[Doreen M]

Dear all,

I'm currently on my PGCE and next week I have to teach a year 10 lesson on the Cult of Stalin.
The title of the lesson is "How did Propaganda help Stalin control Russia?"

For some reason am finding it hard to plan even though it seems like a very interesting topic. I know there are many posters out there on the internet but a lot of them don't have english translations for the russian slogans so I'm in a dilemma if a student asks me what they mean...

I thought of getting them into groups and giving them a source each to look at, make notes and present back to the rest of the groups but I don't want it to be just posters/photographs as I want some primary sources such as poems, literature, scripts of newsreels but I have no idea where to find these!

All ideas and suggestions are welcome! Thanks.

[Dafydd Humphreys]

Doreen M, on 06 November 2009 - 04:52 PM, said:

Dear all,

I'm currently on my PGCE and next week I have to teach a year 10 lesson on the Cult of Stalin.
The title of the lesson is "How did Propaganda help Stalin control Russia?"

For some reason am finding it hard to plan even though it seems like a very interesting topic. I know there are many posters out there on the internet but a lot of them don't have english translations for the russian slogans so I'm in a dilemma if a student asks me what they mean...

I thought of getting them into groups and giving them a source each to look at, make notes and present back to the rest of the groups but I don't want it to be just posters/photographs as I want some primary sources such as poems, literature, scripts of newsreels but I have no idea where to find these!

All ideas and suggestions are welcome! Thanks.

How about looking at the Cult of Blair, the Cult of Churchill, the Cults of Obama, Kennedy, De Gaulle and Thatcher?

How 'Propaganda' helped them Control their regimes?

[Russel Tarr]

I get students to design their own propaganda poster, book jacket, poem or even film. Give them some examples of the propaganda to start with (a few posters, the Avdienko poem). Some posters make him look a God, others like an "ordinary guy" - which are which? etc. Sorry, my computer's about to run out of power, can't write more...!

[Stephen W]

Another thing you could perhaps think about is the stuff about the Soviets 'editing' photographs. Here's a classic example:

http://www.tate.org....erevelation.htm

The first photo on that page is the original. It shows Molotov, Stalin and Yezhov inspecting a canal. Yezhov was executed in 1940 (he'd been the head of the secret police during the Great Purge and knew where the bodies were buried, so to speak, so Stalin decided it was best to get rid of him) and the second photograph shows him edited out (a historical version of 'Photoshopping'!) Might be interesting to show this to the pupils; ask them the difference between the two photographs, why they think this could have happened and so forth. It's a different kind of propaganda to the posters, might be useful if you need a bit of variety.

[Dafydd Humphreys]

Stephen W, on 06 November 2009 - 07:21 PM, said:

Another thing you could perhaps think about is the stuff about the Soviets 'editing' photographs. Here's a classic example:

http://www.tate.org....erevelation.htm

The first photo on that page is the original. It shows Molotov, Stalin and Yezhov inspecting a canal. Yezhov was executed in 1940 (he'd been the head of the secret police during the Great Purge and knew where the bodies were buried, so to speak, so Stalin decided it was best to get rid of him) and the second photograph shows him edited out (a historical version of 'Photoshopping'!) Might be interesting to show this to the pupils; ask them the difference between the two photographs, why they think this could have happened and so forth. It's a different kind of propaganda to the posters, might be useful if you need a bit of variety.

The doctored photograph was not made in the USSR, it was created as black propaganda by the CIA, for the purpose of making westerners perpetuate a much-repeated lie.

[Dafydd Humphreys]

Russel Tarr, on 06 November 2009 - 07:10 PM, said:

I get students to design their own propaganda poster, book jacket, poem or even film. Give them some examples of the propaganda to start with (a few posters, the Avdienko poem). Some posters make him look a God, others like an "ordinary guy" - which are which? etc. Sorry, my computer's about to run out of power, can't write more...!

[Russel Tarr]

Lovely examples, Dafydd - I'll be sure to use these as starter materials next time round...!