A short course on the history of the CPSU in the distorting mirror of party propaganda

The article is devoted to discussion of the "Short course in the history of the CPSU" at a meeting of the Political bureau of the CPSU in October 1938. The reasons that prompted Stalin to reorient propaganda for the Soviet intelligentsia and rewrite the history of the party after the Great Terror of 1930-ies come to light. The article presents how the country received a new history of the party with the new party, how impersonal history becomes usable base to create a personality cult of Stalin. Strengths and weaknesses of party propaganda in the Soviet Union are identified when the reverse side of a total subordination is the growing alienation of the Soviet people from the official ideology.