Ethan Frome - PBS



POST PRODUCTION SCRIPT

US & INTERNATIONAL VERSION

RED FILES

SOVIET PROPAGANDA MACHINE

an InVision Production

with

Abamedia in association with

PBS & Devillier Donegan Enterprises

Series Producers

William Cran

Kate Leonard-Morgan

Pre-title tease

NARRATOR

00.19 CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION MARCH TOWARDS THE “BRIGHTER SOVIET DAWN”.

00.29 THEY ARE TOO YOUNG TO KNOW THEY’RE GROWING UP IN A SOCIETY BUILT ON HALF TRUTHS….

00.36 … TOO YOUNG TO KNOW THAT THEIR MINDS ARE A BATTLEFIELD IN THE WAR OF PROPAGANDA.

00.45 VLADIMIR POZNER

The Cold War was really a propaganda war. It was not a hot war, it was a propaganda war in which all sides participated very, very actively, it was a struggle for people’s minds.

00.57 Series Titles____/ RED FILES

Subtitle_______/ Soviet Propaganda Machine

NARRATOR

01.35 THE HISTORIC MEETING OF AMERICAN AND SOVIET ARMIES AT THE RIVER ELBE IN GERMANY SYMBOLIZED HITLER’S UTTER DEFEAT.

01.50 THE VICTORIOUS ALLIES, ‘GI JOES’ AND RUSSIAN SOLDIERS, CELEBRATED THEIR VICTORY TOGETHER.

01.59 THE ALLIANCE OF THE TWO GREAT POWERS HAD NEVER SEEMED CLOSER.

02.12 YET WHILE THE WEST WAS WINDING DOWN THE WAR EFFORT, STALIN WAS REBUILDING THE RED ARMY AND TIGHTENING HIS GRIP ON THE COUNTRIES OF EASTERN EUROPE…

NARRATOR cont…

02.25 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE ALLIES WAS ABOUT TO CHANGE FOREVER.

SOF - Iron Curtain speech

02.31 “From Stetin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of central and Eastern Europe...”….

02.50

atomic explosion

SOF - newsreel

02.56 “…the stunning news that Russia has the atom bomb and has exploded it bursts upon America. John Hugh Citizen wonders ‘what happens now?’”

03.06 SOF – PRESIDENT TRUMAN

I want to talk to you today about what our country is up against…

NARRATOR

03.09 THE SOVIETS HAD ACHIEVED A BALANCE OF TERROR WITH THE WEST.

SOF – PRESIDENT TRUMAN

All the tings we believe in are in great danger. This danger has been created by the rulers of the Soviet Union.

03.22 NARRATOR

NUCLEAR PARITY MEANT MILITARY STALEMATE AND A NEW KIND OF WAR.

SOF – PRESIDENT TRUMAN

.. working together, we hope we can prevent another world war.

HERB ROMERSTEIN

03.32 The whole concept of Cold War is not having a hot war, not shooting at each other. So if you’re not using military weapons, then you’re using weapons of propaganda or ideology.

NARRATOR

03.43 THIS IS THE STORY OF AN UNPRECEDENTED STYLE OF WARFARE. IT WAS A WAR FOUGHT WITH WORDS, IDEAS, IMAGES AND THE TECHNOLOGIES OF THE NEW AGE.

04.00 FOR THE KREMLIN THE STAKES WERE HIGH. IT HAD TO MAINTAIN ITS GRIP OVER THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF ITS OWN CITIZENS AND COMBAT WESTERN INFLUENCE.

04.16 RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES

Sov dub theatre/tanks “…This parade of American tanks reminds one of fascist times.”

NARRATOR

04.24 WARMONGERING AMERICANS AND GRASPING CAPITALISTS WERE THE NEW FASCISTS.

04.32 RUSSIAN SOF -SUBTITLES

Cartoon “How charming this western chief looks. But he doesn’t need peace, he needs war.

04.43 RUSSIAN SOF -SUBTITLES

Cartoon “like a drunkard he reaches for the nuclear button ready to disrupt peace.”

