Throw Down Your Tools, And Create... Art!

This image is from a 1935 production of Waiting For Lefty performed by The Group Theater (and features a young Elia Kazan years before he testified before HUAC). There were a number of similar productions happening throughout the '30's (not just this and Cradle Will Rock), all hoping to spread a political message through their stagecraft. Often Leftist, and occasionally overtly Communist, these plays were often seen as helping to spread the "Red Scare" in America, in spite of the overall quality of these productions. Often, agitprop plays were well attended, well produced, and received good reviews from critics. The government, and anyone with a right-leaning agenda, hated them.

Agitation Propaganda comes from the Russian phrase, where "propaganda" merely meant "dissemination of information." The term was applied to theater Europe in the 1920's, mostly inspired by the work of Bertolt Brecht. The form then spread to the US in the 30's, which ultimately led to the downfall of the Federal Theater Project, on suspicion that there were "reds" infiltrating the program (based on the subject matter of the plays). Agitprop art has continued in the United States ever since, manifesting in music, film, paintings, sculptures, novels, poems, and street performances. With the advent of the Inter-Web-A-Tron, new forms of agitprop art have developed, and there are a number of groups dedicated to creative dissemination of radical ideas. Most recently, the activist group Anonymous distributes a number of creative political memes online which can only be interpreted as agitprop.