Propaganda Theater

(also agitator team and agitator theater), in the USSR, a small professional or amateur theater group. Propaganda theaters developed shortly after the October Revolution to serve the fronts of the Civil War. In the late 1920’s, they began to spread on a mass scale to construction operations and industrial enterprises; later they spread among the student bodies of institutions of higher education. Propaganda theaters propagandize progressive methods and criticize shortcomings. Their repertoires are based on acutely contemporary, topical material and consist of dramatic, musical, and choreographed miniatures. A review of the best propaganda theaters was held in Moscow in 1967.