NARRATOR

04.50 BORIS YEFIMOV, WHO DREW HIS FIRST POLITICAL CARTOONS IN 1918, WAS FORCED TO TOE THE NEW PARTY LINE.

05.03 BORIS YEFIMOV

I was often impressed by Churchill, by his will power, by his wonderful oratory, his jokes. I really liked him. But then suddenly it was announced that he was our enemy, and we had to draw cartoons about him

NARRATOR

05.22 YEFIMOV’S POLITICAL CARTOONS BEGAN TO SHOW WARTIME ALLIES AS MIRROR IMAGE FASCISTS.

BORIS YEFIMOV

But that was government policy, and it was a situation I couldn’t do anything about.

NARRATOR

05.47 DOCTORED NEWSREELS SHOWED CHURCHILL’S IRON CURTAIN SPEECH AS PROOF THAT THE WEST WAS EAGER FOR NUCLEAR WAR.

05.54 RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES

..atomic blast “it was a monstrous speech. It resounded into almost complete darkness. A fuse had blown.”

GVs Moscow NARRATOR

06.10 AS EARLY AS 1917, BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTIONARIES HAD GRASPED THE NEED FOR RUTHLESS CONTROL OF INFORMATION.

06.23 LENIN HIMSELF CALLED PROPAGANDA THE REVOLUTION’S MAIN WEAPON.

06.32 LEONID VLADIMIROV

when in 1918 Lenin closed all the non-communist newspapers.… There was no opposition voice. There was nothing you could hear apart from the Party line. The Soviet propaganda became overnight, total.

NARRATOR

06.50 TOTAL PROPAGANDA WAS REINFORCED BY TOTAL CENSORSHIP

06.56 LEONID VLADIMIROV

….You couldn’t publish an erm bottle, err a label. You couldn’t publish a err, wrapper of a sweet, an invitation card, nothing until you get the stamp of the Glavlit, that’s the abbreviation of the Russian Censorship.

NARRATOR

07.20 INTELLECTUALS AND ARTISTS WERE SET TO WORK GLORIFYING THE PEOPLES’ REVOLUTION.

07.36 BRIGHTLY PAINTED “AGITPROP” TRAINS SPREAD THE COMMUNIST MESSAGE.

07.50 RAILCARS WERE CONVERTED INTO LIBRARIES, PRINTSHOPS, MEETING ROOMS, PLAYHOUSES AND, ABOVE ALL, MOBILE MOVIE THEATRES.

LEONID VLADIMIROV

08.05 … Lenin said, of all arts, the most important for us is Cinema…

NARRATOR

19. LENIN CALLED FOR NEW FILMS

20. TO EXALT THE COMMUNIST CAUSE

08.25 THE PEOPLE HAD A NEW HOUSE OF WORSHIP. CINEMA WAS USED TO GLORIFY THE REVOLUTION AND TURN ITS LEADER INTO AN ICON.

08.43 RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES

Lenin ‘October’ film “He’s so ordinary”

NARRATOR

08.52 JOSEF STALIN TOOK THE ‘CULT OF PERSONALITY’ TO NEW EXTREMES

LEONID VLADIMIROV

09.03 Before the war Stalin was shown of course very widely but, only erm err as a real person. During the war some new element was introduced, Stalin was portrayed in feature films. ……. and some of them were sheer deification of him…..

There was a film….where Stalin suddenly appears….much bigger than anybody else in a snow-white uniform like a deus ex machina. … like God

10.01 RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES

Stalin feature film “Peace and happiness to you all, my friends!”

NARRATOR

10.20 STALIN (to:_p_deep_bio_joseph_stalin.doc) NOW CONTROLLED EVERY FORM OF INFORMATION.

10.29 HISTORY BOOKS WERE REWRITTEN. NEWSPAPERS CLAIMED FALSELY THAT SOVIET SCIENTISTS HAD INVENTED EVERYTHING FROM THE TELEGRAPH TO RADIO, FROM THE LIGHT BULB TO PENICILLIN.

10.42 STALIN’S GREAT TERROR FORCED DOUBTERS TO STAY SILENT.

10.52 ANYONE WHO DEVIATED FROM THE PARTY LINE COULD BE PUT ON TRIAL AS A SPY.

11.02 BORIS YEFIMOV

My brother was arrested in the office of Pravda newspaper where he was an editor and he disappeared. I realised what was going on and prepared myself for my own arrest, since I was as guilty as he.

