Top 10 Disturbing Propaganda Campaigns That Fooled the World

Top 10 Creepiest Propaganda Campaigns

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today were counting down our picks for the historical propaganda campaigns thatll send chills down your spine.

Mao Zedongs Great Leap Forward was a ruthlessly ambitious plan to modernize China and pull it into the 20th century. Carried out from 1958 to 62, Mao attempted to reform virtually every aspect of Chinese life, in a forceful, unprecedented, rapid-fire industrialization process. One major element of Maos grandiose plan was the Four Pests campaign, which targeted rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. Representative of Maos plan to recalibrate Chinas ecological order, the campaign was a dismal failure, and contributed significantly to the Great Chinese Famine that lasted from 1959 until 1961. The famine is reported to have killed as many as 55 million people in that time.

A disturbingly modern propaganda machine, the Islamic State militant group has utilized social and mass media to great effect since their 2014 rise to global notoriety. Originally employing social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, the IS propaganda videos are now limited to Telegram, among other, more protected sites. The videos often depict the organizations tactics and spread their message of Western hate as a means of radicalizing and shoring up potential recruits. A 2022 study by the peer-reviewed Journal of Politics determined that propaganda conveying the material, spiritual, and social benefits of joining ISIS increased online support for the group, while content displaying brutal violence decreased endorsement of ISIS across a wide range of videos.

As difficult as it can be to admit it, there is no one on Earth who is fully immune to the purposefully intoxicating effects of propaganda. However, it probably goes without saying that children are perhaps most susceptible to it. That was abundantly clear in the case of the 1952 quote-unquote social guidance film Duck and Cover. Produced by the U.S. Federal Civil Defense Administration, the nine-minute-long video colorfully provides detailed instructions as to what to do in the event of a Cold War-era Soviet nuclear strike. Although the effectiveness of the titular method has been debated over time, whats inarguable is Duck and Covers enduring eeriness.

Possibly the most disturbing element of this campaign against organized religion, particularly the Russian Orthodox Church, was the fact that it wasnt the first time such a discriminatory boycott had been launched. In 1928, Joseph Stalin determined that the initial campaign, which was launched in 1921, didnt go far enough. Furiously cracking down on the practice of religion, Stalin portrayed those who actively practiced as immoral and subhuman, and responsible for contemporary crises in Soviet society. Even educational textbooks in schools attempted to sow the seeds of hate against believers. All the while, the USSR adhered to its official policy of denying the persecution.

This Rwandan radio stations name translates to Free Radio and Television of the Thousand Hills in English, deriving from a historical nickname for the East African nation. Beginning its transmissions in July of 1993, the station was supported by public broadcaster Radio Rwanda, and was intended to spew hate against victims of the Hutu regime. These included Belgians, the UN, and crucially, the Tutsi. The RTLM benefited tremendously from Rwandans lack of newspapers and televisions, and its ubiquitous presence was successful in its mission of encouraging violence against Tutsis. The RTLMs leaders were eventually handed down harsh prison sentences for their roles in inciting the Rwandan genocide.

While propaganda usually consists of some kind of communications transmission, that doesnt necessarily have to be the case. Take, for example, the aforementioned Mao Zedongs struggle sessions, which appeared most prominently during the Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 76. In these bizarre, hard-to-watch public spectacles, supposed dissidents were beaten, humiliated, and sometimes even tortured to death. Those subject to struggle sessions were almost always considered one of the Five Black Categories, which included landlords, counter-revolutionaries, and those with political beliefs considered right-wing. A means of convincing the public that loyalty to the state superseded loyalty to ones peers, struggle sessions were eventually banned in China following the end of the Cultural Revolution.

Its very possible that youve never heard of this biological and chemical warfare research facility. Operated by the Imperial Japanese Army in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Unit 731 was an atrocity on par with the crimes of Nazi physician Josef Mengele. Chinese prisoners were subjected to depraved human experimentation, which included such war crimes as purposeful infection with diseases, vivisection, organ harvesting, and more, which well spare you the gory details of. The official cover story was that Unit 731 was a lumber mill, and prisoners were even referred to as logs. Even more chilling is the fact that those responsible for operating Unit 731 were never brought to justice, and were even granted immunity by the American government in exchange for their cooperation.

Widely regarded as one of the most brutal and inhumane dictators in history, Pol Pots despotic regime, known as the Khmer Rouge, was directly responsible for the deaths of as many as 2 million people during the Cambodian genocide. As part of his campaign of horrors, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge devised the Year Zero political doctrine, which aimed to erase Cambodian culture and history to make way for a supposed agrarian utopia. Books were burned, schools and universities were shut down, and anything that bore the mark of Western society was shunned. Year Zero was perhaps best summed up by Australian journalist John Pilger, who described its ethos as only work and death.

If youve learned anything about Nazi Germany, its likely that Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels were fervent adopters of propaganda to advance their genocidal agenda. Exploiting Germans low national morale amidst a deflated economy, Hitler found a common enemy to invigorate the nation: the Jewish people of the world. As such, Minister of Propaganda Goebbels personally oversaw the production of The Eternal Jew, a virulently antisemitic Nazi propaganda film that described Jewish people as being greedy, manipulative, and parasitic, among other disturbing charges. Even its director, German filmmaker Fritz Hippler, later described his film as being the most disgraceful example of antisemitism.

The entire Nazi philosophy was based on who deserved a place in this world, and who didnt. In contrast to the supposed superiority of the Aryan master race, the Nazis designated those with disabilities as being unworthy of life. Their solution was to advocate a sort of Nazi eugenics, which would systematically eliminate those that the Third Reich deemed inferior. In a disturbing snowball effect that eventually led to the establishment of World War II concentration camps, the Nazis deemed disabled people and the mentally ill as empty shells of human beings. This propaganda campaign demonstrates the power that public messaging can hold in terms of eroding human rights.

Which propaganda campaign creeped you out the most? Be sure to let us know in the comments!