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Political Speech Under Philosophical Theories: Impact of Stalin’s Speeches on the Soviet Union
- 1 University College London (UCL)
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Abstract
Language has always been a powerful tool in human society, it is often used for political purposes and a political speech can be extremely influential to the society and its audience when it is based on philosophy. During the reign of Stalin, his political speeches heavily influenced the citizens of the Soviet Union or the USSR. In fact, one of the main factors that led to the success of those speeches was the involvement of philosophical ideologies and theories in the language. The ideas from multiple philosophers such as Grice, Brandom and Tirrell earnestly supported Stalin’s speech and increased its influence, especially in the agricultural speech provided by Stalin in the late 1920s. For instance, Stalin by giving speeches based on philosophical theories, which helped gain the support and recognization of the vast majority of citizens, was able to shape the Kulaks as the enemy of the Soviet Union society and arrange suppression and eliminations towards them. Thus Stalin and his speech will be analysed in this paper by offering theories from different philosophers and discovering the role of the philosophy of language in politics, especially in political speeches. Additionally, providing an understanding of the huge influence and power of language for scholars exploring this field of study.
Keywords
United Socialist Soviet Republic (USSR), Grice, Brandom, Tirrell, political speech
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[2]. Harris, James, The Great Fear: Stalin’s Terror of the 1930s, 2015, p.87.
[3]. Brandom, Robert, Asserting, Nov., 1983, p. 647-648.
[4]. Stalin, Problems of Leninism (Moscow: Foreign Language Publishers, 1934), p. 391-393, 408-9 411-12. (https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1929-2/collectivization/collectivization-texts/stalin-on-the-liquidation-of-the-kulak/)
[5]. Maitra, Ishani, McGowan, Mary, Speech and Harm: Controversies Over Free Speech, 2012, p.195-196.
Cite this article
Zhu,A. (2023). Political Speech Under Philosophical Theories: Impact of Stalin’s Speeches on the Soviet Union. Communications in Humanities Research,11,47-51.
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Volume title: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Educational Innovation and Philosophical Inquiries
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