NARRATOR

11.24 BORIS YEFIMOV WATCHED HIS OWN BROTHER’S SHOW TRIAL.

11.29 RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES

Under the party of Lenin and Stalin, the exploitation of man by man has been abolished.

11.35 INDICTED AS AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE,

MIKAIL WAS FOUND GUILTY OF CRIMES AGAINST THE STATE …AND SHOT.

BORIS YEFIMOV

11.45 I was allowed my freedom. I was left alive and continued to work. I could have just said you killed my brother, no, I'm not going to work. But they would have sent me to the same place.

NARRATOR

12.07 AS MILLIONS DIED IN STALIN’S PURGES, THE MOST FANATICAL PARTY MEMBERS SUDDENLY BECAME “NON-PERSONS”.

12.17 ENEMIES OF THE STATE WERE AIRBRUSHED FROM THE PAGES OF HISTORY

12.24 ALFRED PORTER

.when people would be taken away and shot uh, they would be a new circular sen, sen, sent to all libraries to all schools and everywhere that they had to cut out a page from the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia and put another page in which was sent to them specially printed and so when Trotsky disappeared, young people who didn’t, you know didn’t know better would ask Trotsky who they’ll say. Don’t, don’t talk about it, don’t talk about it, nobody, nobody, not important. That’s how it was.

NARRATOR

13.08 THIS WHOLESALE CENSORSHIP GAVE STALIN’S GOVERNMENT A MONOPOLY ON EVERY FORM OF INFORMATION.

13.19 A RELENTLESS STREAM OF PREVALENT PROPAGANDA REACHED INTO EVERY HOME.

ALFRED PORTER

13.27 Every house, every flat had to have, had to have a radio on the wall which was wired into, into special socket...It was mostly silent but then one, two times a day it would start crackling and then some voice would say, from Soviet Inform Bureau.

It was, really like Orwell, like, like, like big brother talking to you telling you what you uh, what you should know.

13.57 LEONID VLADIMIROV

Wired network always err told you about the err achievements in every walk err of life.

Achievements around, and of course very negative information about the outside world.

NARRATOR

14.19 BY 1950, STALIN HAD ACHIEVED A TRULY TOTALITARIAN STATE.

14.29 FROM WOMB TO TOMB, EVERY SOVIET CITIZEN WAS DRILLED IN THE PARTY LINE

14.29 LEONID VLADIMIROV

The Old Russian saying says that you may influence a child only when it is as small as to fit across the bed. And when he grows longer than that and you have to fit him along the bed, it would be too late.

ALFRED PORTER

15.01 … The moment you arrive in kindergarten you are Little Octoberist, they put on you badge with uh, some little face supposedly Lenin when he was little one and they start indoctrinate you. Uh, granddad Lenin, kindest of all people, Granddad Stalin kindest and wisest of all people.

….by age of four I could already read by heart some poem called uh, Death of Illich, Illich of course being Vladimir Illich Lenin. Uh, you know and, and I was singing songs like uh, something like uh, I am little boy, I dance and sing, I never saw uh, granddad uh, Lenin but I love him

LEONID VLADIMIROV

15.46 So the picture of the world is formed in the mind of a toddler, or, or a 7 year old. Was very simple, we live in the best country err in the world. The most advanced. The freeist, and err, the country where erm, the erm, workers and peasants err actually rule.

16.08 RUSSIAN SOF – SUBTITLES (little girl poem)

If you’re singing a song of happiness

If you’re going down a hard road

You should know that you’re not alone…

NARRATOR

16.25 LITTLE GRADUATED TO THE PIONEERS, WHERE THE MESSAGE OF UNDYING LOYALTY TO THE MOTHERLAND WAS CELEBRATED IN FANFARE FASHION

16.44 TATIANA VORONTSOVA

Everyone wanted to be in the Pioneers. Including me. I was ten when I joined, in the third form. There was an acceptance ceremony and we bought pioneer ties for it. And when mother brought the ties home, me and my sister were stroking them .

