What is the role of propaganda for our cause?

I'm a newb so I might not be much help. But I think that propaganda is useful if it is inbued with current struggles (union printings about a workplace occupation) or to get individual conversions like yours and mine.

A short answer, but I think the best propaganda is designed to start a conversation, not be an a convincing all ecompassing argument.

For example, in SF we use these not because we believe the law can be on the side of workers or because we think 150 words about solidarity will bring the revolution, but because it provides and opportunity to talk to workers about their conditions.

Libcom is propaganda

I think this is very true. The slogans of the May '68 revolt are still resonant today, because despite being poetic and frequently-enigmatic they are provocative, while the slogans of social democracy read for all their clarity like a bad joke, because they represent nothing more than the expounding of fossilised ideology. Good propaganda isn't about giving people answers, it's about encouraging them to ask questions.

I think it's easy to knock propaganda work, especially as most current anarchist prop is pretty terrible, but I do think it plays a role. Obviously reading a leaflet or whatever isn't going to bring people round instantly to your point of view, at least not generally, but I think it can have an impact. Even if people read it and immediately think "I don't agree with any of that", at least it raises awareness of anarchist ideas. If nothing else it puts anarchism on the ideological map, so to speak.

~J.

You've put your finger on an important point here. Aside from it being well written and presented, one of the crucial things about good propaganda is that it's targeted. Both the actual propaganda itself and the method of distribution have to be tailored to your chosen audience.

When it comes to public actions it's important to tailor any propaganda to the nature of the action itself. If you're planning the action and producing the propaganda it's possible to make them complement each other pretty well. If you're planning on leafleting a more mainstream demo that's a bit trickier. Demonstrations can be a good place to make contact with pissed off proles, but the trouble is that pretty much every group on the left is aware of this so demos of any size tend to be pretty saturated with leaflets, papers etc. If you're planning on showing up to this sort of protest to distribute some propaganda it's important to make your stuff stand out from the crowd in terms of layout and content. For example, on the March 2011 anti-cuts demo in London the Anarchist Federation gave out double sided A3 posters with short written articles on the reverse, as opposed to a more standard leaflet or newsletter. There's all sorts of ways to to get your message across in a visually appealing and original way, so get creative. Try not to just copy other people's material, and avoid cliche as much as possible. And try to have a realistic idea of the demographics of demos when you're preparing propaganda for them - if a march or demonstration is likely to be mostly hardened leftists who are already politically active, then it might be worth focusing on leafleting the public/bystanders rather than the protest itself. If it's a broader demographic, then you can aim your propaganda more at participants in the demo (and the density of Trotskyist paper sellers will be lower, so there's more chance people will actually look at your work).

In terms of street distros, again there's a few factors to consider. On the one hand it gives you access to a broader demographic than already-political actions, which tend to attract quite a specific type of person (e.g. students, activist types, etc.). On the other hand... well, it's a broader demographic, which makes it difficult to target propaganda effectively. Picking a good location is key. If you're giving out something like a newspaper, distros at bus and train stations can be a good strategy - people read on public transport, people are used to the idea from reading Metro, and copies that get left lying around on trains or buses are more likely to be picked up again and read than copies that get stuffed in bins or chucked on the pavement. Try to avoid pitches which are already full of people handing out flyers and adverts, as punters are less likely to take stuff off you if they've already had half a dozen bits of paper shoved in their faces in the last half hour. It's generally a good move to go where there's plenty of footfall, but busy city centres aren't always the best spots: people who are in a hurry to be somewhere else aren't the best targets for propaganda, especially if it's text-heavy. Consistency is another important point for street distros. If you're selling/giving away a regular newsletter, for example, find a good pitch and stick to it. This helps establish a presence in an area, especially if you back it up with regular flyposting and stickering runs around the same locale.

