Agitprop
아지트프롭
Shortened name for the Agitation and Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, established in 1920 to determine the content of all official information, supervise political education and mass communication, and mobilize public support for party programs. It built on the Plekhanov–Lenin distinction between agitation (oral, emotional appeals to move masses to action) and propaganda (print-based reasoned argument to indoctrinate the few), and operated through agit-trains, posters, oral-agitation networks, and literacy campaigns. Dissolved by Stalin in 1935, it was repeatedly reconstituted under different names and remained the party's central ideological organ until 1991.
Related people
Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) department origin, Plekhanov–Lenin distinction, forms (agit-trains, posters, oral networks, literacy campaigns)
- Wikipedia (RU) full institutional history 1920–1991, list of heads, department reorganizations and renaming chronology
- britannica.com definition, Plekhanov's original formulation of agitation vs. propaganda, Lenin's elaboration in What Is to Be Done?, party apparatus structure from republic to local level
- tate.org.uk 1920 founding by Central Committee, agit-trains, agitpunkts, Constructivist poster artists