Original scientific paper
THE AUTHORITY AND THE PUBLIC IN CROATIA 1945-1952
Katarina Spehnjak
; Croatian Institute of History, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Even though the Communist systems controlled all institutions of civil society, their role was only representative, as the decisive role had the Party organs. in that sense the public did not have any intermediary role between the state and society, but activities were primarily filled with propaganda. The basic factors of creating the public were the Party "agitprops" (agitation and propaganda) and stale offices for information. Their assignment was in the first place to form a Party public, that was to ideologically and politically educate the members of the Communist Party and additionally to "educate masses", the widest parts of society through a networked propaganda system, all in order to reach the goal of mobilizing the public for supporting the goals of the authorities. A similar role was meant for the means of mass-communication, especially the newspapers and radio.
In such a system citizens did not have an opportunity to express their viewpoints freely, so their opinions about different measures of stale authorities remained in a private surrounding. The authorities were interested for their political views and were informed about them through reports of the party and sometimes, police organs. They especially kept track of views of certain groups and individuals that they held to be "hostile" oriented.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
207215
URI
Publication date:
4.12.2000.
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