media (Mickiewicz, p. 28). The media were used to mobilize the public to achieve the goals of the state: Communism would only be met when the population’s internal value system had changed within a context of enhanced economic production.
In Soviet terms, newsworthiness was something very different from the Western concept of what is newsworthy. Many Western stories were considered inappropriate – covering domestic natural disasters, accidents, crime or other “sensational” events were considered “dwelling” on negative events. Thus, portraying the “underside of life” would encourage or suggest the wrong behavior, undermining the positive role models the newspaper or television station must portray in terms of their role as educators of the population (Mickiewicz, p. 29).
Advertising is scarce in the Soviet media system, used only to supplement policy messages or to encourage buying patterns to compensate for holes in the economy (Mickiewicz, p. 29). Fast-breaking news also had another meaning. The importance or newsworthiness of fast-breaking news was evaluated in terms of its place in history, in Marxist-Leninist history. Therefore, since history was seen according to this doctrine, coverage of a numerically insignificant group of demonstrators opposing a bourgeois government may have been considered newsworthy because it was important in terms of Marxist-Leninist history theory (Mickiewicz, p. 30).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brians, Paul (1998). Misconceptions, Confusions and Conflicts Concerning
Socialism, Communism and Capitalism [On-line], Available: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/hum_303/misconceptions.html.
This on-line document explores conservative ideas about socialism and communism; socialist and communist ideas about capitalism; capitalist ideals; and communist ideals.
Brians, Paul (1995). Study Guide for The Communist Manifesto [On-line], Available: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/hum_303/manifesto.html.
This document explains some areas of The Communist Manifesto and asks questions concerning the document. It is structured as a study guide.
Communism. Britannica Online [On-line], Available: http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=micro/138/32.html.
This is an article from the on-line version of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It gives a brief treatment of Communism with a definition and short history.
Communism Online [On-line], Available: http://wgel.com/CommunismOnline/MajorPlayers.htm.
This Web site gives a thorough biographical sketch of each of the major players of Communism history including Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Stalin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Grenady Zyuganov and Leon Trotsky.
Jefferson, B. S. (1984). The Rhetorical Restrictions of a Devil Theory: The Anti-Communist Press’s View of Communism. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International Dissertation Information Service.
This source is a doctoral dissertation defended on May 9, 1984. It focuses on an anti-Communist popular press that existed before the Truman administration’s presentation of anti-Communist attitudes in 1947. The document shows the adoption of a “devil theory” of the press in regard to Communism.
Marx, K. & Frederick, E. (1848). Manifesto of the Communist Party [On-line]. Available: http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html.
This is the on-line document of the Manifesto of the Communist Party.
Marxism. Britannica Online [On-line], Available: http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=micro/379/14.html.
This is an article from the on-line version of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It gives a brief treatment of Marxism with a definition and short history.
Mickeiwicz, E. (1988). Split Signals: Television and Politics in the Soviet Union. New York: Oxford University Press.
Pravda. (1986, January 2).
Pravda is the organ newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Remington, T. F. (1988). The Truth of Authority: Ideology and Communication in the Soviet Union. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
This book explores the Communist ideology in relation to its press operations in the former Soviet Union.
The Road to Happiness [Video]. (1990). (Available from MPI Home Video)
This film was produced by Soviet filmmakers under control and supervision of the Soviet government. It is considered a work of Soviet propaganda, made in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution.
Stevenson, R. (1994). “Communist Media.” Global Communication in the Twenty-First Century. (pp. 185 – 208). White Plains, NY: Longman Publishing Group.
Wu, W., Weaver, D. & Johnson, O.V. (1996). Professional Roles of Russian and U.S. Journalists: A Comparative Study. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 73, 534 – 545.
“This study compares the perceptions of Russian and U.S. journalists regarding the importance of various professional roles. It also identifies predictors of three key journalistic roles – the timely disseminator, the interpreter, and the adversary – and compares these predictors across countries.” – from article’s abstract.