NARRATOR

17.06 TATIANA VORONTSOVA JOINED THE YOUNG PIONEERS IN 1958. FOR HER AND HER CLASSMATES IT WAS A DAY OF INTENSE PRIDE.

TATIANA VORONTSOVA

Young Pioneers The pioneer leaders came, they took the ties and all the pioneers who stood in front of us hung the ties around our necks.

tie ceremony We felt so good, we were happy, we were congratulated. At last we were pioneers!

ALFRED PORTER

17.44 .. in summer we would go to a special Young Pioneers Camps. Where also be indoctrinated very heavily all those songs about uh, revolution, about this, uh, civil war, about uh, such a great uh, personal examples such as this guy called Pavlic Morozov ….

NARRATOR

18.11 SINCE THE EARLY 1930s, THE HERO HELD UP TO EVERY YOUNG PIONEER WAS A THIRTEEN YEAR OLD BOY CALLED PAVLIC MOROZOV.

Kulaks & grain

NARRATOR

18.25 THE STORY GOES THAT WHEN PAVLIC FOUND HIS FATHER HOARDING GRAIN HE REPORTED HIM TO THE AUTHORITIES.

….

HIS FATHER WAS ARRESTED AS AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE - AND EXECUTED

18.41 HORRIFIED BY THE BOY’S ACT OF BETRAYAL,

THE LOCAL COMMUNITY TURNED ON THE CHILD AND KILLED HIM.

18.48 TO PARTY PROPAGANDISTS, THE BOY WHO DENOUNCED HIS OWN PARENTS WAS A HERO AND A MARTYR.

18.57 TATIANA VORONTSOVA

So he was killed, he died a hero. We wanted to be heroes too, and at that time if I had been in the same situation, and my father had done something against the Soviet state, I would have gone and reported him, simple as that.

NARRATOR

19.17 THANKS TO PAVLIC MOROZOV, PARENTS LEARNED TO FEAR THEIR OWN CHILDREN.

.

19.22 LEONID VLADIMIROV

There was a psychosis of denunciation and parents were very much afraid to say a free word in the presence of the children

19.34 JANE LITVINOVA

My parents definitely held back information from me. Er, I think they were just very cautious and they had a very good cause to be afraid… My father was working in a scientific research institute, but I believe for the military institute. For them every word er spoken by me er which er, er, could arise some suspicion about er their loyalty, could be ruin of his career…

19.57 ALFRED PORTER

…….. in the Soviet Union you, you, you never knew who was the, the KGB spy really you know, the informer, the snitch. Uh, the on, uh, the only thing you could be sure that they were every where. Your neighbour could be, your friend could be …..

NARRATOR

20.16 FOR OVER TWO DECADES THE SOVIET PROPAGANDA MACHINE HAD DEIFIED STALIN.

…..

BUT IN 1953, THE GOD PROVED TO BE MORTAL.

20.28 ALFRED PORTER

…. in intervals between very, very sombre music which was played twenty-four hours on the radio. …They were giving bulletins about uh, state of his health. ..Very low blood pressure and this and that. And my uncle was very good doctor he said to his wife, it is the end and she said, “SSHH don’t, don’t talk, don’t mention”. People were afraid even, even, even among themselves in the family…

21.14 …I remember a lady doctor came to us and she was asking, God what will happen now with all of us, how can we live without Stalin? And it was genuine you know, people were brought up to believe that without Stalin they, they, they couldn’t survive.

NARRATOR

21.42 STALIN’S DEATH WAS THE END OF AN ERA.

21.46 NO SUCCESSOR COULD APPLY THE SAME DEGREE OF RUTHLESS CONTROL.

21.54 AFTER 1953 OTHER VOICES BEGAN TO PENETRATE THE IRON CURTAIN.

SOF

Arch Reagan Radio arch “My name is Ronald Reagan. Last year, the contributions of sixteen million Americans to the crusade for freedom, they were this powerful 135 thousand-watt radio free Europe transmitter in western Germany. This station daily pierces the iron curtain with the truth.”

NARRATOR

22.18 THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT WAS SAID TO SPEND MORE MONEY TRYING TO JAM WESTERN RADIO STATIONS THAN THE AMERICANS SPENT ON ALL THEIR BROADCASTS TO COMMUNIST COUNTRIES.

