The Commissar Vanishes, the late David King’s visual history of the falsification of images as a means of propaganda in the Soviet Union, explores how Stalin manipulated photography to erase all memory of his victims.
The murder of rivals and former comrades was very often followed the removal of these “counter-revolutionaries” from photographs with scalpel and airbrush. At the same time, ordinary citizens, fearful of being in possession of banned material, defaced their copies books and photographs with scissors and India ink. King’s book offers a contrast between the original photographs alongside their doctored counterparts, for a chilling look into one of darkest periods in history.
It was in 1970, 17 years after Stalin’s death that King first encountered these photos in Moscow. “When I inquired about photographs of Trotsky, the reply would invariably be, ‘Why do you ask for Trotsky? Trotsky not important in Revolution. Stalin important!’,” King wrote in the introduction to the book. “In the dark green metal boxes containing mug shots of subjects starting with ‘T’ were hundreds of photographs of famous Russians: Tolstoy, Turgenev, etc.–but no Trotsky. They had completely wiped him out. It was at this moment that I determined to start my collection.”
“Propaganda did not work just on what was shown; it worked also on what was omitted. Stalin was a master of this. Long before the advent of Photoshop, technicians in Russia manipulated photos so much that they became outright lies. David King, in The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin’s Russia, wrote that during the Great Purges, in the 1930s, ‘a new form of falsification emerged. The physical eradication of Stalin’s political opponents at the hands of the secret police was swiftly followed by their obliteration from all forms of pictorial existence’. The book highlights classic cases of ‘now you see me, now you don’t’. It includes series of images featuring the same backdrops but with rotating casts, depending on who was or wasn’t in favour at the time.”
As Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley, author of How Propaganda Works, told Steinfeld: “At the heart of authoritarian propaganda is the manipulating of reality. The authoritarian must undermine this.”
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”100 Years On” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2017%2F06%2F100-years-on%2F|||”][vc_column_text]Through a range of in-depth reporting, interviews and illustrations, the summer 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine explores how the consequences of the 1917 Russian Revolution still affect freedoms today, in Russia and around the world.
With: Andrei Arkhangelsky, BG Muhn, Nina Khrushcheva[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”91220″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/06/100-years-on/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1481888488328{padding-bottom: 50px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
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To mark the release of the issue, Index has compiled a reading list for people wishing to learn more about its legacy in the world today. This list includes works from Soviet Russia and post-Soviet Russia, including Russia under Putin today.
An excerpt of a longer poem written by Solzhenitsyn while in a labour camp in North Kazakhstan. The camp later became the inspiration for Solzhenitsyn’s novel A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
Glezer was responsible for organising the now famous unofficial art exhibitions in Moscow in 1974. The first exhibition, on 15 September, was ‘”bulldozed” by police and KGB agents, and a number of artists who tried to exhibit their work were arrested. Two weeks later, however, an open-air exhibition did take place, after the authorities gave permission, and some 10,000 people turned up to see paintings and sculptures by modern Soviet artists who did not enjoy official favour.
This article examines Soviet interpretations of 1984, including the assertion that George Orwell was actually critiquing capitalism, not the USSR, with his novel.
This is an article about the musician Vladimir Vysotsky, once called “the most idolised figure in the Soviet Union”. His songs were circulated on homemade tapes, though never officially recorded until after his death.
An Estonian reporter’s exposé prompts a call from the army. Madis Jurgen, who brought to light the dark side of the Soviet armed forces, left Tallinn on Friday 13 October, bound for New York and Toronto, from where he decided to await events.
Early on 26 April 1986, a series of explosions destroyed the nuclear reactor and building of the fourth power generator unit of Chernobyl atomic power station. These extracts are not about the Chernobyl disaster but about a world of Chernobyl of which we know almost nothing. They are the unwritten history.
As they say, still waters run deep. On 8 February 2000, an announcement was made in the St Petersburg Gazette by members of the St Petersburg State University Initiative Group. Shortly beforehand they had, in competition with others, nominated Putin as a presidential candidate and now wished to demonstrate their enthusiasm for their former pupil. What they published was a denunciation.
An article on the disappeared in Chechnya, who officially number about 1,000, but unofficially are almost 2,000. They disappeared throughout the war. The author, Anna Politkovskaya, was murdered in her Moscow apartment in a contract killing in 2006.
Ali Kamalov, the head of Dagestan’s journalists’ union fears for the future of press freedom following the murder of the country’s most prominent editor. On 15 December 2011, Hadjimurad Kamalov was murdered in Makhachkala, the seaboard capital of Dagestan.
Although the Russian constitution enshrines freedom of expression, the authorities routinely clamp down on anybody who treasures this fundamental right. State officials, judges, deputies, prosecutors and police officers serve the ruling regime and control society, rather than defend the constitution or protect human rights.
Helen Womack interviews the founder of the last free radio station in Putin’s Russia. These men are not dissidents, just journalists dedicated to professional principles of objectivity and balance. But in Putin’s Russia, where almost all the media spout state propaganda, that position looks like radical nonconformity, and it seems a wonder that Echo survives.
