How Did Stalin Use Propaganda

Stalin utilized education and propaganda to ensure that the minds of both the young and the old supported and agreed with everything Stalin did and how crucial he was to giving everyone a better life in Russia. By controlling what information people were receiving and what that information was saying, this was how Stalin was able to keep control for so long; the people who were receiving this ‘filtered’ information didn’t know any better. The people of Russia weren’t aware of the serious problems that their country was facing, and how it was affecting their lives. Stalin had strategically created a blanket over the people, in order to blind their views and maintain their support. In order for this strategy to work properly, Stalin had to have
control over the newspapers, magazines, posters, books; everything the public had access to. The most common way that people got information back in the 1930’s was from the newspaper. So, by having control of the newspapers and what they said, Stalin had an extremely strong hold on what the Russian population heard, thought and saw. For example in Russia Reported written by W. Durranty in Moscow on January 16th 1923, it said this about Stalin, “Stalin one of the most remarkable men in Russia and perhaps the most influential figure here today…During the last years Stalin has shown judgment and analytical power unworthy of Lenin. It is to him that the greatest part of the credit is due for bringing about a new Soviet Union.” The way this quote is written, it is obviously written to better the people’s opinion of Stalin’s name and his reputation, which was exactly how Stalin had intended it to come across. Stailn had all the newspapers under his control, and any new that started which were not boasting about their love of Stalin and what an amazing leader he was, and against him were gotten rid of quickly and left without a trace, so that nobody would hear anything but praise about Stalin. By Stalin providing only one side of the story to the public, they thought that was the only solution to the problems that arose. The clever usage of the most well known way of obtaining information about the country, the newspaper, and then twisting it to applaud Stalin and praise his every action in order to gain the support of the people was a very intelligent strategy that Stalin used during this time of social revolution. This exert by Trotsky himself says, “[Stalin] is needed by all of them; by the tired radicals, by the bureaucrats, by the Nepmen, the upstarts, by all the worms that are crawling out of the upturned soil of the manured revolution. He knows how to meet them on their own ground, he speaks their language and he knows how to lead them. He has the deserved reputation of an old revolutionary.” This is a perfect example of just how far Stalin went with his control over the propaganda and education. Even Stalin’s competition for leader of the communist party that Lenin left behind, believes that Stalin is thinking only about the people and understands what they need and how to give them that. The longer Stalin remained in power and twisted the views of the public, his strategies of how he was to keep the control of the public began to root younger and younger in the population. Stalin wanted to make sure to maintain the support of the Russian population by starting to mold into the thoughts of those who one day we be his followers. So, in order for Stalin to be able to achieve the support of people for generations, he decided to begin rewriting the history textbooks that were taught in school. In the textbooks that Stalin rewrote, he took the credit for many of the events in Russian history that to him seemed believable and made him seem like the best thing that had ever happened to the country of Russia. In a countrywide Central Committee report, this was what was asked, “Q: What political literature do you read?; A: Comrade Stalin’s first volume.” This response shows how much of a grasp Stalin had on the literature in Russia. For the answer to a question of what someone reads, and to have the answer be literature about Stalin, this tells a lot about what other literature was available to the public. This question didn’t ask which is the last piece you read, but it is asking what have you read. If no other books come to mind, this is a job well done by Stalin’s standards. When the social revolution in Russia began with Lenin, the main focus to the ways and methods in which Lenin planned to run the country, were the plans and ideas of a Marxist.
These ideas were then taken hold by Stalin when he took over the revolution and he made them his own when he used these tools and techniques to a whole new extreme. Stalin’s propaganda fed the Russian people lies about the welfare of their country and about foreign conflicts. His propaganda techniques went as far as taking over the whole entire media to make sure that nothing was ever printed or read that was negative or against Stalin. He had a secret police that would come and eliminate people who would raise more than a finger against the way Stalin was running the country. One day people would just wake up, and their friend or family member was gone, and to never be found again. Stalin’s propaganda, didn't just go as far as taking people from their homes and stopping all internal and external influences that may threaten Stalin’s power, Stalin had the textbooks used in schools changed, so that the children earned that all the good and prosperous events that had occurred in Russia, or in the world, were due to the ‘amazing’ Stalin. He begun to heavily influence the children to make future generations remain on Stalin’s side and give him support in his actions to
come. Being a very clever man and using Russian propaganda to influence the thoughts, actions and beliefs of the Russians, Stalin was able to hold onto to his dominating power for longer than he might have otherwise, if he had not used as much propaganda as he had, in the ways he had. The planning of how and what the say to the public to keep them believing that Stalin was the best thing that ever happened to Russia. It all came down to having control of everything the public had access to, textbooks, newspapers, magazines, and forcing them to say uplifting and honorable things about Stalin, even if it meant killing others to keep the truth hidden.