Every citizen is obliged to die for the fatherland, but no one is obliged to lie for his sake.
(Charles-Louis de Second, Baron La Brad and de Montesquieu (1689 - 1755) - French writer, lawyer and philosopher)
And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not fulfill them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand; and the rain fell, and the rivers overflowed, and the winds blew, and beat on that house; and he fell, and his fall was great.
(Matthew 7: 21-28)
Today, many people talk about the need to fight for the "truth of history", but have these same Pravdists (journalists from the Pravda newspaper editorial office) always been consistent and … truthful in their writings? No, alas - no! Moreover, it is with their "patriotic" publications, written, of course, from the best and most principled motives, that their authors destroyed the information foundation of our country!
Can't believe it? Do not wonder! Because this is not at all difficult to prove, especially if you take and read, say, the same newspaper Pravda from 1921 to 1953. Thus, a graduate student S. Timoshina of Penza State University, when she was working on her Ph. D. thesis on how the Soviet party press at that time covered the life of our citizens abroad, revealed very interesting moments in her research.
It turns out that despite the total control by the party (which is confirmed by many party documents), there was not one single information stream in the newspapers of the USSR in the coverage of foreign events, but … as many as three!
First: "the world revolution is not far off"! From issue to issue, contrary to all evidence, Pravda and other newspapers wrote about how bad things are abroad, people are starving, going on strike, confessing their love for the USSR, in one word - “just about there will blaze!” But year after year passed, and for some reason the revolution did not take place there …
The second stream was devoted to the achievements of foreign science and technology. Until 1946, newspapers constantly reported that “there” they had discovered, invented, released, sold such and such a millionth car, almost simultaneously (!) With reports that in the same USA and Germany all the people were starving without exception! Well, how, tell me, was it possible to write about this so insanely at that time? Very objectively, and without any criticism, they described the Focke-Fulf-200 aircraft, American nylon, a “flying car”, factories with air-conditioned air and shadowless light, and immediately, literally on the previous page, material was published about “terror at the Ford factories."
The third theme is completely unusual. These are feuilletons in the style of "One-Story America" by Ilf and Petrov. 100% verified journalists came “from there” and wrote … the truth about life “there”! No, they, of course, criticized the local bourgeois system and the exploitation of man by man, but … it is more interesting to read their real examples and compare them with what we had! And people read and compared, and then wrote reviews in newspapers, even the peasants! In them, they argued that America would come to socialism before us, “through the machine,” and not the dictatorship of the proletariat. And such reviews were published back in 1927. But the fate of their authors in 1937, unfortunately, is unknown to me today.
So not all people even then were so stupid in our country that "they did not see the forest for the trees."We saw, and how, as evidenced by the sharp questions that the same peasants in the countryside asked the party agitators. And what did Academician Vernadsky write in his diary? So those who saw all this were not so few. And how could you fail to see it when in one issue of Pravda they wrote about Tukhachevsky that he was the son of a peasant, and only three months later that he was the son of a landowner! And, nevertheless, when the thunder of the Great Patriotic War struck, people went to fight for their country, for their people. But many of them simply laughed at the same movie "Chapaev". After all, those who fought with him personally were still alive then …
However, if you think that at least something has changed in the articles of the Pravda newspaper since the beginning of the war, then you (go and read it yourself!) Are cruelly mistaken! There are even more inventions! It is clear that it was impossible to report in the press information constituting state and military secrets. But … letters from German soldiers home and from home were printed from issue to issue, where it was reported that the Germans were starving in the rear, that the soldiers at the front were tired and did not want to fight, as if there were no military censorship and the Gestapo in Germany. German pilots flew over to us, one after another, reporting their names and addresses in the press, clearly not fearing that their loved ones would be immediately sent to a concentration camp, and those who had not yet surrendered are cowards and are hiding from our hawks in the clouds! Moreover, the more the Germans went, the more panicky letters they wrote to their homeland. Should I have written like that? Yes, it is necessary - to raise the patriotic spirit of the majority of the country's population!
But then why, when the Germans were driven back, the letters of the Wehrmacht soldiers from the Soviet press immediately disappeared (just as the articles about the atrocities of the Gestapo disappeared from the pages of Pravda after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), but articles appeared about that the apartments of the Germans are bursting with French cognacs, sausages and furs. But in 41-42 years. the newspaper wrote that in Germany everyone is starving and eating whale meat. Where does French cognac come from? It is clear that the authors of these opuses simply forgot what they wrote a year or two ago, but people did not forget this, kept the filings of newspapers, read them, collated and saw what the newspaper Pravda was circulating for them!
At the same time, she practically did not write anything about the blockade of Leningrad until the city survived - only then the Leningraders, who “won in the name of Stalin,” were praised there in every possible way. Neither did they write about the barbaric bombing of the Germans in August 42nd on Stalingrad, probably, so as not to frighten people once again. But it would be possible, and, let's say - should - write about all this in such a way that the truth is, and the secret is preserved, and so that we, the descendants, reading all these opuses, do not have to clutch our heads! Didn't know how? Yes, just like that, and in no other way, because they did not read special books on this topic, "they were not trained in languages," and they wrote - and even marshals - with grammatical errors altogether. As a result, we were unable to outplay the graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, and in peacetime, without any war, we put a great power at their feet with all missiles and nuclear submarines.
