agitprop

The noun is borrowed from Russian агитпро́п (agitpróp, “agitprop”), Агитпро́п (Agitpróp, “Agitprop (Department for Agitation and Propaganda of the Soviet Union)”), short for отде́л агитации и пропаганды (otdél agitacii i propagandy, “Department for Agitation and Propaganda”); analysable as a blend of agitation +‎ propaganda.^[1]

The verb is derived from the noun.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈædʒɪtpɹɒp/

• Audio (Received Pronunciation):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈæd͡ʒətˌpɹɑp/, /-ˈpɹɑp/
• Hyphenation: agit‧prop

agitprop (countable and uncountable, plural agitprops) (politics)

1. (uncountable, also attributively) Political propaganda disseminated through art, drama, literature, etc., especially communist propaganda; (specifically, communism, historical) such propaganda formerly disseminated by the Department for Agitation and Propaganda of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
   • 2020 June 23, John Bolton, “The Singapore Sling”, in The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 96:

     The letter was pure puffery, probably written by some clerk in North Korea's agitprop bureau, but Trump loved it.

   • 2024, Jeremy B. Rudd, A Practical Guide to Macroeconomics, p. 2

     Like most pieces of agitprop, the Lucas and Sargent paper vastly overstated the deficiencies of the old order.

2. (countable) An instance of such propaganda.
3. (countable) An organization or person engaged in disseminating such propaganda.

• agit prop
• agit-prop

agitprop (third-person singular simple present agitprops, present participle agitpropping, simple past and past participle agitpropped)

1. (transitive, intransitive, politics) To disseminate (something as) political propaganda, especially communist propaganda, through art, drama, literature, etc.
   • 1929, Harry W Laidler, Norman Thomas, editors, The Socialism of Our Times: A Symposium (Prelude to Depression), New York, N.Y.: Da Capo Press, published 1976, →ISBN, page 241:

     Anyone who has seen a class struggler at work, agitpropping around Union Square, or the back streets of the Loop, realizes that, by the very nature of things, he or she is so possessed of that particular barricading dream as to lose touch with all reality, [...]

   • 1957, Trace, London: Villiers Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 10:

     With respect to a poet's facility in logomachy, boredom in the area of power politics theorisation, the seriousness or gaiety with which he agitprops his ego, the degree of his attitude toward the superior poet, or the rebelliousness or conformity of his disciples?

   • 1971, Stephen D Kertesz, editor, The Task of Universities in a Changing World (International Studies of the Committee on International Relations, University of Notre Dame), Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, →ISBN, page 89:

     This is to suggest that the university will leave behind its more limited work and bourgeois integrity in order to undertake the task of brain-trusting and agitpropping for the revolution.

   • 1987, Fatma Mansur, Phoenix in Her Blood: A Historical Entertainment, Beverley, North Humberside: Eothen Press, →ISBN, page 157:

     Envoys and missionaries agitpropped in the four corners of the Empire, [...]

   • 1990 December 20, Mel Gussow, “Review/Theater; apartheid re-echoes in a musical rendering of a strike’s bitterness”, in The New York Times‎, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 May 2015, section C, page 11, column 1:

     More an insecure platform for Mr. Ngema's didacticism than a play with a life of its own, "Township Fever" is agit-propped with polemical sloganeering.

   • 1993, Instauration, Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Howard Allen Enterprises, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 31, column 1:

     The double agent was Grant Bristow, who agit-propped for—not against—the right-wing Heritage Front and is now hiding in a safe house.

   • 2005, Richard Grossinger, On the Integration of Nature: Post-9/11 Biopolitical Notes, Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic Books, →ISBN, page 99:

     I knew that he [Allen Van Newkirk] agitpropped other poetry readings and media events, e.g. the Underground Press Syndicate conference in Madison (shouting, "All media are lies").

• agit-prop

• agitprop on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Finnish Wikipedia has an article on:

agitprop

Wikipedia ^fi

Borrowed from Russian агитпро́п (agitpróp); equivalent to agitaatio +‎ propaganda.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɑɡitˌprop/,
• Rhymes: -op
• Hyphenation^(key): agit‧prop

agitprop

1. (historical) agitprop

• Audio:

  (file)

agitprop f (plural agitprops)

1. agitprop

• “agitprop”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Unadapted borrowing from English agitprop.

agitprop m (plural agitprops)

1. agitprop (Communist propaganda)

agitprop m (Cyrillic spelling агитпроп)

1. agitprop