Agitator

The political agitation (Latin agitare, upset ',' stir ') stands for:

• ( pejorative ) the most aggressive influencing the other in political terms. The term is used pejoratively sometimes in the vernacular, but also in journalistic commentary. The agitator is often equated with an agitator, instigator, instigators and troublemakers (see demagogue );
• Political education work or advertise political or social objectives.

An agitator will move especially by motivating, inspiring or inflammatory speeches and publications, a greater number of people to a joint action or reaction (usually in terms of a political opponent ).

Agitation and propaganda in Lenin

The concept of agitation and propaganda had a central role in political- organizational debates of the early Russian social democracy and should retain this meaning also in the days of the Soviet Union. Lenin's distinction between agitation and propaganda that followed Plekhanov, who in 1891 determined this as follows: " The propagandist conveys many ideas to one or more persons, the agitator but gives only one or a few ideas, but he gives them a whole lot of people. " Lenin developed the idea further in his writings: " ... the propagandist ( must ), for example, in treating the issue of unemployment explain the nature of capitalist crises reveal the cause of their inevitability in modern society, the need for the transformation of this society into a socialist state, etc. (...) The agitator, however, who talks about the same question is to pick out the most well-known all his listeners and most glaring example - eg the starvation of an unemployed family, the increase in begging, etc. - and all of its efforts on judge to convey because of this all the known fact of the ' mass' of an idea: the idea of the futility of the contradiction between the increase of wealth and increase of misery, he will endeavor to awaken in the mass discontent and outrage over this outrageous injustice, while he is left the rest loose explanation of the origin of this contradiction, the propagandist. The propagandist therefore acts mainly through the printed, the agitator through the spoken word. " To illustrate the distinction called Lenin as examples of propagandists Kautsky and Bebel Lafargue and for agitators and Guesde.

Agitation in the state socialism

In communist parties and states the function of the agitator is possibly even an office (see section agitation, agitprop ). Angela Merkel was about in the 1980s secretary for agitation and propaganda at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR. In the GDR, there were already at the schools, the position of the agitator. One or more students in each class were responsible, published in the state media by wall newspapers and political communication and to inform the public about the prevailing opinion and early meinungsbildend act on the class collective. In the old Federal Republic, however, provided in § 130 StGB the " incitement to class warfare " under penalty, from 1970 sedition.

Demarcation of the propaganda

While in the context of socialist, Bolshevik, Stalinist and Maoist parties mainly of agitation ( possibly even of agitprop ) speaks, if you think the political seduction, can be found in regard to Nazism and fascism almost exclusively the term propaganda.

The term " agitation" was indeed temporarily positive connotation, while " propaganda " is used tends to be pejorative, but is just as propaganda come as originally positive name in the democratic parties largely into disuse. In the prevailing language propaganda is often propaganda for something (such as a regime ), agitation, however, usually agitation against any abuses or their ( perceived or turn propaganda designated as such ) cause. Although of the same etymological origin ( agitare = " float " ), is to connote agitation negative, often the German word " propaganda " used.

While " propaganda " also rather the medial- journalistic product, is part of an institutional system and not so much refer to the process it is with " agitation" reversed.

Quote

• "The secret of the agitator is to make himself as stupid as his audience are, that they believe they are as clever as he is. " - Karl Kraus, Sayings and Contradictions, 1909.