NARRATOR cont…

22.29 THESE EFFORTS WERE IN VAIN, MILLIONS OF ORDINARY RUSSIANS STILL GOT ROUND THE JAMMING AND TUNED IN.

ALFRED PORTER

22.40 No jamming could be really hundred percent. Once I remember I was listening and jamming was not effective and I could hear a voice telling in Russian about some Catholic priests in the Soviet Union being persecuted, being arrested, being thrown in prisons, sent to camps and I was thinking camps what camps. I knew only Pioneer, Young Pioneer camps no, no other camps. So I thought how people can tell such lies. then I thought maybe are they people to not lie to. Maybe the radio doesn’t lie.

23.21 JOE ADAMOV

The official propaganda told its people one thing, and the from abroad be it from London or from New York or whatever, or from Germany they heard the, the true end of the story, that was it. It was only natural they wanted the true story and the only way to do it was to tune in a foreign station

23.49 VLADIMIR POZNER

I think they had a great impact err, according to different statistics but approximately 40 million people, 40 to 50 million people listened regularly to those broadcasts for information.

24.01 ABBOTT WASHBURN

If they know that there is, there is freedom, there are free people, other, elsewhere, its a stubborn idea that stays in their mind that they can enjoy freedom some day, and this is what these radios were doing, keeping up the hope.

NARRATOR

24.29 IN 1956, HUNGARIANS, URGED ON BY RADIO BROADCASTS FROM THE WEST, ROSE UP AGAINST THEIR COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT.

24.41 SOVIET COVERAGE OF EVENTS GAVE NO HINT THAT RUSSIAN TANKS WERE CRUSHING A GENUINELY POPULAR UPRISING.

ALFRED PORTER

24.50 In the Soviet Union, they were telling basically that in Hungary the forces of reaction tried to take over the country, to bring Hungary out of Soviet block to bring it in to the capitalistic camp. And that brotherly Hungarian people asked Soviet Union to intervene, to, to save them from, from, from dread of uh, return of capitalism.

NARRATOR

25.23 COMMUNIST POLICEMEN, LYNCHED BY HUNGARIAN MOBS, WERE USED TO JUSTIFY SOVIET INTERVENTION.

25.32 RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES

Soviet Arch of Uprising “A terrifying spectre of the fascist beast had risen all over Hungary. It was necessary to save the fate of the country.”

25.50 VICTOR LISTOV

The uprising in Hungary in 1956 is a very important landmark in our history. People started to argue with each other over events there. Some thought our country was wrong, but sadly they were in the minority. The majority were brought up in the old way, thought we were right.

NARRATOR

26.21 THE RED ARMY’S BRUTAL SUPPRESSION OF THE HUNGARIAN UPRISING HAD SHOCKED THE WORLD.

26.32 THE NEW SOVIET LEADER, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, DECIDED ON A DRAMATIC CHANGE OF TACTICS. TO SHOW A FRIENDLIER FACE,HE TOURED AMERICA IN 1959, EATING FAST FOOD, SWAPPING JOKES WITH MIDWESTERN FARMERS AND EVEN VISITING HOLLYWOOD.

27.06 DURING THIS THAW IN COLD WAR RELATIONS, MR.KRUSCHEV AGREED TO A PROGRAM OF CULTURAL EXCHANGES, WHERE EAST COULD MEET WEST.

27.16 ABBOTT WASHBURN

The American National Exhibition in Moscow was a real Cold war blockbuster. Eisenhower said we must do this, it will be the first time since the Bolshevik revolution that we’ve been able to interface one on one with several million Soviet citizens. We must not miss that opportunity.

SOF

US Exhibition arch “….demonstrations of youthful dance steps are appreciated too….other young Americans perform folk dances.”

