The Nazis inherited a cinema which had already established itself as a strong and distinctive style of production. The Soviet union, on the other hand, had to build up a cultural cinematic production system, which was advantageous for the aforementioned propaganda possibilities, but it did not have the tradition and the skill level to compete in the market. It was unable to transfer the economic policies of single entity control over the entire market. In Germany, there developed a system of complete nationalisation of the cinematic industry to incorporate it into the fascist state. The soviet union under Stalin’s control, seized control of the cinematic productions and used it to forward his five-year plan systems. The two rivals used the same techniques in creating on the screen a sense of what they wanted the public perception to be. This included Hitler’s portrayals of Bismarck, thus legitimizing his reign of power, and Stalin’s glorification of Lenin as the supreme soviet godfather. The latter ploy of the renaming of the cities Leningrad and Stalingrad had the added effect of consolidating Stalin’s position superior to all other soviet citizens as the right-hand man to Lenin and his rightful heir.
Russia also used the cult of a personality as propaganda. Once Lenin died they did not bury his body, rather they put him in a glass casket in the middle of red square in Moscow. They preserved his body so that he would not decompose, and portray him as a saint like figure. Russians went on a pilgrimage to this site in the red square in their droves. Lenin’s successor, Stalin, also had a cult of personality. The communist party encouraged the worship of Stalin. The history books of Russia were changed in order to depict Stalin as a hero of the October revolution and the civil wars. There were photographs, statues and posters of Stalin everywhere, even Cities were named after him i.e. Stalingrad. Propaganda depicted Stalin as an equal of Lenin, and the two were seen as a sort of God-like figure. Correspondingly, once Hitler came to power, he appointed Joseph Goebbels as minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda and this set about creating a cult of personality for, Hitler, in the vein as the Russians. Goebbels came up with slogans, which would entice the masses to worship their leader, e.g., Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Fuhrer, essentially one Country, one People, one Leader. Goebbels also used images and portraits which portrayed Hitler as a great leader. The two men had naturally strong personas and this was supplemented by an intelligent propaganda campaign.
The Soviet Union also used vast amounts of propaganda on their young people. Lenin wanted to create a whole new generation of communists who truly believed in the way of life, so he introduced shrines into each and every school which would praise him as a great soviet leader who saved the Russian people. Also these schools would take part in marches; they would sing songs and even took pledges to their iconic leader Lenin. Youth groups or youth organisations were also set up to accommodate this transformation of children, so that this new generation’s ideologies would mirror that of the Soviet Union and of communism. In the same way, Hitler used propaganda to a great extent to influence young German citizens. Hitler believed that through education he could create a whole new generation of Nazi’s, which were more patriotic and loyal than the previous generation. All subjects in school pointed towards getting a Nazi message across. Girls and boys were educated in a different way as girls were pointed in the path of house keeping and child-bearing etc, whereas boys were pointed towards military life. Hitler set up youth organisations, very similar to what happened in Russia. Again the same as schooling there was different organisations for boys and girls. The boys were shown how to hike and camp, read maps etc and the girls were shown how to knit and sew and also some first aid. These youth organisations, or the Hitler youth as they were known as, became compulsory after 1936. Both left and right placed a huge emphasis on the indoctrination of youth to preserve their party’s principles.
Finally having looked at both left and right ideologies one can argue that dictatorships of the Soviets and Nazi’s in the inter-war years used the method of propaganda largely the same way. For example, both Lenin and Hitler used propaganda to assist them to get into a position of power and more importantly consolidate that power. Another example of comparable propaganda methods was, the formation of the cult of personality as both dictatorships used propaganda to portray themselves as great leaders who rescued their respective countries from the brink of disaster. It can also be seen how both dictatorships used propaganda on the youth, in the form of schools and also youth organisations as both leaders believed that education was a tool to mould or create Communist or Nazi’s, and both used it to its full potential. Both parties knew the importance the mass media provided for their respective campaigns to achieve power and used this to their full extent.
