When Pictures Make History

The Soviets and Propaganda
In order to convince the workers and peasants of Russia that the Bolshevik Party, having seized power in October 1917, was a legitimate source of authority, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, a.k.a. Lenin, and his cadre develop an extremely aggressive program of agitprop — short for agitation and propaganda. Incorporating plays, posters, pamphlets and newspapers, the agitprop program touched on many themes, but it emerged over time that the party's most powerful symbol was Lenin himself. This scene, of the Bolshevik leader exhorting Red Army troops set to depart for the Polish front, was reproduced thousands, if not millions of times in the 70-plus years that the CPSU held power.

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