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During the cold war era, when the world was split by two ideological bloc, when the international system was bipolar, and when USA and USSR made a lot of world crisis by engaging proxy war in another country. Humanitarian crisis, economy crisis, political crisis, and revolution erupted everywhere driven by these two hegemony power.
Aside from that chaotic world situation in the early 1960s in England, four lads from Liverpool formed a band that would revolutionize the music industry named The Beatles. The Beatles brought many novelty to the music industry, such as studio experiment in “Norwegian Woods” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” albums. They also created the first concepted album where the whole song was linked by unifying theme on Sgt. Pepper’s album.
Fusion on different music genre like rock, pop, classical, Indian music, and psychedelia make their songs unique. Their Easy listening and memorable lyrics, crafted by all band members, contributed to the massive sales of their albums.
let’s put aside the musicality that they have, their style was also the selling point in that era. Their iconic “Mop tops” hairstyle hit the world lifestyle trend by influencing their fans that often called Beatlemania to get same haircuts with them.
Despite the hype and widespread popularity of The Beatles, leaders of both hegemonic countries did not appreciate them. The USSR and the USA both banned and deported The Beatles from entering their countries. But why did they do that? Was John Lennon’s influence considered that dangerous?
Brezhnev
USSR was known for its strict conservatism, especially when it comes to censoring the entertainment. USSR aimed to protect its citizens from Western doctrines infiltrating through entertainment.
Soviet conservatism was highly strict, enforcing censorship even within fashion and lifestyle spheres. Once time in Leningrad, an officer stopped a Beatlemania fan named Vashin, the officer spotted his long hair and said “You are not a Soviet man!” charged the officer and grab his hair.
But how come by listening to A hard Day’s Night lead to regime overthrow? Why was the USSR so afraid, censoring The Beatles and other Western music?
USSR is used mass media like radio, newspaper, and television as their propaganda tool. Allowing Western music risked making Soviet propaganda irrelevant to societal culture.
How can mass media shape the society culture? Raymond Williams defined culture as a particular way of life shaped by values, traditions, beliefs, material objects, and territory. And all of that can be achieved when using mass media.
Michael Dobs wrote in International Herald Tribune in 1982. “According to official Soviet dogma, art should not merely reflect life, but play an active part in the construction of socialism. This cultural commandment is all but ignored by rock musicians. Their songs voice the frustrations of Soviet youth, expressing a sense of individualism and alienation from the system”.
Brezhnev’s ruling era was remain same with Khrushchev’s era, the cultural system in the country were tightly controlled to political decisions. But in Brezhnev’s regime, the strictness of music censorship was tightened due to booming of the west rock bands.
Their authority also often appeal to their citizen that The Beatles songs was decadent and subversive. This is indirectly undermined their credibility when people realized the songs were mostly about boy-girl relationships.
Despite the strict of the Brezhnev’s regime, The Beatles were band with the most widely bootlegged recordings in the Soviet Union. The records was often smuggled from west, and they re-records on discarded x-rays.
Richard Nixon VS John Lennon
Different person, different problem, and this topic problem is not about conservatism like before. It’s about Lennon activism vs Nixon regime. What kind of movements did Lennon make to piss off Nixon, and what decisions did Nixon make that prompted Lennon to undertake those movements?
Nixon escalated the Vietnam War, a conflict initiated by Truman in 1945 to help France retain control and prevent the spread of communism. Official US troop deployment began in 1955.
This war making one of the worst humanitarian crisis in the cold war era, with over 2 millions casualties for both side. In 1969, when Nixon officially became US President, the war had been ongoing for over 20 years with no signs of ending.
What worsened the war under Nixon was that he widened the conflict to Laos and Cambodia. He make the most controversial decision by increasing amount of bombing in Cambodia also North Vietnam.
Apart from that, Nixon also the president who responsible for withdrawing US troops in 1973, ending direct US involvement in Vietnam war. However, why did Nixon, a “peace with honor” President, was pissed by John Lennon movements towards the end of his term as President?
The Beatles cohesion in late 60s was not stable because of money, drugs, death of their manager, and each member was developing artistically in different directions. Lennon also married with Yoko that later will be one of another cause of disbandment of The Beatles.
Lennon’s solo career was colored with peace lyrical songs, such as Imagine, Happy Xmas (War Is Over), and Give Peace a Chance. Aside from his songs, he also make anti war campaign by initiating events like Bed-In for Peace. He also rents billboard to write “War Is Over! If You Want It” in 12 major cities from Tokyo to New York with various languages.
Lennon’s activism for peace drew a stern response from Nixon due to his critics on Vietnam war. Professor Jon Wiener’s book “Lennon and the Politics of the 60s” was heavily censored, and he said “Government feared Lennon, and Nixon devoted an incredible amount and of government resources to try to get rid of him.”
