Stalin scaled up Soviet propaganda after learning from Nazi pervasiveness

Evidence

After the war, the Soviets would repay the compliment: Stalin and the rest of the Politburo concluded that Soviet propaganda needed to operate at a greater scale, for the Germans had shown what it meant to be truly pervasive. Radio broadcasting, which had been used during the war to mobilize the population, was continued and supplemented with television. The Soviets would never fully match the degree of organizational skill of the Nazis, or the spiritual cultivation—such perhaps are the limits of Marx’s materialism. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 427

Categorization

• XREF: Continues the reader’s attention-industries history thread: the Soviet model of state-controlled galvanizing truth contrasts with the West German decentralization. — connects to: Nazi Germany institutionalized state attention capture through a propaganda ministry — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 411; Stalin’s embrace of Nazi ideology signified a convergence of totalitarian rivals. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 55

Broader Connections

• Stalin’s embrace of Nazi ideology signified a convergence of totalitarian rivals. #expands (0.78) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 55