Well, as far as supplies under Lend-Lease are concerned, everything turns out to be very interesting. So, in "Pravda" for June 11, 1944, top-secret data on supplies to the USSR under the Lend-Lease program from England, the USA and Canada were published, including the number of pairs of army shoes and cars, and even with the mention that so many thousand tons at this time they are sailing to us on the sea. Then this message was reprinted by all our army and local newspapers (in part) and - it is quite clear that it was absolutely true and excellent PR! True, because the slightest lie (exposed by the spies) in this case could cause mistrust of this whole message, which in relation to Germany - and there Pravda was also read there - in no case could be allowed! Like, how much has been sent to us by the allies - beware of the Fritzes! Well, our people are also "happy" - that's how everyone helps us, where the Germans are against us!
However, read historical research and memoirs of the 60-70s. of the last century … At least some of their authors refer to this source? No! Moreover, they still argue about Lend-Lease, including on the pages of VO, but no one refers to this source in disputes! Is it difficult to climb up and reach the archive or library?
Returning to the publications of Pravda, it should be noted that by 1950 many of our people had stopped believing her altogether and even openly said that she … was lying! This is evidenced by the planting of many citizens of very different social backgrounds, carried out, for example, in the same Samara (then Kuibyshev region) in connection with talks about the Yugoslav leader - "Tito's bloody dog" and the outbreak of the war in Korea. We have data only for the Kuibyshev region, but they were imprisoned for this everywhere, because “you can't put a headscarf on your mouth”. Well, then Pravda first announced that we had no missiles in Cuba, and then admitted that, yes, they were there after all. That our military was not in Egypt in 1967, but they were there, and what, in fact, were we so embarrassed about if we were really a “great country”? Well, and the crown message in Pravda about the South Korean liner, which "went to sea." Confident in their righteousness, states do not behave in such a shameful way, and most importantly, they do not lie to their own citizens. Well, they shot down and shot down! "Border is locked tight!!!"
It should be noted that only in 1946, reports about the achievements of Western science and technology disappeared from the press, as well as pamphlets, that is, when the authorities realized that the information flow should be uniform! But it was too late. The information foundation of our society, thanks to the efforts of patriotic journalists (and, I will add, historians!), Crumbled, as if it were made of sand! People do not like to be deceived, they stop believing in the media, believing in the party, and in the end they do not go to the barricades, as they did not come out in 1991, and no betrayal and betrayal made the difference here! That is, the question in this case is not about whether our system was good or bad. The point is in the professionalism in the field of information and society management, and if it does not exist, then any society, even if it is built on the best principles, will surely fall apart, which, in fact, our history has clearly proved.
And it also happened that some of our historians published in the press a fact unknown to other historians that in 1910 an incident occurred on the roadstead in Fiume (now the port of Zara), which almost led to a war between the Russian Empire and Austria-Hungary. Say, there was an insult to the Russian flag, and Admiral N. S. Mankovsky gave the order to load the guns and our sailors on board the battleship "Tsarevich" slept beside them, without undressing … "The honor of the flag is worth the war!" - Admiral Essen seems to have said about all this. But the magazine "Niva" for this year, and other Russian newspapers and magazines did not report anything like that then. But, you see, he found the memoirs of some Russian sailor, published in a Parisian newspaper in 1950, and so they served as a source of the restored truth for him!
Unlike some pretentious critics, a real historian, if he wants to establish the truth, does this: sends a request to the appropriate archives. In this case, the request for documents should have been made to the archive of the Russian Navy. And what documents should be used as a source base? Firstly, by the report of Admiral Mankovsky, which he was obliged to present after the voyage, and secondly - and this is the most important source - by entries in the logbook of the flagship battleship "Tsesarevich" for the corresponding number. And they will send you photocopies of these documents (oh, what is the language in them, what turns of speech, what blots - shine, not documents!). And you yourself will see that no one slept there, without undressing at the guns, no one opened the cruise chamber, but just two admirals grabbed a little: the Austrian was with the ladies and did not accept ours, and ours did not accept the Austrian in return. All this was detailed in the report of Admiral N. S. Mankovsky to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and of course, there was no question of any reason for a military conflict there. It is even more interesting to read the pages of the logbook: “we made couples on boat No. 5”, took so many poods of cabbage, potatoes and tomatoes, prayed, whistled to wine, greeted different officials with cannon fire, and … EVERYTHING! And there was only one Austrian ship there, and not a whole squadron! But a historian, having attacked an interesting and little-known fact, must comprehensively check it, especially since it is not difficult to get into any archives via the Internet today. Photocopies of all of the above documents cost only 1,450 rubles. But no, for some reason he didn't!
So someone “deheroes history”, and someone heroes it so much, “that at least endure the saints” and why so, an intelligent person should understand. It's just that at first in 74 years the pendulum of our history went in one direction, but now it naturally went in the other, and besides, much faster, and many do not understand this and look at this natural process too painfully. And yes, of course, but it is imperative to fight against those who, as you think, distort history. But only it is necessary not with the help of pathetic exclamations and appeals to imprison under criminal articles, but as it should be in a democratic society - with the help of documents from archives and testimonies certified by a notary!
By the way, even Lenin wrote that information should be given in such a way that the masses knew everything, could judge everything, and went to everything consciously (VI Lenin. Soch., Vol. 35, p. 21). And journalists from the media, before writing, would think three times about how it will affect future generations later. After all, when it was still said that every citizen is obliged to die for the fatherland, but no one is obliged to lie for his sake.
