Authors

Discussion

Scholars of Soviet history have already challenged the previously widespread image of the Soviet project as isolated and absolutely unique. Nevertheless, when it comes to Soviet propaganda such claims are still strong. They are also reinforced by the latest events following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when the link between the Russian propaganda and its unique Soviet roots became an important theme within public discussions.

Nevertheless, sources demonstrate that the Soviet approach to propaganda and public communications should not be treated in isolation, but rather as a dialogue with broader historical international developments in the role of mass media. The Soviet were keenly interested in foreign studies of mass media and propaganda. In the 1920s and after the Second World War, a significant number of the foreign publications on newspapers, mass media and/or propaganda were translated into Russian and published in the Soviet Union either as standalone books or as excerpts in Soviet journals and newspapers for press workers. Among these, for instance, were texts by Harold Lasswell, Campbell Stuart, Stephane Lauzanne, George Gallup, Upton Sinclaire and others.

On the surface, the introductions written by Soviet specialists in newspapers, journalism and propaganda were highly critical of the “bourgeois” theories and views of the translated authors. Underpinning this critique, however, there was not only a strong element of the “know your enemy” mantra, but also of the need to learn from the latter. “Bourgeois” theories of propaganda and public communications were eventually also incorporated into the Soviets’ own attempts to theorize these issues. The paper aims to analyse Soviet translations of foreign publications on newspapers and propaganda in the 1920s, but also in later decades. It will particularly focus on the Soviet introductions to such publications; the choices that the Soviet editors made in finding the appropriate language to discuss them; the prioritization of specific sections within certain translated texts; and the abridging, or complete omission, of others.