Introduction
Agitprop theatre was an international and hugely influential theatre movement. It informed the work of Bertolt Brecht, Joan Littlewood and numerous political theatre groups such as Red Ladder and 7:84 that emerged during the latter part of the twentieth century. And yet agitprop has been largely consigned to a footnote in theatre history – partly, one suspects, because of a lack of surviving documentation about the work and activities of the early agitprop theatre groups.
Fortunately, these days, through the internet, research, publication of agitprop plays and the memoirs of actors more information is becoming available. But we are still waiting for a definitive book that can draw all these emerging strands together. In the meantime, this article is an attempt to fill join some of these threads.
Definitions
Agitprop was an art movement that began in revolutionary Russia and covered a multitude of art disciplines such as visual art, poetry, film and theatre. The word ‘agitprop’ is derived from a combination of two words ‘agitation’ and ‘propaganda’.
Agitation is the attempt to stir up public opinion for or against something. This is usually connected to a social or political issue. Agitation can take the form of protest marches, demonstrations, speeches or newspaper articles. It is a call for change and its purpose is to awaken awareness of a particular issue and then persuade its intended audience to take some form of action.
Propaganda is information, ideas, statements or rumours that are spread in order to help a cause, political leader or government. In recent times it has acquired a negative connotation as it is generally assumed that propaganda is the exclusive tool of totalitarian regimes spreading false or exaggerated claims. It would be more accurate to say that propaganda focuses on one side of an argument and selects only those facts or rumours that support this argument.
Propaganda has long been and still is used by governments and political leaders all over the world. To take one isolated example – during the First World War Britain had a Ministry of Information whose purpose was to co-ordinate anti German propaganda.
Apart from propaganda posters that were designed to encourage young men to join up and fight, the British specialized in ‘atrocity propaganda’ that portrayed the Germans as devils committing terrible crimes against civilians. Later research has shown that these claims were either grossly exaggerated or untrue.
These days politicians are generally more subtle with their use of propaganda but we should not forget that they are often presenting only the one side of an argument that chimes in with their political convictions. One clever devise that they employ is to begin a contentious statement with the words: ‘ All reasonable people believe that… (for example) …a woman’s place is in the home.’ If you happen to disagree, then you are per definition an unreasonable person – as none of us wants to be thought of as unreasonable, this puts subtle pressure on us to agree with many controversial political statements.
Origins of Agitprop
Agitprop originated in Revolutionary Soviet Russia in the 1920’s. It describes plays, pamphlets, posters, film and other art forms that had a political message.
Within this context agitation meant urging the people to do what the communist leaders expected them to do. Propaganda was explaining the policies of the communist party.
At this time over 70% of the Russian population was illiterate. Film, posters and theatre became an ideal medium for communicating policies and ideas to a people who could not read or write. Agitprop was often used to educate the masses or spread beneficial information such as new processes in agriculture or, as in this poster, an awareness of safety in the workplace.
The Soviet Department for Agitation and Propaganda was set up in 1921. Its purpose was to oversee the spreading of all propaganda throughout Russia. As one of the aims was to disseminate information to all remote parts of this vast country special agitprop ships and trains were designed to tour across Soviet Russia. Trains were peopled with film makers, poets, artists and actors and equipped with printing presses, radios to keep in contact with latest developments and even small theatres.
This remarkable footage from 1917 shows one of the agitprop trains traveling across Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck-7wqD2Zf0
Agitprop Theatre
Due to the fact that traditional bourgeoisie theater was largely inaccessible to the Russian masses and given the drive to spread information to the vast majority of Russians who lived in the provinces, agitprop theatre groups organized themselves into mobile brigades. These brigades took theatre to the people and performed in warehouses, factories, villages, farms and on the streets.
One consequence of this mobility combined with the wide variety of performing locations was a rejection of conventional theatre practices such as lights, elaborate scenery and costumes. Agitprop theatre groups performed on bare stages with a minimum of props. The few props used were employed multi-functionally and symbolically– a chair could become a horse, a boat or a building. Two warring armies could be represented by the waving of a white and a red flag.
Members of these brigades often wore a single identifiable costume. The Blue Blouses took their name from workers overalls. In this way they identified with their audience. By adding scarves, hats, skirts or jackets onto this basic costume members of the group could quickly create different characters. Again, the addition of a simple piece of costume could symbolically suggest a recognizable character, such as a top hat for a capitalist.
Agitprop plays appealed to the emotions by simplifying issues and using caricature characters of ‘good’ and ‘evil’. This was often accompanied by grotesque and coarse humour. Although no footage of these early agitprop plays exists a good idea of the stereotyped characters and coarse humour can be seen in this propaganda cartoon from 1924 by Dziga Vertov – which pits the larger than life evil capitalist against the virtuous worker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDozr1KPUyY
The Living Newspaper was one of the popular techniques used by the agitprop theatre brigades. Actors would take a current event and dramatise it in a series of short sketches. Not only was this a way of bringing current events alive to an audience that was unable to read about them for themselves but actors could slant or distort the stories to bring across a particular social or political message.
In order to keep the attention of an audience that was not used to watching theatre performances, agitprop groups performed short sketches. The sketches would be fast paced. Due to the bare stage, minimal props and simple costumes actors could move quickly from one sketch to another. Visual elements such as clowning, acrobatics, dance and song would be added for variety.
Sources:
Agitprop in Soviet Russia – Kevin Brown
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agitprop
Images:
Champion Drama 
good work.
Thank you! I’m curious to know what your interest is in agitprop theatre! It’s such a relatively unknown genre but so influential for later political theatre playwrights.
Good work
Such an informative article. Helped a lot for me to understand Erwin Piscator’s approaches and context in which he worked and created political theatre.
Yes! I think that Piscator and Brecht must have seen agitprop theatre that was being performed by groups in Germany in the 1920’s.