Abstract
Propaganda in the Soviet Union, especially during the Second World War, is frequently mentioned but rarely studied. Karel C. Berkhoff’s detailed monograph does much to remedy the issue. Berkhoff’s examination of the Soviet Union’s propaganda system in wartime focuses on the structure, content, and leadership of Soviet media output. In order of importance as sources, he focuses primarily on newspapers, information bureau reports, and radio broadcasts, which he asserts dominated the shaping of opinion and motivation. Berkhoff argues that while specific mobilization goals changed, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin successfully strove for unequalled personal control over propaganda, and for propaganda to provide Soviet citizens with their only source of information about the war.
After an initial chapter-length examination of structure and operation on the macro level, Berkhoff organizes the study thematically, with each chapter addressing a specific theme of propaganda. He discusses changes over time to the extent they pertain to a given chapter’s theme. The first provides an in-depth overview of the Soviet media within the war effort, ranging from the transition to wartime and centralized control of Stalin’s trusted associates, to data on newspaper circulation and the functioning of censorship organs. Berkhoff examines nine major themes or aspects of the war that propaganda emphasized, distorted, or disguised. The need for sacrifice, heroism, hatred, and revenge from soldiers; workers’ need for new feats of labour and endurance in the face of rationing and shortages; the enemy’s evil nature and barbarous actions; and moral judgements about patriots, traitors, and barely fighting Allies all receive significant attention. In each chapter Berkhoff emphasizes Stalin’s interest in the subject and influence on its treatment, which ranged from approval or revision of individual articles to personnel changes and agenda-setting speeches that shaped coverage for the next year.
Berkhoff’s approach reflects his interest in challenging scholars’ and memoirists’ ‘notion of a breathing space’ (p. 274) in Soviet culture during the war. By examining a variety of specific wartime subjects such as lost battles and enemy atrocities, as well as themes such as heroism and hatred, he shows the unfailing intervention of Stalin and his hand-picked delegates, such as Aleksandr Shcherbakov and Viacheslav Molotov. He cites the strengthening of censorship and the modification of long-standing themes from the 1930s as indicators of continuity and centralization in propaganda that precluded any meaningful wartime increase in experimentation or creative expression. Berkhoff judges Soviet wartime propaganda to have differed significantly from that of other states, despite the latter’s wartime changes. He cites extreme Soviet views of national endurance, enemy evil, and allies’ military insignificance as evidence of how Stalin’s propaganda stood apart from that of all other combatant states.
The study’s faults stem chiefly from arguments made in passing but not actually supported with evidence or analysis. The brief treatment of the Soviet-Finnish War appears as a missed opportunity to support the author’s argument about Stalinist continuity in propaganda. A chapter-length examination of propaganda about the three-month-long war with Finland could have demonstrated how themes and approaches to low-intensity war coverage prefigured the propaganda response to Germany’s invasion less than two years later. More problematic is the underdeveloped discussion of how the goals and parameters that Stalin and his chief agents set out actually turned into articles and reports in the hands of regional newspaper editors, front-line correspondents, and local political workers. Mention of individual articles that misinterpreted or overran suggestions derived from Stalin’s speeches raises the question of whether a study of central institutions and the highest levels of leadership might overstate unity of content and compliance with leaders’ intention by omitting the creativity or inconsistency that would appear in a study of a sample of the hundreds of local newspapers published in front-line units. The monograph’s greatest limitation lies with its treatment of how the Soviet people interpreted all the propaganda directed at them. Nearly every chapter, including the conclusion itself, ends with a highly equivocal discussion of what opinion Soviet people had about the subject at hand, an anecdote or two underscoring the differences, and then a qualified suggestion about the more likely answer. While Soviet public opinion is an undeniably complex and challenging topic, its recurring but unsystematic treatment serves to confuse rather than confirm the findings of a given chapter.
Overall, Berkhoff’s study of Soviet propaganda provides a useful examination of how Soviet propaganda operated at the highest levels and disseminated themes and limits down the ranks. It should serve as a valuable resource for those interested in official priorities and interpretations surrounding the most important aspects of the Soviet war experience, how Soviet leaders sought to motivate Red Army soldiers, or the propaganda systems of the main belligerents in the Second World War.