Agitation and Propaganda Techniques as Communication Platforms for Radical Social Engineering: Ukrainian Experience in 1920s
Abstract
Research methodology. The aim of this research is to study the agitation and propaganda techniques as a pivotal factor for establishing the Bolsheviks’ power on the territory of Ukraine. In the course of the analysis, the author applied a combination of general scientific research methods including the systems analysis method, analogy, modeling, concretization and comparing methods in order to identify the communicative (manipulative) strategies that were employed by the Bolsheviks against people.
Results. The article explores the main communicative models of agitation and propaganda used during the first decade of the Soviet regime establishing. The relevance and topicality of this research arise from the pressing issues of the modern day state-building process and mass media functioning in the context of profound democratic and geopolitical transformations. Factual data, presented in the article, ensure adequate understanding and help avoid the consequences of authoritarianism in information policies and mass media activities. The analysis has revealed that the Soviet regime introduced an ironclad and unprecedented in its scope administrative procedure of controlling collective consciousness. It was a truly technological system based on typical communication procedures of brainwashing and public opinion shaping.
Novelty. It is for the first time in our national communication studies that agitation and propaganda techniques are viewed through the lens of social engineering qualified by many international researchers as a radical / utopian project.
Practical implications. The results of this research can be used as a methodological model for further research in applied sciences and boost the formation of transdisciplinary theory in social communication techniques.
Key words: agitation, information policy, propaganda, radical social engineering, social communication techniques.
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