The internet is definitely a growth market in anarchist propaganda. Libcom.org is an excellent example, and pages like Anarchist Memes on fb put out an amazing quantity of material to a massive audience. You can be pretty creative with stuff like video and interactive graphics online in a way you can't with physical propaganda; it's generally cheaper and easier to produce online propaganda than printed stuff; and you can potentially reach a huge number of people with comparatively little effort. On the other hand, online communities can be very insular, online anarchist communities doubly so. Social media can go some way towards getting your propaganda out there. But probably the best strategy is to go for a combined arms approach, using IRL propaganda to get people visiting your blogs or pages (and vice versa, publicising stalls or street distros online).

So anyway, yeah, basically the answer to your question is all of the above (but with some provisos). Depending on the exact nature of your message and your target audience any or none of these methods may be effective. There's some pretty excellent guides to writing and producing propaganda hosted on this site here, which you should check out if you haven't already.

~J.

the day that the anfaq can be distilled into a 3 page document of catechisms is the day that the revolution begins

To promote, support, enlighten, decorate, oppose, condemn, inspire, counter, amuse... lots of roles really..

Oh yeah? Can you give us some good examples of this "effective" "targeted" propaganda?

I find it remarkable that jolasmo gives a long and persuasive seeming description of something like an anarchist marketing campaign but somehow he/she ignores how there are thousands (if not millions) of people who passively identity as anarchists and yet only a handful of "successful campaigns" of any sort.

And this is not even to entirely dismiss the anarchist phenomena. What does seem to me to be rather disconnected from reality is this well organize stream of recipes. It looks to me to be akin to the usual methods of capitalist institutions (Green Peace, mainstream Unions, whatever), and so seems to imagine "success" will come in a similar fashion.

Communication is important but it is also important to get beyond the present system of what could be called "generalized manipulation", it is not just that people are bombarded by come-on of all sort and so aren't likely to listen to yours. It not even that professionalized, capitalist institutions are going to be better at sales/manipulation than any amateur outfit. It is that if you/we/some-would-be-revolutionary succeeds at the manipulation game, all they wind up with is ... a bunch of manipulated people. So, communicate but undermine the manipulation/progranda-in-a-bad-sense framework. Etc

Thanks. .

I've never worked in advertising or anything, but yeah I'd imagine there's a lot of crossover. Of course there are important differences too, but I'm sure there's things we can learn from that world if we approach it with a critical mindset.

Cool. . I agree there's plenty of room for more and better online anarchist propaganda, and it would be great if you've got the time to put something together.

If you're worried about your efforts being a bit isolated, that's an excellent reason to look around for other anarchists to cooperate with. Obviously you've already found libcom, which is a great resource, and I'm sure people here will be happy to help out with advice and constructive criticism etc. Your profile here doesn't say where you live, but there might be local or national political propaganda groups and organisations around who would be happy to help you out.

Sharing your sources is definitely a good move, in terms of linking people to online resources like AFAQ and libcom.org, or even just including a secure email address so people can get in touch if they want more information. In terms of face to face interaction, it depends where you are, but most active anarchist groups do stuff like hosting public meetings, doing stalls and public distros, and more high profile events like bookfairs and conferences. If you don't want to say where you live on here you can PM me and I'll let you know if I'm aware of any local stuff going on - but a quick google might turn up stuff as well, most groups these days have some sort of online presence.

Looks like they've replied below; I'll respond in my next post.

~J.

Not as many as I would like at least not anarchist propaganda. But I did give one example in my previous post, the posters we gave out at the M26 demo in 2011. I mean I don't want to big the AF up too much but I think they were pretty good as far as anarchist propaganda goes.

Well maybe that's because I was responding to a question about producing propaganda, not about why anarchists are failing to build social movements or the colour of unicorn cocks or whatever?

Just because people we don't like do things it doesn't mean we shouldn't do them. You know who else was a vegtarian? HITLER.* Etc.

Don't really see how anything I've advocated above could be seen as manipulative. I'm not advocating lying, or misrepresenting our ideas, or tricking anyone into doing or thinking anything in any sort of underhand way. Your logic here appears to be Greenpeace produce propaganda -> Greenpeace manipulate people -> people who produce propaganda are manipulating people. There's a few steps missing there before you have something approaching a coherent argument.

