It is enough today to look into the comments to the news on the websites Mail.ru or Topwar.ru to make sure: for the majority of those who write these comments, the United States is enemy number 1. Why is it so, it is understandable, it is very beneficial for the state to have a very specific enemy for a certain social audience. There is someone to blame for all the problems and internal disturbances. As a matter of fact, it is enough to turn on any TV news program to understand the following - “this is a bad country”. They kill Russian adopted children, test new weapons, try to move missile defense systems to the borders of Russia, finance terrorists fighting in Syria, or even launch missiles there. There is drought, floods, fire, shootings or a financial crisis that is always about to begin, but for some reason everything is postponed. Such news is brought to the very beginning of messages, as if nothing is more important than this. And it is not surprising that many citizens think so.
Meanwhile, in the United States, only 5% of the population is interested in foreign policy! [1] And they live well, by the way. In Los Angeles, firefighters' pensions run up to $ 100,000. Not bad, isn't it? However, the most interesting thing is that a similarly conducted information policy in Russia, when it was the USSR, already… existed! This can be seen especially clearly in the examples of publications in the Soviet periodicals of the 30-40s, both central and local, about which it is quite possible to say that they fluctuated in a single rhythm with the policy of our “native Communist Party”. Moreover, the information policy in those years was carried out very rudely, primitively, with outright "blunders" in the presentation of materials.
Some of our newspapers in the past came out with downright "unusual" words. I wonder if it will be possible to repeat now such a word on "VO"?
So, in 1930, Soviet newspapers reported that "the pre-crisis position of American workers is lost forever, the movement can only go through colossal deterioration" [2]. But immediately there were materials that American farmers use a disc plow-harrow, which "greatly increases labor productivity" [3], grow "sweet lemons" [4], and ordinary people can buy "a cheap and convenient apparatus for shooting a movie (so in the text. - Author's note) and demonstrating them at home "[5]. On the one hand, the United States launched the "Terror at the Ford plant" [6], at this plant "workers … were subjected to beatings and terror", "the plant developed a whole system of espionage and provocations directed against union members." On the other hand, on the fourth page in the Science and Technology section, readers learned that in the USA in 1939, “the world's first windowless plant” was built [7], in which “all workshops …, as well as a design bureau and the factory office is located in the same building without partitions. An air-conditioned unit ensures the same temperature, humidity … regardless of the weather or the season. In an hour, the volume of air in the building is changed about 5 times. Fluorescent lights flood the workplace with an even light, almost without shadows. The walls of the building, made of a special material, and the ceiling, insulated with cork, soften the noise so much that it does not interfere with employees and even laboratory workers."
Everything, absolutely everything "there" was in crisis, including intelligence!
Having familiarized themselves with the content of such notes, Soviet citizens could conclude that the working conditions of workers in this country of "brutal capitalism" are not at all so bad. Moreover, they are such that at this time they themselves cannot even dream of anything like that! And moreover, even the most "simple" Soviet people from this inevitably had to ask the question: "And who then uses all this, if the workers and farmers there are without exception starving ?!"
Oddly enough, but an important source of information about life abroad for the inhabitants of the USSR at that time were political feuilletons that appeared on the pages of the same newspaper "Pravda". Despite the critical orientation of these materials, in publications of this genre at that time, quite objective information about life in the West was still printed. From them, Soviet citizens could not only learn that New York is a boring and dirty city, and "much cleaner in Moscow!" [eight]. But also the fact that the American “factory worker earns 150 dollars a month, that is, our money is 300 rubles. " In order to understand what effect this kind of message could have on our workers, it is necessary to cite in the messages of our same press concerning the level of wages in the USSR. In particular, in the material of the newspaper "Pravda" "On the rationing of wages" [9], the following facts were cited: "Couriers have the smallest category - 40 rubles, the highest salary is 300 rubles." And in forestry, payments to workers were even more modest: foresters received 18 rubles. per month. That is, Soviet readers could conclude that the average American worker, in the "years of instability and internal weakness" [10] of capitalism, earned much more than his colleague from the first socialist country in the world, or even an engineer of the "highest rank"! Moreover, the Americans not only earned good money, but also settled in "chic American hotels", where "each room has its own bathroom and toilet, and even with its own hall, living room and other things." All these materials could be perceived by ordinary Soviet people, who lived for the most part in "closets" [11], only as something from the realm of fantasy.
“Pioneers! Be carefull!"
