Anyone care for some Cold War propaganda materials? I present to you:
Nuts, I thought this was a baseball thread.
But propaganda’s always fun, too.
Damn you, The 27th Evil! Why didn’t you find this last week, when I was writing my history paper on this very topic?! 
Oh, well. I’ll have to bookmark it for my Soviet History course next semester.
Robin
:eek:
Oh, now THAT’s GOOD…
Flashback to jr. high school-a History teacher who was a little bit out there-he calls me over after class, passes me a paperback and tells me something like, “You’re a smart kid-you need to learn about this kind of thing now to keep America strong.” The book was ‘The Creeping Red Menace.’ My liberal-leaning Mother wanted to know where the hell I got that book, and a fight between my parents ensued because Mom didn’t want me to read propaganda, and Dad said I should read both sides viewpoints and learn critical analysis. Oy!
This looks like the precursor of the Chic tract. The very first cell (heh) contains the first error, that the Russians had “representative government” before the revolution. This must have been Joe McCarthy’s bible.
When I was in the 7th grade my history teacher told us that the communists were going to take over soon. I was very upset, of course, and when I got home and told my mother what the teacher had said my mother yelled “What is she? A Goldwater Republican?” (Note: At that age I had no idea what my mother was talking about.)
Meanwhile other kids started saying the teacher was a communist, especially after she said Kruschev was fat and ugly but Stalin was handsome. (The teacher had suffered some brain damage due to an illness.) And I developed a strong interest in Russian history because often what horrifies you also fascinates you. At age 12 I was wondering if kids in Russia were fearing the US as much as I was taught to fear the Russians. (Yeah, I know it sounds corny, but I really wondered about that.)
Ms. Robyn, what did you write about? I wrote about the revolution of 1905 for a Russian history class I took. I found a lot of primary sources on line–the UNM library is pretty poor so I had to resort to the internet.
OH, and in the comic, I like the way Lenin and Trotsky cleverly hide behind a pillar while their soldiers fight in the streets.
Well, I live in Sarasota, and the Reds ARE coming.
My paper was for an American history course, so I wrote about American propaganda. I ended up writing about the home-front campaign during WWII and compared it to the modern campaign against hostile countries.
I’ve got the “Treasure Chest” site bookmarked for next semester, though, when I’ll be taking History of the USSR.
Robin
Russia did have a representative government prior to the October Revolution: the Congress of Soviets, which after the recent elections had a Bolshevik majority. The October revolution (:rolleyes: of November) overthrew Kerensky’s Provisional Government, which commanded little or no authority by this stage, and represented nothing except a nominal continuity with Tsarism. The Bolsheviks formed a minority in January 1918 after the next elections, but by then they had consolidated their power, and were able to disperse those meddling representatives.
(This is based on the handy article at Emayzine, which I think is superior to the Wikipedia entry.)
I don’t think you can call this McCarthy’s Bible, mainly because he died in 1957, but I liked J. Edgar Hoover’s foreword. “This knowledge is most essential, for it helps us recognize and detect the Communists as they attempt to infiltrate the various elements of our society.”
The eloquence of the writing is worth mentioning too:
“Young man, you have been arrested for your anti-government activities and are being expelled from the university.”
“They are the sinful roots created by Lenin to grow the sinful seeds planted by Karl Marx.”
“Russia has been fighting in the world war a long time.”
“Promise [the peasants] land, later we shall take it away from them. Our beliefs our built on hate.”
“There will be a fight. And I, Joseph Stalin, will win it.”
“The addition of China to Communism has strengthened our power.”
“Our latest directive from our superiors is to steal all anti-communist books from our American city libraries.”
Some of the religious parts are quite interesting. It seems slightly incongruous (but on consideration perfectly logical) that the book is aimed at a conservative, white middle American 1960’s audience that is exclusively Roman Catholic. Don’t miss the guest appearance by Georg Hegel, and the hoops the writers manage to jump through to avoid mentioning that Marx was Jewish.
MsRobyn and KRC, are you interested in the early Soviet cinema? They made some great [propaganda] films in the pre-Stalin era, including Strike! and Battleship Potemkin. The Bolsheviks gave us much of our early film theory and they very much recognized the power of film to persuade someone to agree with you.
Very interesting stuff. It’s like reading this comic, but with popcorn and cool music :D.
This line slayed me:
I, for one, welcome our new Communist Overlords!
(Aw, c’mon, it had to be said.)
I’m not that much into Soviet cinema, but I’m fairly sure that we’ll have to watch Battleship Potemkin in class. I, for one, intend to bring popcorn and candy.
Robin
In Soviet Russia, your overlords welcome you!