Posted on 02/16/2014 6:05:35 PM PST by annalex
And that unknown translator has done a great service.
I think, though, an important piece left out of the professor’s work is the fact that the USSR had such an effective PR campaign and numerous State Department infiltrators even before WWII.
National Socialism could serve a similar purpose if it weren’t based on racial theories and fear of Jews and a type of nationalism that’s foreign if not repulsive to most westerners and especially Americans. It’s too polluted with that stuff at the theoretical level to be kept around. Communism, on the other hand, looks great in theory. It’s all about the universal brotherhood of man, liberation of the individual, equality, peace, justice, etc. Its moral aspirations come straight out of the Judeo-Christian tradition (while distilling out inconveniences like God and the Bible) and so it has access to lots of familiar receptor sites in the western mind. For the West, communism is like clinically pure heroin whereas National Socialism is street junk tainted with battery acid.
The clenched fist is coming.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Indeed it leaks through. It is just less a determinant of professional success, since school teachers mostly teach the basics, if anything.
I know a school principal back in the day, now retired, who kept his Republican affiliation secret all his professional life.
Indeed. I wrote to him, but haven't heard back.
I think more often than not it wasn't such a skill at PR that influenced opinions in the West, but that people at all levels just wanted to believe the Soviets. A misunderstanding of the proper role of monarchy played a part as well.
Yes, but these are post-WWII when the US fought against Germany. Prior to that, Hitler was looked upon favorably by everyone precisely because people instinctively respect nationalism and reject Communism. It was an incredible turn of the tables that America, itself a nationalistic nation like no other (remember “Truth, Justice and the American Way”?) was conditioned to treat nationalism like a dirty word. Of course, the brutality of the SS is repulsive, but it needn’t have transferred to abandonment of nationalism. In fact, in 1950’s it didn’t. The decline of American nationalism dates to the Vietnam war, I think. Moreover, socialism — the other component of nazism, — should have been rejected just as strongly by that logic but it hasn’t been.
I understand that point but I do not fully agree with it. The dissolution of the USSR was, perhaps partly reversible (as concerns Belarus, Kazakhstan and a handful of other limitrophes); there are now some courageous souls in Kiev risking their lives to make it wholly irreversible. The break-off of Eastern Europe is clearly irreversible already. It would be no easier for a new Stalin to occupy Riga or Warsaw than to occupy Holland, -- and probably harder still.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Yes, on that score I agree. What, do you think, the ultimate objective is?
Why no commie Nuremburg? Because the winners don’t have to stand trial.
I believe this was their plan all along, it just took a little longer to unfold than they thought back in 1925. I even believe the Cold War was just a ruse, to build up fears and tension, so that when the "overtures of peace" did happen, we happily went to sleep and let down our guard. Whether the clenched fist comes from Moscow, Beijing or DC, I don't know. But the fist is coming, and as a nation, we're sound asleep.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Funny... Joan of Arc did stand trial and got burned at the stake, and that was DESPITE her key role in ensuring France won its war.
And quite frankly, had I been the president at the time, I would have made dang sure to try the Communists as well.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.