Nabeel Ellahi
MYP-5
16/04/2012
History
Can Censorship Be Justified?

Censorship of information was a very important element in periods of time where propaganda was at its fullest and of course during the time of war, it was a great way to make people think how you wanted them to and to control them like a herd of sheep. From past studies we can see that censorship has been used for many purposes and the act of censorship has been practiced by many leaders. When used in situations like a war or when a leader is trying to bring reforms to a country, the use of censorship becomes understandable. To support this stance, lets take a look at past events which used censorship as a successful tool. Firstly censorship can be justified because back in the days of Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini, in their totalitarian governments authority was a very important thing to have; authority helped them keep control over the country and to enforce their will, they achieved this by censoring various materials to win the loyalty of their people. Secondly, during the government of Stalin censorship was used a lot and it helped him spread his ideas and commands to ensure him success in his goals which were to make Russia the best. And lastly during the great war when nationalism was at its peak, discouraging news such as casualties and battle loses were censored along with other news in order to make the public just know one side of the story, if these efforts would not have been made, the history of the 1900's wouldn't have been same as what we are seeing today.

Authority is a very powerful element in the role of a dictator and it is what in general distinguishes a totalitarian government from democracy; it is the power of having absolute control. And this is what every dictator wanted; Mussolini, Stalin and of course Hitler. The tool which all these leaders used in order to gain authority was propaganda with the incredible help of censorship. All of these leaders won their authority the same way; they won the loyalty of their people, making them believe in the leaders. From poetry to paintings and motion pictures, in all of them there was the glorification of their leaders. These works of artists and poets about the leaders created positive energy towards the leaders therefor making the public devoted to them. Stalin as an example, he would appear everywhere as a broad shouldered and tough looking man, making people proud to have a strong leader , and after all it was beneficial for Stalin as he gained the reputation as a strong leader therefor awarding him more authority which he then used to create things such as the secret police to keep everything under control. And an under control public is what the leaders wanted in order for things to progress much easier, as it avoided riots, protests and civil wars.

The main idea of censorship was to ensure that people see what you want them to see and think what you want them to think. This idea was greatly practiced many leaders, and in the case of Stalin, it helped him keep the communistic ideas in peoples minds and he ensured that people thought of capitalism as an evil thing, this would make the progression of Russia better, and from the past events we can see that it proved to be true. How Stalin did this was pretty simple and straightforward, firstly he requested and required everyone to attend school, so education was a must and to make education seem appealing, free education was offered to everyone. Now where censorship played a major role was that all the books and other materials at schools were censored and they contained information which glorified communism therefor creating a positive attitude towards this type of government and of course schools also taught the evils of capitalism. This overall was a good thing because the population was getting educated, they were learning to read and write, educated workers were needed to run new types of machines in factories and also new farming techniques helped the population which relied on farming for a living, overall it greatly benefited the country as the economy and living standards improved since after an education people got more job opportunities.

Censorship during the time of war was widely used and was a very important tool for leaders to do all sorts of things in order to win the war. Relating to the great war of 1917, during the start of the war there was a lot of enthusiasm, there were cavalries and people cheering for their country and saying farewell to the soldiers while wishing them good luck, nationalism was truly appearing at this time and leaders wanted it to stay that way. As the war was a total war which means every aspect of the country is involved in it, governments needed to control public opinions, and this is where censorship came to play. Soon after the war had started there were a lot of casualties and battle which were lost along with many more other damages, no matter what governments had to stop these kinds of discouraging news to reach out to the public, this was so they don’t lose hope and are still committed to the war. Governments also censored other forms of information such as literature, historical writings, motion pictures and arts, because they too can give out negative information. Since there was a lot of propaganda from both sides, governments also avoided their public to be exposed to enemy propaganda, one example of how this was done was when Stalin jammed foreign radio to avoid people listening to other opinions. After all, these efforts made by the leaders helped them get over the war without any unnecessary problems at home while they were busy fighting off enemies in foreign land.

So overall censorship proved to be a very important and powerful tool which can be justified if used for the right purpose at the right time, it was a great help to leaders for making it easier to manage everything in periods of times such as war. Censorship was used by leaders to get authority, this was very important in a totalitarian government as without authority nothing could be done, and leaders censored many forms of information glorifying themselves and winning the loyalty of their people which later on put things under their control making their leadership much simpler. Censorship was used by Stalin to spread the communistic ideas in censored books which were taught at schools, and along with his ideas being spread the people got educated which made their lives easier as farmers got better at farming, industrial workers got more familiar with their workspace and in general people got more job opportunities, it was a success for Russia and Stalin. And lastly during the great war leaders avoided public opinions by censoring the media, and also censoring news of casualties and battle losses in order to make the public stay motivated during the war and avoiding the public to lose hope.