Propaganda All Parties Involved in the Russian Research Paper

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Propaganda

All parties involved in the Russian Revolution and civil war used black, gray and white (open) propaganda constantly during this period to rally supporters to their cause and denounce enemies, including the Germans, Bolsheviks and Whites, monarchists, as well as Allied governments and Social Revolutionaries. Gray propaganda, often of uncertain or unknown origins, undermined support for the Tsar and the monarchy by portraying them as corrupt, traitorous and sympathetic to Germany in the First World War and opened the door to revolution. In the Civil War that followed, the Whites appealed to Western governments and public opinion through black propaganda, much of which was heavily anti-Semitic and later picked up by various fascist movements in Europe -- most notoriously through the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forgery created by the Tsar's secret police and widely circulated in White and emigre circles in Europe. Open or 'white' Bolshevik propaganda was based on Marxist categories of thought, often simplified for mass consumption in the form of cartoons, posters and pamphlets, but always with a class warfare appeal against landlords, aristocrats, capitalists and priests. In a sense, both sides could claim that their propaganda was a success, particularly in creating mass movements like Communism and fascism that dominated so much of the 20th Century.

Throughout the era of the Russian Revolution and civil war, gray propaganda of unknown or uncertain origins frequently portrayed the Tsar, the Tsarina Alexandra, and their officials as corrupt, treasonous and allied with the Germans. All of this was very effective in undermining popular support for the monarchy and some of it certainly originated with the Germans or the revolutionary opponents of the regime -- or at the very least they eagerly circulated it. Much of the gossip and rumors surrounding the Tsar and his family actually originated in upper class circles, which only made it sound more believable to the middle and lower classes. Russian pamphlets, posters and newspapers of the period were full of stories about how the Tsar was "intentionally keeping the army hungry, cold and without ammunition, of sending grain to Germany, releasing enemy prisoners of war" and having "dealings and secret agreements with the enemy" (Kolonitskii 51). Alexandra was a German after all and widely regarded as a spy in Russia, and also thought to be the mistress of the nefarious Rasputin.

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So unpopular was this character that even the Whites and supporters of the monarchy believed that he was secretly a Bolshevik agent selected by the "dark forces," "Jews," "internationalists" and "enemies of Christianity" to bring down the Tsarist state (Kolonitskii 53). By no means only Bolsheviks and other revolutionaries were circulating these stories about the alcoholism and drug addiction of the Tsar, or how Rasputin controlled him through narcotics and hypnosis, but even foreign diplomats picked up on these rumors and circulated them to their governments.

Both the Reds and the Whites routinely engaged in black propaganda and counterpropaganda designed to influence mass opinion and abroad during the Russian Revolution and Civil War. From 1917 onward, the opponents of the Bolsheviks made much of the fact that they were receiving money from the German government, at least $30 million marks in 1917-18, much of which went to fund their newspapers and other propaganda efforts (Foglesong 107). Certainly the German 'black' propagandists made full use of them to demoralize the Russians and undermine public support for the war, just as they used Lenin and the Bolsheviks in 1917-18. Left and Right continually accused each other of spying and collaborating with the Germans during this period, and indeed an "epidemic of paranoia seized all the belligerent countries" with effects that lasted long after the war (Kolonitskii 56). Supporters of the Whites lobbied and propagandized Western governments for weapons and funding "to defeat the Bolshevik menace" (Foglesong 112). From January 1918 onward, when Patriarch Tikhon of the Russian Orthodox Church condemned the Bolsheviks "to burn in hell in….....

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