NARRATOR

28.00 THE SOVIET LEADERSHIP WAS TOTALLY UNPREPARED FOR THE IMPACT OF AMERICAN CONSUMER GOODS ON ORDINARY RUSSIANS.

28.09 VLADIMIR POZNER

In a country where you had only shortages, where most people, the overwhelming majority lived in so-called Communal apartments, several families sharing one bathroom, one kitchen, where you had no modern gadgets, what, what was seen there was like it is from a different planet and people grabbed everything that was available, every flier, every booklet, every er badge, pin, every tin can, everything, it was gobbled up by people who stood in line for hours to get in.

SOF

“…. Another magnet for crowds is the soft drink area. Brightly coloured stands on the exhibition grounds provide liquid refreshment, eighty thousand servings on an average day. For most, the taste is a totally new experience.”

29.02 ALFRED PORTER

…The American Exhibition really was like a, like a, a ray of sun into a room which was alone in the dark, completely sealed off. Because we never saw abroad we, we could never go abroad…. And then suddenly in this dark room, a ray of sun and we thought, we don’t need this communists really you know they’re talking about, they talk to us about shiny tomorrow, we saw shiny today. People abroad are living in this shiny tomorrow …...

NARRATOR

29.37 SOVIET PROPAGANDA TRIED HARD TO PAINT A NEGATIVE PICTURE OF THE EXHIBITION.

29.42 RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES

”We tried our best to understand our transatlantic guests...”

29.53 VICTOR LISTOV

I remember a case of a student from the aviation institute who was banned from lectures and the young Communist League just because he was wearing an exhibition badge. It was a foreign badge, it was hostile propaganda and it was immediately suppressed.

NARRATOR

30.22 BUT THEIR GOVERNMENT’S EFFORTS TO DISCREDIT THE EXHIBITION MADE THE SOVIET PEOPLE EVEN MORE CURIOUS.

SOF

30.29 “A model home on the exhibition ground is jammed with visitors having read much criticism of this model home in the soviet newspapers, has not been typical. They rushed to see it in such numbers that a central viewing quarter can hardly contain them. Actually, the six room house is not immodest by American standards.”

NARRATOR

30.50 RUSSIAN PREMIER KRUSHCHEV TOURED THE EXHIBITION WITH VICE-PRESIDENT NIXON.

SOF

30.55 “…a crackling exchange between Nixon and Kruschev began off camera and finished off before the American Ampex video tape recorders. Says Mr Kruschev ‘Soviets will overtake America and then wave bye-bye.”….

NARRATOR

31.15 EARLIER THAT DAY KRUSCHEV AND NIXON HAD ARGUED IN THE KITCHEN OF THE MODEL HOME.

31.21 VLADIMIR POZNER

Kruschev was saying "This isn't an average American kitchen, this is propaganda", he was reacting, it was so nice, you couldn't allow your Soviet visitors to believe that Americans had kitchens like this, because if they had kitchens like that, (clap) capitalism was better than socialism, simple as that.

NARRATOR

31.41 THE SUCCESS OF THE AMERICAN EXHIBITION FORCED

SOVIET PROPAGANDISTS TO TRY A NEW TACK.

…..

31.48 A MORE SOPHISCATED APPROACH WAS ADOPTED.

31.52 VLADIMIR POZNER

Intelligent propaganda is not a propaganda that tells blatant lies. It's, erm something where you try to show the good side of what you’re supporting and you don't tell about the negatives, you only tell about the positives which is true but it's only a half truth, and then it makes it err a half lie if you will.

SOF

32.15 This is your program ‘Moscow Mail Bag’

Radio Moscow Studio

NARRATOR

32.19 IN FLAWLESS AMERICAN ACCENTS, RADIO MOSCOW BEGAN TRANSMITTING ITS NEW STYLE PROPAGANDA TO THE WORLD.

SOF

“and Joe we kick off with…Humpy-doren-whatsen-flabbin from Sweden…”

NARRATOR

32.31 FORTY YEARS AGO JOE ADAMOV’S RADIO PROGRAM, MOSCOW MAILBAG, BEGAN ANSWERING QUESTIONS FROM LISTENERS ABROAD. BUT THE RUSSIAN MEDIA’S NEW ‘OPENNESS’ WAS A SHAM.

