agitprop

agitprop
/aj"it prop'/, n.
1. agitation and propaganda, esp. for the cause of communism.
2. (often cap.) an agency or department, as of a government, that directs and coordinates agitation and propaganda.
3. Also, agitpropist. a person who is trained or takes part in such activities.
adj.
4. of or pertaining to agitprop.
[1930-35; < Russ Agitpróp, orig. for Agitatsiónno-propagandístskii otdél Agitation Propaganda Section (of the Central Committee, or a local committee, of the Communist Party); subsequently the head of such a section, or in compound names of political education organs, as agitpropbrigáda, etc.]

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Political strategy in which techniques of agitation and propaganda are used to influence public opinion.

Originally described by the Marxist theorist Georgy Plekhanov and then by Vladimir Ilich Lenin, it called for both emotional and reasoned arguments. The term, a shortened form for the Agitation and Propaganda Section of the Communist Party in the former Soviet Union, has been used in English, typically with a negative connotation, to describe any work
especially in drama and other art forms
that aims to indoctrinate the public and achieve political goals.

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▪ Soviet history
abbreviated from Russian  agitatsiya propaganda (agitation propaganda) 

      political strategy in which the techniques of agitation and propaganda are used to influence and mobilize public opinion. Although the strategy is common, both the label and an obsession with it were specific to the Marxism practiced by communists in the Soviet Union.

      The twin strategies of agitation and propaganda were originally elaborated by the Marxist theorist Georgy Plekhanov (Plekhanov, Georgy Valentinovich), who defined propaganda as the promulgation of a number of ideas to an individual or small group and agitation as the promulgation of a single idea to a large mass of people. Expanding on these notions in his pamphlet What Is to Be Done? (1902), Vladimir Lenin (Lenin, Vladimir Ilich) stated that the propagandist, whose primary medium is print, explains the causes of social inequities such as unemployment or hunger, while the agitator, whose primary medium is speech, seizes on the emotional aspects of these issues to arouse his audience to indignation or action. Agitation is thus the use of political slogans and half-truths to exploit the grievances of the public and thereby to mold public opinion and mobilize public support. Propaganda, by contrast, is the reasoned use of historical and scientific arguments to indoctrinate the educated and so-called “enlightened” members of society, such as party members.

      The term agitprop originated as a shortened form of the Agitation and Propaganda Section of the Central Committee Secretariat of the Communist Party (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) in the Soviet Union. This department of the Central Committee was established in the early 1920s and was responsible for determining the content of all official information, overseeing political education in schools, watching over all forms of mass communication, and mobilizing public support for party programs. Every unit of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, from the republic to the local-party level, had an agitprop section; at the local level, agitators (party-trained spokesmen) were the chief points of contact between the party and the public.

      The word agitprop is used in English to describe such departments and, by extension, any work, especially in the theatre, that aims to educate and indoctrinate the public. It typically has a negative connotation, reflecting Western distaste for the overt use of drama and other art forms to achieve political goals.

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Universalium. 2010.

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