At the end of the day all propaganda is is a communication designed to spread (or "propagate") a given idea or set of ideas. A lot of propaganda can be very manipulative and dishonest, but that's not what I'm advocating here - all I'm advocating is that when we're trying to persuade others of our views, which is something I think we should be doing, we try and think strategically about how we do that. The only way that could be interpreted as manipulation is if you think any attempt to communicate in an appealing and attention-grabbing way, such that people have a better chance of listening to what are, lets face it, some pretty fringe political views that a lot of people would simply dismiss out of hand, is inherently manipulative. If you think just trying to get people to listen is manipulative then, well, I suppose it is in a sense. But in the sense that trying to influence people to do anything ever is manipulative. And if that's the sense your using it in I guess we'd better just settle in for some Actionless Waiting, because we wouldn't want to be AS BAD AS THE CAPITALISTS and try and actually talk people round would we? Honestly.

~J.

*And yes, I know, Hitler wasn't a vegetarian, but you know what I mean.

But, like, what was its effect?

After say, five minutes?

ALSO,

I'm kind of describing the overall terrain of the capitalist world rather just throwing out manipulation as a accusation for anarchists in particular. The situation is that marketers of all sorts are constantly, constantly at everyone's doors, looking to sell something, changes the terrain of impersonal communication. The reason markets lean on "viral marketing" and stuff is that most people understand that most things coming at them are efforts at manipulative bullshit. How do you deal with that, both in terms of getting through to people and in terms of not being a manipulator?

And yes, I am saying that the world where you have so many passive "target audiences" and so many would be manipulators makes it harder not to be one or the other. Want me to tell you why? Can you spend a minute figuring out why? I thought not. The point is that we who want to be part of creating a world where people aren't treated instrumentally need to, right now, adopt a method which doesn't treat people instrumentally. "The means are the end" etc

I guess that a large number of people were exposed to anarchist ideas, in a fairly appealing format? What do you want me to say? "And then there was a full revolution?" The thing about political work in general is that its effects aren't always that obvious or measurable.

Well RedHughs, that's a tough question, but if you're "kind of describing the overall terrain" rather than actually replying to anything specific that I said in my post then I still don't really see what I've done to earn the initial rebuke.

I have to confess you've got me there. I'm absolutely at a loss as to what on earth you're talking about here.

Can you please point out where in anything I have written here I suggest or imply that we should treat people instrumentally? Or are you still talking about the "overall terrain", in which case - who are you talking to?

This is looking increasingly like a derail, and an exceedingly silly one at that. Someone came on here trying to have a meaningful conversation about propaganda and what, if anything, it can achieve. After several responses and some constructive dialogue, you've come on to type screeds about marketing, manipulation and all sorts of guff that's just fucking irrelevant to anything that was being said up to this point. No one on here actually advocated anything approaching a manipulative or instrumental approach to anarchist propaganda. You seem to have simply read someone trying to give a sketch of what a strategic approach to propaganda might look like, and thought "sounds a bit like Greenpeace" (or whatever), and gone off on one on the back of that. As I said, that's no way to make an argument.

~J.

RedHughes tentative comments are far from any kind of 'derail' if you consider the wider questions Davi originally asked. RedHughes reference to avoiding an instrumental approach range a bell with me because I recall discussing exactly this point a bit on another thread about the SWP's and other leftwingers instrumental approach to their political activity, pointing out that it was not entirely absent from the anarchist and libertarian communist milieu either even if a bit less obvious.

Bear in mind that the term 'propaganda' has it's origins very much in the concept of religious conversion - trying to convince people that a groups ideology is correct and superior to other competing groups with the primary aim of recruiting people to your particular group.

So looking at some of the anarchist propaganda at demonstrations or in some campaigns can we say that it was aimed at, and successful, in advancing that campaign or wider social movement or was it simply an exercise in self-promotion in competition with other groups - a kind of marketing exercise. Even if it passes this test what exactly was the connection with a social revolution - was it little more than the idea that the exercise was a means of 'building the organisation' or more generously 'building the movement' in much the same fashion as the rest of the left says we must do till it is strong enough, sometime in an indeterminant future, to 'make the revolution'?

