Agitation Courts as a Form of Agitation and Propaganda Work in the 1920s.

The article is devoted to such a type ofagitation and propaganda work, which was actively used in the 1920s, as staged agitation courts (agitsudy). According to the idea of their popularizers, they should have been an integral part of club work, being evaluated as a sufficiently effective way to revive cultural work and involve the broad masses in it, and become one of the many forms of rational organization of free leisure time. The article considers the range of topics covered by the agit-sudy and their place in cultural and propaganda work in the context of the transformation of everyday and leisure culture. The author comes to the conclusion that agitation courts, when properly organized, helped to combine indoctrination with entertainment, thereby contributing to the involvement of the broad masses in agitation and propaganda work. With minimal organization costs, they were more effective than lectures and plays due to the active involvement of the audience in the process. The topic of the processes depended on the most relevant tasks for the time and place and was often associated with the ongoing political campaigns. If initially agitsudy were organized not only to accuse, but also to re-educate, educate and integrate new values into everyday life, then by the end of the period there is a tendency to weigh down the charges and increase the severity of sentences.