32.46 JOE ADAMOV

Radio studio tapes etc There was a question, err, from a student, I think it was in America who asked me who is richer, the United States or the Soviet Union, I said well naturally you're richer, but that was just a time when Krushchev said that we in 20 years time will be the richest country in the world. What do you know, the err, censor cut it all out. Not only the answer but he cut the question out, so I came to him and I said, would you please explain to me why you cut it out, he said where did you get the idea that they're richer. I said everybody knows it, he says, I don't know it. Well I said Krushchev that was only a year ago, in the States kept saying it all the time, well he says, he said it there but not here.

NARRATOR

33.29 AS A JOURNALIST ON THE NEWSPAPER IZVESTIA VICTOR LISTOV EXPERIENCED THE LABYRINTHINE RULES OF CENSORSHIP AT FIRSTHAND.

33.39 VICTOR LISTOV

….there existed a very strange rule, saying that since both Lenin and Stalin were earthly gods, their names had to be written on the same line. Under no circumstances could one name be on a line below the other. Also, their names could not be mentioned in a paragraph, which had a negative context. For instance, you couldn’t say that work in the Stalin collective farm was not going well, that would have been insulting god.

34.21 ALFRED PORTER

…You knew basically that you cannot write anything which would be negative about Soviet system, about Communist party, about our bosses, uh, about anything that, that was essence of Soviet system at all. So everyone had a censor in his own head….

34.39 LEONID VLADIMIROV

Every journalist knew three iron rules - …first of all, no negative event in the Soviet Union or in the Eastern European countries can be reported straight ….. Rule 2, no positive event err in Capitalist countries can be reported straight,... and the third rule, never generalise.

…Whoever says that production of steel generally goes down err compared to last year, would be erm, laughed out of the err editorial office. Because that is a generalisation …

.

ALFRED PORTER

35.32 You wouldn’t write that, that, that something is bad because, because your editor will think that you are an idiot a dangerous idiot. Also he can think that maybe you are agent provocateur of KGB who want to know the reaction of, by the editor. So editor will, uh, ring KGB on you because he will be afraid that you will ring KGB on him

NARRATOR

35.59 THE US CONFLICT WITH CUBA GAVE RUSSIAN JOURNALISTS A RARE OPPORTUNITY FOR “STRAIGHT” REPORTING.

36.13 WHEN CASTRO’S CUBA DEFEATED THE AMERICAN BACKED INVASION AT THE BAY OF PIGS, IT WAS A PROPAGANDA COUP FOR THE SOVIETS.

36.21 VLADIMIR POZNER

Well the Bay of Pigs was a terrible American miscalculation clearly. It was a disaster from the military view point, it confirmed that the Soviet Union had always said which was to say that American imperialism er would use force against anything that it saw as a threat, and there you there you saw this. It also sent messages out to the rest of the world that this is the way America er reacts to a er a system that it doesn't like so that it really did Soviet propaganda a tremendous favour, the Soviets could then sit back and say "Hey look, we're not going to argue about this, just look at what they did and draw your own conclusion”

NARRATOR

37.07 SOVIET PROPAGANDA FILMS CAPITALISED ON THE WAVE OF ANTI-AMERICAN DEMONSTRATIONS THAT SPREAD ACROSS THE WORLD.

37.24 EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER, PRESIDENT KENNEDY TURNED A SECOND CUBAN CRISIS TO HIS ADVANTAGE.

37.36 US SPY PLANES HAD DETECTED THE SOVIETS INSTALLING MISSILE LAUNCHERS IN CUBA.

THE COUNTRY WAS PUT ON ALERT FOR WORLD WAR THREE.

SOF

37.47 “Photographs rushed to the laboratory for developing and printing showed positive proof that the nuclear missiles and bombers posed an immediate threat to the security of the U.S.”

NARRATOR

37.58 FOR 12 TENSE DAYS THE WORLD THOUGHT IT STOOD ON THE BRINK OF NUCLEAR WAR. THEN THE SOVIETS BACKED DOWN AND SHIPS CARRYING MISSILES TO CUBA TURNED BACK.

38.11 GEN. A. HAIG

The American people were told but for a few heroic moments by a democratic American president err, Jack Kennedy, the world was saved the catastrophe of a nuclear Holocaust. That's nonsense, the Russians at that time knew they were outgunned 20 to 1 by the United States, their missiles were all err, err stone age technology they are not today but they were then, and they would never have contemplated a nuclear exchange with the United States, err, and yet we believed that and we told that to the American people.