In the winter 2014 issue of Index on Censorship magazine, Andrei Aliaksandrau investigates the new information war between Russia and Ukraine as he travels across the latter country.
Andrei Aliaksandrau examines the evolution of censorship in Russia, from Soviet institutions to today’s blend of influence and pressure, including the assassination of journalists.
Andrey Arkhangelsky explores Russian journalism a decade on from Anna Politkovskaya’s murder and argues that the press still struggles to offer readers the full picture.
*Articles which are free to read on Sage. All other articles are available via Sage in most university libraries. To find out more about subscribing to the magazine in print or digitally, click here.
Index on Censorship magazine celebrated the launch of its summer 2017 issue with an evening exploring the 1917 Russian Revolution and its effects on our freedoms today.
The Calvert 22 Foundation-hosted event examined the role of propaganda, culture and politics from around the globe.
Speakers included Don Guttenplan, editor-at-large for The Nation, who spoke on the cultural Cold War; Katya Rogatchevskaia, lead curator of Central and East European collections at the British Library, who examined the role of Russian propaganda both during the Cold War and today; and Adam Cathcart, a specialist in Chinese history at Leeds University, who spoke on the impact of Soviet art and music in North Korea.
Guests were invited to listen to actors performing excerpts from speeches by Lenin, Stalin and Putin. Guttenplan noted the speeches reminded him of the dialogue he hears in today’s political realm. “When we were listening to Lenin’s speech, I was thinking, well that doesn’t sound that different from John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn,” he said.
Rogatchevskaia discussed how art and propaganda influenced the Russian Revolution. “It was important that a revolution was happening at the same time in art and in social and political life,” she said. “These two revolutions actually met at one point and that created a fantastic abundance of really great art, and that’s why we remember this period.”
Cathcart spoke of the “cultural cold war” with South Korea on one side and China and North Korea on the other. He explained how cultural revolutions in South Korea have influenced the Chinese mindset and their favour of North Korean customs. “Chinese scholars have to come to grips with the Korean wave,” Cathcart said. “This is a country that has done extremely well, everybody’s on high broadband internet, the pop bands are doing extremely well. North Korea exports almost nothing culturally. North Korean music is something they’ve [the Chinese] tried to bring in competition with South Korea.”
Index’s summer publication, which was given to all attendees, features reports from across the globe including Uzbekistan, China, Russia, Cuba and Turkey. Writers for this issue include David Aaronovitch, Nikita Khrushchev’s great-granddaughter Nina Khrushcheva, and an interview with author Margaret Atwood.
The event was held on at Calvert 22 Foundation, which celebrates the culture and creativity of the New East.
Katya Rogatchevskaia, lead Curator of Central and East European collections at the British Library, discusses Russia’s revolutionary propaganda. (Photo: Sean Gallagher / Index on Censorship)
An actor reads from a speech by Vladimir Lenin. (Photo: Sean Gallagher / Index on Censorship)
Adam Cathcart, a specialist and lecturer in Chinese history at Leeds University, explores the impact of Soviet art on North Korean art and culture. (Photo: Sean Gallagher / Index on Censorship)
Index on Censorship magazine editor Rachael Jolley introduces the summer 2017 issue. (Photo: Sean Gallagher / Index on Censorship)
Don Guttenplan, Editor-at-Large for The Nation, shares his take on the cultural cold war, (Photo: Sean Gallagher / Index on Censorship)
Actors read from speeches by Lenin (Matthew Romain), Stalin (Amanda Wilkin) and Putin (Jennifer Leong). (Photo: Sean Gallagher / Index on Censorship)
An actor reads from a speech by Vladimir Putin. (Photo: Sean Gallagher / Index on Censorship)
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”100 Years On” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2017%2F06%2F100-years-on%2F|||”][vc_column_text]Through a range of in-depth reporting, interviews and illustrations, the summer 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine explores how the consequences of the 1917 Russian Revolution still affect freedoms today, in Russia and around the world.
With: Andrei Arkhangelsky, BG Muhn, Nina Khrushcheva[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”91220″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/magazine”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1481888488328{padding-bottom: 50px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
Subscription options from £18 or just £1.49 in the App Store for a digital issue.
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Jonathan Tel is the 2016 winner of The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize and the 2015 Commonwealth short story prize. He has written both novels and short stories and has been published in The New Yorker and Granta, amongst others.
Nina Khrushcheva
Writer and academic
Nina Khrushcheva is professor of International Affairs at The New School in New York. She is the author of The Lost Khrushchev: A Journey into the Gulag of the Russian Mind, and is the great-grandchild of Nikita Khrushchev.
Rafael Marques de Morais
Journalist
Rafael Marques de Morais is an author and investigative journalist from Angola, who currently runs the anti-corruption website makaangola.org. He won the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award in 2015 for journalism.
Guests were invited to listen to actors performing excerpts from speeches by Lenin, Stalin and Putin. Guttenplan noted the speeches reminded him of the dialogue he hears in today’s political realm. “When we were listening to Lenin’s speech, I was thinking, well that doesn’t sound that different from John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn,” he said.
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