Broadcasting Bolshevik: The Radio Voice of Soviet Culture,1920s–1950s

Abstract

Propaganda was always a key preoccupation of the Soviet regime and it was not limited to the printed word. Public speaking – whether in meetings and lectures or on the radio – had a prominent place in the Soviet version of modernity. From the early 1920s onwards, propagandists, journalists and performers debated how best to use the spoken word: what was the balance to be struck between oratory and information, edifcation and theatricality, authority and popular participation? Radio professionals struggled with these issues more than anyone: they had to get broadcasts right, yet studios worked under great pressure and faced serious technological constraints. By 1937 experimental and interactive forms of broadcasting were effectively banned. They made a slow comeback in the postwar era, thanks in no small part to technological improvements such as the introduction of mobile recording equipment. The story of how Russia learned to speak on air is an important and hitherto overlooked aspect of Soviet ‘cultural construction’.