Are there other examples of sustainable propaganda besides USSR: several generations, several leaders

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Accepted answer

Religious, political and more generally cultural ideas promoted by centralized states qualify to a large degree as propaganda in the modern sense, the one that is usually applied to the Soviet Union. Thus, ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and China, the Hellenistic and Roman empires, up to Christian Romans (Byzantines), and the other Christian states, the Muslim states from the beginning up to the present, the medieval European states, and modern states, European or not, all satisfy the definition.

The details of the definition (the "one-sidedness", dogmatism, compulsory character, etc) are very relative though.

In any case, Soviet and Nazi propaganda have a lot of religious traits that lack to some degree in the modern propaganda of less totalitarian or in democratic states, although modern nationalism has already in the 19th century anticipated the trend (and yes, across many generations and leaders).

In a way totalitarian states revive a sort of mythology, an obsession with origins and future (eschatology) that only religious thinking has expressed in the past.

The biggest problem with totalitarian propaganda is on the other hand its destructive and in a way revolutionary character. Homer and Lucretius were in a way propagandists, Athenian tragedians were promoting an Athenian cultural agenda, and all such ideas were transmitted across generations, and so forth.

But what is striking by comparison in the Communist and Nazi case is the so called "totalitarian" aspect, a sudden, brutal and total integration of all aspects of culture and communication under a simplistic, centralized and authoritarian will. But even such aspects may have some antecedence in ancient Egypt phenomena like the Akhenaton reform, under some Roman emperors, including Constantine, or Julian the Apostate, in China etc.

That said, one can still find something absolutely unique in modern totalitarian propaganda, in its extreme simplistic dogmas that try to replace not just religion but whole culture without actually having the means of its ambition. In this sense there are no many examples, and North Korea stays as an oddity.

I will also add (initially from a comment I made) that the best distinction between propaganda and the rest of culture is that "real" propaganda is a war weapon in the end, having an almost direct destructive goal, practically in a military sense. Other contents may happen to play this role, which in themselves are not propaganda (but art, religion, philosophy etc), but that doesn't dilute the distinction, on the contrary: not only the essential part of propaganda is nothing else but that, but in case of totalitarianism this core is close to the center of the ideology, which is also meant to have a destructive, disruptive or revolutionary effect, as part of a larger offensive action: ideology and propaganda become one in totalitarianism.

Upvote:4

I'll try to put some of the comments, and my own thoughts, into an answer.

The problem with your question (and probably the reason for the downvotes) is that it assumes that propaganda is something unusual, even sinister. That is the common usage of the word, and the overt use of terms like Agitprop (agitation and propaganda) by the Communists or Reichsministerium fΓΌr VolksaufklΓ€rung und Propaganda (department for public enlightenment and propaganda) by the Nazis reinforces the preconception. But fundamentally, propaganda is just media use to promote or discredit an ideology or religion.

Any society which lasts for more than a couple of years must teach their values to the next generation and reinforce those values in the currently active generation. If all goes well from the viewpoint of the society, the members will not even think of it as propaganda. They will think of it as the natural order of things, and any proposal for change is seen as evil -- enemy propaganda!

Consider, for a moment, the mutual incomprehension about healthcare systems between much of Europe and much of the US. Europeans fail to understand how a society can be just if a single illness can bring an individual to bankruptcy. Americans fail to understand how a society can be just if productive individuals are taxed a large part of their hard-earned income for redistribution to others who are not as productive.

If one does not believe that Americans are somehow genetically predisposed towards rugged individualism and Europeans are predisposed towards solidarity, then the difference must be found within their societies. It starts with the contents of history and civics classes in school, to the contents of news media which is supposed by large, institutional advertisers, to the things parents teach their children and priests teach their congregations.

Societies which are undergoing change or which have recently undergone change may not have the advantage that their values are seen as inevitable. On the other hand, they may have the advantage of active reformers or revolutionaries to promote those values, rather than acceptance bordering on apathy. But after a few decades, the same values which used to be revolutionary propaganda become unquestioned status quo.

The thing about Communism is that Communism failed as an ideology and as an economic system. It failed soon enough that the Communists never got into this comfy situation where their ideology gained unquestioning acceptance. (I know people who grew up in the second or third Communist-educated generation. They tell of jokes like "as long as they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work.") Because Communism failed, it gets portrayed as what you call "extremely one-sided" and the country "admits as much." If Communism had not failed, it would not have admitted failure!

A generation ago, supporters of capitalist-style democracy believed that they had reached the end of history and some sort of endstate. History did prove them wrong, yet the capitalist propaganda is going strong.

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