«Белая» печать Перми о большевистском режиме и лидерах большевиков

Abstract

The periodicals are the important sources on the history of the Civil war seriously supplementing the information from the archives. The article analyses the descriptions of the Bolshevik regime and the Bolshevik leaders in the “White” press. The newspapers published in Perm were typical for the Anti-Bolshevik Russia and practically did not differ from the other Ural and Siberian ones. The articles and notes were often republished. The newspapers were the most widespread and popular sources of information in the Civil war and the effective instrument of the Information warfare between the “Reds” and “Whites” (All the Anti-Bolshevik governments are designated as White here, though using such a term in relation to the Komuch, Provisionsl Government of Siberia,and Provisional Government of the Ural Region, which existed during the period of the “Democratic Counterrevolution” does not seem absolutely correct). The press of the “Whites” described the inner life of the “Sovdepia” in negative terms and overestimated the scale of hunger and terror. The attention of the newspaper was concentrated on the situation in Moscow and Petrograd. In order to be more convincing in their descriptions of the horrors of the Bolshevism, the newspapers made references to the news agencies, including the foreign ones, and personal evidences. The “White” press tried to form the most negative attitude to the Bolshevik regime, to win the wide masses, because it might determine the outcome of the fratricidal civil war. The characteristics of the Bolshevik leaders, especially of Lenin and Trotsky, served the same goal. The newspapers stressed permanently the contradictions and conflicts between them. In their characteristics of the Bolshevik leaders the authors of the publications sometimes draw impartial and correct pictures, which might be seen as a valuable addition to the portraits of the prominent Bolshevik leaders. First of all it refers to the image of Trotsky. In spite of the active propaganda campaign in the press, the “Whites” lost the information war. In the country with the illiterate majority, the Bolshevik propaganda apparatus and methods of the information warfare turned to be more effective, than those of their opponents.