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Soviet Union [USSR] THE MASS MEDIA
The mass media acted as an instrument of the CPSU, not only to
control society but also to mobilize it. Lenin and the Bolshevik
leadership depended on the media to win support for the new regime.
Indeed, without important communications links from the party to
the people, the Bolsheviks' message would never have been broadly
disseminated. During the early years, the leadership sought to
galvanize the population by spreading the party line and
encouraging the population to build a strong communist society,
exhorting it through editorials, commentaries, and tributes in
newspapers, journals, and radio. Over time, television, films, and
computers became essential components of the CPSU's
agitprop (see Glossary) efforts, as well as of its campaigns to
spread Marxist-Leninist values among the people. The technological information
revolution forced the party to reevaluate its efforts to control
the masses because advances in technology also created the
potential for communications links outside regime control. For
example, with the spread of video cassette recorders (VCRs) in the
late 1980s, the party leadership faced the problems created by the
underground circulation of video tapes, in addition to the
circulation of illegal periodicals.
Data as of May 1989
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