Soviet propaganda

The Soviet government at the state level used propaganda as means of fostering communist ideology, controlling society and realizing its own goals. Propaganda worked through mass media (press and radio), cultural institutions, art and literature, state holidays and traditions, which were forcibly introduced in Ukraine, accompanied by humiliation and the prohibition of expression of national traditions and customs. Special government bodies and institutions conducted agitation, information, educational work with the masses. Today, such actions are identified as “brainwashing” and “disinformation campaign”. Along with massive propaganda, there existed also a strong censorship.

Mass media was used in anti-religious campaign as an aggressive spread of atheism.

Since religion was a part of traditional culture for Ukrainians, the regime also destroyed traditional folk culture.

For the legitimacy of arrests, deportations, shootings, famine, there was created an image of an enemy with a certain label. In Ukraine, in addition to the all-Union labels, “kulaks” and “counterrevolutionary”, they also used “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalist”, “Petliurivets”, “kulak’s-Petliurivets’ nests”.

The division of the society into “us” and “they”, the deprivation of the rights of a certain group of people and their dehumanization (negation of humanity), and incitement to hatred against these people are alarming preconditions for mass murder and genocide.