Chilli's approach to 'propaganda' in it's more general useage as ''starting a conversation'' sounds good as long as we remember that a conversation is a two way process not just a ruse to win over the other.

FWIW:

I don't think you can equate self-promotion (in the sense of revolutionaries promoting revolutionary ideas) with manipulation, an instrumental approach to people, or "a kind of marketing exercise" unless you're using these terms in so broad a sense that they lose virtually all meaning.

Very little anarchist propaganda is aimed at organisational recruitment. I suppose in a general sense it is aimed at movement building, but not "in much the same fashion as the rest of the left" since anarchists are generally highly critical of the left (and this criticism is generally a prominent feature of anarchist propaganda). The connection with a social revolution I would have thought was obvious. If revolutionary ideas become more prominent in society, that makes people more likely to act in a revolutionary way.

"BUT WAIT" I hear you you cry, "don't you know ACTION comes BEFORE consciousness? People have to come to revolutionary ideas THROUGH THE CLASS STRUGGLE, we can't simply make a revolution happen by talking 51% of workers round to our point of view, then pushing for FULL COMMUNISM!"

While I entirely agree that we're not going to get a revolution just by propagating revolutionary views effectively, to argue that action precedes consciousness to the extent that propaganda is completely worthless is to take that position to a ludicrous extreme. The prevalence of revolutionary ideas obviously isn't irrelevant to revolutionary movements even if we accept, and I do, that it's not the main driving force behind them.

Yeah, and I agree with Chilli Sauce, I'm all for starting conversations, but your post here just seems like a rather weak attempt at "more critical than thou" posturing tbh.

~J.

Red Hughs, no doubt there is some horrific anarchist propaganda out there and I know some platformist types (I'm thinking one in particular who used to post on libcom) who want to adopt very corporate methods to organise and spread ideas. However, I don't think what you're describing applies to most of the propaganda I've seen come out of AF or SF. Rather, as I said in my first post, the best propaganda is specific and practical and designed to start a dialog.

If anything, I think anarchists (in the UK anyway) are conciously moving away from esoteric sloganeering and Class War style shock value ''agitprop' towards the accessible and the concrete.

The other thing is that maybe the word 'propaganda' can be a bit misleading. I mean, it does come with a whole set of connotations. But I think it's easy enough to cut through capitalist/fascist/state uses of the term to understand what folks mean--as anarchists--when they say it.

The irony being Class War was very accessible, and as a result fairly well read for what it is. Like them or not, they obviously did something right and that can't just be shrugged off as shock value agitprop.

i think propaganda is extremely important! but i have a broad definition of propaganda... i'd say it's any type of communication meant to persuade. so that book you read was propaganda!

think of the political views most people have. how did they get them? largely through the propaganda of their schooling/education, the corporate owned news media, and the speeches made by politicians which are aired or quoted in that media. all propaganda!

only skimmed the thread so not sure if others already made this point.

You know, I'm going to act like Ultra-Left Lennin and decry all of this is as dangerous revisionism or whatever it is Lenninists do.

Anarchism should speak to the working classes, not lecture them. Our ideology and our propositions should find beacheads in the working class not in the realm of abstract philosophizing but in the realm of actually seeing and feeling such phenomena - in working class organization and through class struggle.

Now I'm not saying propaganda doesn't work - and the idea that propaganda can't viscerally speak to the experiences of working people and exists only as a theoretical, philosophical position to mull over is an intellectually dishonest strawman - I'm just saying that it's proabaly nowhere near as effective as organizing our workplaces and our communities. If anything, I think propaganda has a more significant role as an auxillary to our organizing efforts.

Oh, and can someone answer Davi's question, I really don't get how "spreading propaganda" logistically works beyond, like, going door to door handing everyone a copy of 'The ABCs of Anarchism" like renegade Jehovah's Witnesses? I don't understand how a propaganda only approach would work in the slightest, and I think looking at groups like the SWP should make everyone a lot more goddam skeptical of the approach. It might as well be activism. Hell, why not oppose "propaganda" because it seems real goddam impractical?

Also CW was horrible and we should all pretend it didn't exist