US government under Nixon was tries heavily to deport Lennon using illegal activity sentence during 1972. This was due to the millions of copies sold of “Imagine” and the new age-lowered election policy that allowed citizens aged 18 to vote. 25 million new voters who will be old enough to vote for President and covered 18% of total resident population of voting age.
Nixon will run for re-election in 1972, the problem came from his opponent, George McGovern who opposed heavily on the involvements of US on Vietnam war. Now we can relate the millions of copies sold of “Imagine” and Nixon’s hatred towards Lennon.
Lennon’s peace activism made bumpy way for Nixon into re-election, and benefitted McGovern to gain vote from new voters. Lennon it self was very popular in US and gain much influence from young people since he was in Beatles even after the band was break up.
The main problem in this part are Lennon make Nixon concerned about re-election from his opponent. Actually this is more political personal problem rather than protecting US image on Vietnam war.
Walter Ulbricht
1960, the early years of The Beatle as a band, they choose Hamburg as their place to learn and explore their music skills. They spent 2 years in that city, performing in many clubs who managed them to develop their skills on musicality and performing.
West German have their special place on their hart, especially in Hamburg. They also made special Germany version of I Wanna Hold Your Hand (Komm, gib mir deine Hand) and She Loves You (Sie liebt dich).
Does East part of Germany (GDR) had different treatment with the West part on responding the booming of rock and pop band. Despite of the alignment ideology with Soviet, Ulbricht regime tolerated the new music scene on East.
GDR records company Amiga released three Beatles singles which showed that Beatles fame was spread across the country. But why the left-block country allowed Beatles songs, even produces their record with the state-owned enterprises.
It did not last long after Amiga released their records in 1965, Beatles haircuts was overly use by GDR young generation. In September, the Rolling Stones held a concert in Berlin, and it ended in chaos.
Ulbricht responded it with gave instruction to authority to take a tough action against that kind of music events. He also showed his dislikes to the west band scene by give statement “Is it really the case that we have to copy every piece of filth that comes from the West? Surely we should put an end to the monotony of ‘ye, ye, ye’ or whatever it’s all called.”
The restriction’s impact was significant, reducing the number of bands in Leipzig from 56 to 9. Responding to that, thousand young people gathered and dispersed by police, some of them arrested and got the punishment doing forced labour in coal mining.
Social behavior that shown by young people was the reasons of the Ulbricht hates to beat music scene that happened in GDR. This case was different from other leaders’ cases because it is quite far from political issues or national interest.
Soekarno
The Beatles virus was spreading all over the world, literally all over the world including Southeast Asia country like Indonesia. They had visited a Southeast Asian country once in the Philippines, and it ended tragically. The story was viral in world headline news at that time.
The Beatles never come to Indonesia, Indonesia are non-block country, Beatle does not produce lyrical to offend their ideology or insult Soekarno. Why did Soekarno put heavily censor like what Brezhnev and Ulbricht do on Beatles.
Soekarno, he was one of the founders Non-Align Movement and initiated Bandung Conference that attended by 29 countries. This movement was the counter from left and right bloc, with many countries who joined had recently gained their independence.
Soekarno really hated imperialism and colonization, which was reflected in his hatred of The Beatles. He ban The Beatles record to be play in Indonesia, he also make policy to redistribute all vinyl records and cassette in music store per 22 July 1965.
Soekarno said “songs must not sounded like howling dog in the midnight and nor like ngak ngik ngok, song should be capturing fighting nation spirit.” In another interview he was asked, is the reason he hate Beatles because of neo imperialism, Soukarno said “no just the mental issue.”
We can’t draw a conclusion by only using one interview; Soekarno recently mentioned in his speech to Indonesia’s young generation. “You, as the young generation of this country must be responsible for eliminate those western influence.”
Rolling Stone and The Shadows were also victims of his policy, either with local band Koes Ploes who influenced by Beatle also got banned. For all information that I have been gathered , we can use idiosyncratic theory to explain Soekarno reasons on banning Beatles and others western music.
Simplified, the idiosyncratic theory framework uses individual characteristics formed by history and culture as tools of analysis in policy-making. Soekarno was a nationalist, and as I have explained above, he hated imperialism.
We all know that music contains the culture brought by its creators. The mental issue that Soekarno mentioned above was the westernization culture brought by Beatles which he personally does not like that. Since he was a nationalist, he also mentioned that songs should capture the fighting spirit of the nation.
What was Soekarno do its very similar to Brezhnev, censoring western songs to keep away its influence from citizens. Soekarno had slightly better way on promoting this policy to young people, Soekarno was directly told the young generation that their ngak, ngik, ngok songs was suck.
The tendencies of those policies were also different. Soekarno’s decision came from his idiosyncratic views, in contrast to Brezhnev, who actually used these rules to defend against enemy influence.
Soekarno’s anti-imperialism and his idiosyncratic tendencies were intertwined. His broader ideological commitments to anti-imperialism were expressed in unique and personal ways, influenced by his individual preferences and beliefs.
