Agitprop

Agitprop, Part 0

“Lendiz: The books on all spheres of knowledge”, Alexander Rodchenko, 1925

Agitprop

The SACP by its Constitution is supposed to “educate, organise and mobilise”. These three terms can be put together into one: “Agitate”.

The word “Propaganda” came into wide use after the “Congregatio de Propaganda Fide” (Latin for “congregation for the propagation of the faith”) was set up by the Catholic Church in Rome in 1622. Its business was to “propagate”, and what that means is:

“Cause to grow in numbers or amount; extend the bounds of; spread (especially an idea, practice, etc.) from place to place. Grow more widespread or numerous, increase, spread.

“Extend the action or operation of; transmit (motion, light, sound, etc.) in some direction or through some medium. Be transmitted, travel.”

These words quoted from the big (“New Shorter”, 2-Volume) Oxford Dictionary can help to describe what we mean by Propaganda, for the purposes of this course.

Agitational Propaganda (Agitprop for short) is what this course is about. It is a practical course. It is about means, and arts. It starts with writing, but the course is saying that human expression and communication take many forms, and we use all of them, and try to use them well.

The ten parts of the course are conceived around the following categories:

1	Writing
2	Print on Paper
3	Graphic
4	Information Technology
5	Performance
6	Fabric
7	Public
8	Industrial
9	Broadcast
10	Installation

Original texts

The practice of the Communist University is, as a rule, to use the best available existing material, together with a short introduction. But in this course we have so far found a lot fewer “original texts” than has been the case in other CU courses. The introductions have consequently been prepared from organic experience of struggle. Until we accumulate more outside documents, these introductions have by default to constitute the body of the course.

Therefore, in this Agitprop course only, the “Openings to Discussion” are compiled into a separate booklet for each of the ten parts. This weekly booklet can be used as the hard-copy document for discussion in live sessions. But where there are original texts, they will also be sent.

  

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