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=E. Conclusion (150-200 words) Tips]= IMPORTANCE OF INVESTIGATION the arts and architecture were very highly valued as methods of propaganda in Hitler’s Germany. He had to get rid of the ‘decadence’ of the Weimar republic, and create his Third Reich, which of course had to look different from the previous government, not just rule differently. By changing the style of art and architecture, the Nazi party put their new rule into the forefront of people’s minds, and affected them all, not just the upper, middle or lower classes exclusively. By exposing people to such nationalist propaganda on a daily basis and on such a large scope, Hitler follow the ‘big lie’ principle of propaganda; that if something is repeated loud enough and long enough, it will be seen as true. These sources (the arts and architecutre) are also useful to the historian studying the topic nowadays because, not only does the study of Nazi propaganda provide ideas as to what the Nazis thought should be the ‘ideal Germany’ and the ‘ideal German’, it also gives the historian a crucial insight into what the socio-political mood was at the time in Germany. However, we must realize that practically all of the works of art and anything that was to be seen by the public would be censored by the government so it did not project a bad light on the Nazis.

In Russia, Lenin and the Bolsheviks realized that at the time of the 1917 Rev and the declaration of the new Soviet state, that they needed to "gain control over the sphere of public discourse and to transform popular attitudes and beliefs by introducing new symbols, rituals, and visual imagery." To bring the Russian peasantry on their side, they put a lot of time and energy into what is known as 'invented traditions'."Invented tradition...a set of practices...which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.". This was meant to smooth over the transition from Autocracy to Communism in the years following the 1918 revolution, in order to keep unity both inside the party and to keep the peasantry on the side of the bolsheviks via a "seizure of meaning". "For the Bolsheviks...it was critically important to establish in public discourse the heroic position and collective identity of the working class.".

DEBATES ON THE TOPIC Much of the debate surrounding the propagandist art of the Bolsheviks was the way in which the pieces of art were interpeted. As posters reached a wide audience, it is impossible to tell exactly what each individual focused on and what they thought about each piece. Similarly, this problem affects the modern historians who study Bolshevik art and propaganda. There is a very large room for interpretation on the importance of each aspect of the picture, although the overall message of the art may be easier to discern by captions which often appear in the pictures and cartoons. However, there is another fundamental issue for modern historians to wrestle with. Many of the reviews of these posters and pictures comes from the 1930s, meaning there is a lack of knowledge of the direct viewer response to these works in 1920s and 40s. This limits how far we as historians can say we 'know' what propaganda messages were transmitted most effectively to the population. As most of the evidence is also from journals and newspaper reviews, the evidence is subjective, and therefore that means that the reviews will not necessarily formed from a group conseus, but from an individual's response, who will see different things than another person.

This also creates a problem when it comes to matters of 'how effective', ones without a definite answer. How can we as historians say if we 'know' if a piece of propaganda was effective or not? As a Theory of Knowledge problem, one of the ways we can approach it is if there are any written records by anyone at the time criticizing (or not) any of the posters or architectural designs at the time. One source for critics is the newspaper- however, for us historians, we know there is a fundamental problem with looking to the newspapers of those countries in that era for truth-the press was censored. In both Nazi Germany and the USSR, be it Der Sturmer or Pravda, we can be sure that the Government will have had a say in what content was posted or not, and we can be sure that these two governments will not want any voice disagreeing with the government's latest policies, or criticizing their political advertizing. To search for another way, we could ask people who were alive at the time about the forms of propaganda that were considered effective at the time. But, there are two problems with this; one, we would need to find people still alive who could tell us about it, and two, propaganda was meant to affect thousands, millions of people- a testimony of one person hardly allows us to say if whether or something was considered 'effective' propaganda.

The best chance would be to look at government reports and see if say, enlistment figures or Lebensborn program worker numbers increased over a certain period of years after this advertizing campaign went up. However, we have to beware that, in a country without a free press, the facts and figures will most likely be falsified in order to show how 'successful' a government's policies are. As well, if dealing with enlistment in the army, we have to be aware that in Russia during the Civil war, and Germany during WWII, conscription into the army was mandatory, so it wouldn't matter if propaganda were used or not as the figures would not reflect the specific contribution of that piece of propaganda. And besides, propaganda is often used in different forms- in Germany it was not only in art, but also used in music, radio, sports, youth programs, education and other such methods. It is impossible to predict what the effect (if any) of one poster or building is going to have on the population.

These are problems Historians have to wrestle with, and acknowledge if they are determined to say that they 'know' something, or if they want to present new evidence to make an argument for any particular case about something in History.