State control of mass media and propaganda (Lenin)

• • Decree on the Press, gave Lenin power to close down opposition newspapers.
  • Creation of Pravda, best selling newspaper in Russia at the time.
• • By 1921, Communists had shut 2000 opposition newspapers.
  • 575 printing presses destroyed.
• Control of the Press under Lenin

  • Lenin’s press censorship regime continued throughout the civil war.
  • Dzerzhinsky introduced Glavlit, a new organisation, designed to overlook the censorship regime.
  • Glavlit censorship worked on the following grounds:
  • GPU put in charge of policing every publication available in the USSR.
  • New professional censors employed.
  • All books were investigated for anti-Communist bias.
  • GPU compiled a list of banned books.
  • Soviet libraries purged of politically dangerous books.
  • “Book gulags” introduced to hold books which were banned.