Connotations of the term propaganda

The word propaganda itself, as used in recent centuries, apparently derives from the title and work of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Congregation for Propagation of the Faith), an organization of Roman Catholic cardinals founded in 1622 to carry on missionary work. To many Roman Catholics the word may therefore have, at least in missionary or ecclesiastical terms, a highly respectable connotation. But even to these persons, and certainly to many others, the term is often a pejorative one tending to connote such things as the discredited atrocity stories and deceptively stated war aims of World Wars I and II, the operations of the Nazis’ Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, and the broken campaign promises of a thousand politicians. Also, it is reminiscent of countless instances of false and misleading advertising (especially in countries using Latin languages, in which propagande commerciale or some equivalent is a common term for commercial advertising).

To informed students of the history of communism, the term propaganda has yet another connotation, associated with the term agitation. The two terms were first used by the Russian theorist of Marxism Georgy Plekhanov and later elaborated upon by Vladimir Ilich Lenin in a pamphlet What Is to Be Done? (1902), in which he defined “propaganda” as the reasoned use of historical and scientific arguments to indoctrinate the educated and enlightened (the attentive and informed publics, in the language of today’s social sciences); he defined “agitation” as the use of slogans, parables, and half-truths to exploit the grievances of the uneducated and the unreasonable. Since he regarded both strategies as absolutely essential to political victory, he combined them in the term agitprop. Every unit of historical communist parties had an agitprop section, and to the communist the use of propaganda in Lenin’s sense was commendable and honest. Thus, a standard Soviet manual for teachers of social sciences was entitled Propagandistu politekonomii (For the Propagandist of Political Economy), and a pocket-sized booklet issued weekly to suggest timely slogans and brief arguments to be used in speeches and conversations among the masses was called Bloknot agitatora (The Agitator’s Notebook).

Related terms

Related to the general sense of propaganda is the concept of “propaganda of the deed.” This denotes taking nonsymbolic action (such as economic or coercive action), not for its direct effects but for its possible propagandistic effects. Examples of propaganda of the deed would include staging an atomic “test” or the public torture of a criminal for its presumable deterrent effect on others, or giving foreign “economic aid” primarily to influence the recipient’s opinions or actions and without much intention of building up the recipient’s economy.

Distinctions are sometimes made between overt propaganda, in which the propagandists and perhaps their backers are made known to the reactors, and covert propaganda, in which the sources are secret or disguised. Covert propaganda might include such things as political advertisements that are unsigned or signed with false names, clandestine radio stations using false names, and statements by editors, politicians, or others who have been secretly bribed by governments, political backers, or business firms. Sophisticated diplomatic negotiation, legal argument, collective bargaining, commercial advertising, and political campaigns are of course quite likely to include considerable amounts of both overt and covert propaganda, accompanied by propaganda of the deed.

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Another term related to propaganda is psychological warfare (sometimes abbreviated to psychwar), which is the prewar or wartime use of propaganda directed primarily at confusing or demoralizing enemy populations or troops, putting them off guard in the face of coming attacks, or inducing them to surrender. The related concept of political warfare encompasses the use of propaganda, among many other techniques, during peacetime to intensify social and political divisions and to sow confusion within the societies of adversary states.

Still another related concept is that of brainwashing. The term usually means intensive political indoctrination. It may involve long political lectures or discussions, long compulsory reading assignments, and so forth, sometimes in conjunction with efforts to reduce the reactor’s resistance by exhausting him either physically through torture, overwork, or denial of sleep or psychologically through solitary confinement, threats, emotionally disturbing confrontations with interrogators or defected comrades, humiliation in front of fellow citizens, and the like. The term brainwashing was widely used in sensational journalism to refer to such activities (and to many other activities) as they were allegedly conducted by Maoists in China and elsewhere.

Another related word, advertising, has mainly commercial connotations, though it need not be restricted to this; political candidates, party programs, and positions on political issues may be “packaged” and “marketed” by advertising firms. The words promotion and public relations have wider, vaguer connotations and are often used to avoid the implications of “advertising” or “propaganda.” “Publicity” and “publicism” often imply merely making a subject known to a public, without educational, propagandistic, or commercial intent.