In the Soviet press, in political feuilletons of that time, one could also read about the life of ordinary American farmers, whose level of well-being could shock our collective farmers, who sometimes had no idea what a tractor looks like: “I had to visit one farmer. Five other "middle peasant" farmers gathered there … Each arrived in his own car. When on the way back one of them gave me a lift, his wife ruled. In general, everyone here knows how to drive a car … "As a result, a peasant from the Oryol province in January 1927 wrote in the" Krestyanskaya Gazeta ": that the working class is being crushed there, but, conversely, they read that machines are working there in all branches, and the workers are in control of them. And the working class lives, enjoys all sorts of luxury comforts that our bourgeoisie …”[12]. It is difficult to say what fate befell this peasant in 1937, but the fact that he wrote this in 1927 speaks volumes.
Such a newspaper was also published in the USSR. And then the "degree" of the fight against opium for the people … decreased. And why would it be?
As soon as the war with Germany began, the picture painted by the Soviet media changed once again. Now it turned out that "the brutal German fascism is surrounded by great democratic powers, on the industrial front it is opposed by the mighty defense industry of the Soviet Union, the military industry of Great Britain and the dominions, the rapidly growing power of the United States of America" [13]. Moreover, if in one place it was called "growing", then literally a week later it "grew" so much that it earned the epithet "huge" from Pravda. The newspaper bluntly wrote that "the enormous economic power of the United States is well known" [14]. That is, our newspapers themselves created the myth about the power of the United States, and then, already in the 50s, they tried in every possible way to break it and prove the opposite!
The USSR receives from the Americans the 5000th Bell P-39 Airacobra, USSR, September 10, 1944.
Another example is the publication in the Soviet central [15] and regional newspapers [16] of information about deliveries under Lend-Lease, where even the number of millions of pairs of shoes supplied from the USA, England and Canada was reported, that is, information that was top secret in military terms was given. ! However, why this happened precisely in 1944 is quite understandable. It was obvious that victory was not far off, and Stalin needed, on the one hand, to show his people how much they supply us with, on the other hand, to show the same to our enemies.
We also had such a newspaper. Very interesting. But … no matter how much you look in the memoirs of our "general" as well as historians of the Soviet period, there are no references to it. Why? After all, newspapers are always a valuable historical source ?!
Even in the Bible it was said that a house built on sand would not stand, and it should be noted that the weakness of the informational foundation of the Soviet regime had become a fait accompli by the beginning of the 50s of the last century. It turns out that the state authorities in those years at all levels did not understand the harmful consequences of such informing Soviet citizens. All this cost the Soviet state very dearly in the recent past and undoubtedly continues to cause direct harm even now, since the benefits of having an "enemy image" are always no more than momentary! And, of course, this should be remembered even today, when information wars in the world are going on continuously. Because what is good now may become useless tomorrow. So even today's information policy should be conducted not only with an eye to the present day, but also to the future, which sooner or later, but will certainly come! You should always leave yourself a loophole for the future! And to give not only and not so much negative information, but also positive. And if we do not know how to manage information in this way, then we need to learn this, and only then grab the helm of the state ship!
Bibliographic list
1. Arin O. Russia: not a step forward //
2. The Crisis in the USA and the Situation of American Workers // Pravda. May 12, 1930. № 129. С.13.
3. Ibid. February 25, 1930. No. 46. P.44.
4. Ibid. February 14, 1930. No. 37. C.4
5. Home cinema // Trudovaya Pravda. March 9, 1930. No. 57. C.4
6. Stalin's Banner. April 24, 1940. No. 95. C.2
7. Factory without windows // Stalin's Banner. June 1, 1940. No. 124. C.4
8. How we arrived in New York // Pravda. September 10, 1925. No. 206. C.5
9. True. October 27, 1925. No. 246. C.3
10. XIV Congress of the RCP (b). Political report of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). Report comrade. I. V. Stalin // Pravda. December 20, 1925. No. 291. C.1
11. Help! // Truth. May 10, 1924. No. 104. C.7;
12. "Socialism is heaven on earth." Peasant ideas about socialism in letters of the 1920s. // Unknown Russia. XX century. Book 3. M., 1993. S. 212.
13. Bottlenecks of the German industry // Izvestia. August 16, 1941. No. 193, p. 2.
14. Resources of the US industry // Izvestia. August 24, 1941. No. 200, p. 2.
15. On the supply of weapons, strategic raw materials, industrial equipment and food to the Soviet Union by the United States of America, Great Britain and Canada // Pravda. June 11, 1944. No. 140. C.1; On the supply of weapons, strategic raw materials, industrial equipment and food to the Soviet Union by the United States of America, Great Britain and Canada // Izvestia. June 11, 1944. No. 138. C.1.
16. On the supply of weapons, strategic raw materials, industrial equipment and food to the Soviet Union by the United States of America, Great Britain and Canada // Stalin Banner. June 13, 1944. No. 116. S. 1-2.