NARRATOR

38.52 THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS CREATED SO MUCH FEAR AMONG ORDINARY PEOPLE, THAT BOTH SOVIET AND AMERICAN GOVERNMENTS HAD TO CHANGE THE THRUST OF THEIR PROPAGANDA. NUCLEAR WAR WAS NOW PORTRAYED AS LESS FRIGHTENING AND EVEN SURVIVABLE.

SOF

39.09 There was turtle by the name of Burt

cartoon & Bert the turtle was very alert.

When danger threatened him, he never got hurt, he knew just what to do.

He’d duck and cover, duck and cover

NARRATOR

IN AMERICA MILLIONS OF SCHOOLCHILDREN WERE TOLD THEY COULD SURVIVE A NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST IF THEY FOLLOWED SOME RATHER SIMPLE RULES.

SOF

You and I don’t have shells to crawl into like Bert the turtle. So we have to cover up in our own way. First you duck and then you cover & very tightly you cover the back of your neck.

NARRATOR

39.56 FOR THEIR PART, SOVIET CITIZENS WERE TAUGHT TO PUT ON THEIR GAS MASKS AND DAMP DOWN THE RADIATION BY HAND.

40.00 RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES

Soviet nuclear “Attack Repelled!”

drill caption

40.16 VICTOR LISTOV

In every soviet institution they gave really boring

lectures on what to do in the event of a nuclear strike. They were called "lectures on civil defence". And the people responded to these lectures with a joke: "When the Americans drop the atom bomb, what do you have to do?

man in white sheet You have to put on a white sheet and slowly crawl to the cemetery." "But why slowly?" "Very simple - so you don't cause a panic."

41.01 TATIANA VORONTSOVA

At school they told us that there could be a nuclear war. And they showed us films so that we knew what it was. When we saw the films and saw the mushroom cloud, after the blast we were terrified. They told us that the bomb had been dropped in Japan and that was very frightening too. They said that only Americans could drop the bomb, so to us, Americans were very bad people, they were the enemy.

NARRATOR

41.50 RUSSIA’S FEAR OF THEIR ENEMY HALF A WORLD AWAY HAD FED SOVIET PROPAGANDA FOR MORE THAN TWO DECADES.

42.00 WHEN AMERICA’S FEAR OF THE COMMUNIST THREAT TOOK IT INTO VIETNAM, IT PLAYED STRAIGHT INTO THE HANDS OF SOVIET PROPAGANDA.

42.10 RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES

Soviet arch Vietnam Yet another American president links his name to crime. He rewards soldiers for the killings in Vietnam.”

NARRATOR

42.22 AMERICA’S BOMBING OF SOUTH EAST ASIA DAMAGED ITS NAME AROUND THE WORLD.

42.36 WITH AMERICA’S IMAGE AT AN ALL TIME LOW. THE TIME WAS RIPE TO RECRUIT NEW CONVERTS TO THE COMMUNIST CAUSE.

42.48 THROUGHOUT THE THIRD WORLD, SOVIET PROPAGANDA CONTRASTED THE EVILS OF CAPITALISM WITH THE VIRTUES OF COMMUNISM.

42.58 RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES

Congo arch “The people of the Congo aim to end the exploitation of man by man and to gain real freedom and happiness.”

43.08 HERB ROMERSTEIN

The so-called third world was extremely important to the Soviet Union as a major battleground against the West. In part because there were raw materials in the third World, in part because they actually thought that they could establish communist governments in some of those countries.

Soviet Cartoon

NARRATOR

43.28 SOVIET PROPAGANDA CARTOONS WARNED THE THIRD WORLD WHAT IT MEANT TO DO BUSINESS WITH THE WEST.

HERB ROMERSTEIN

A lot of the soviet propaganda to developing countries was to present a threat of western capitalism moving into their countries and taking them over.

44.04 AL HAIG

I think the United States, generally didn’t do well, in, in communicating with the developing world. In many of those areas of the developing world, especially in Africa for example, the impression developed that the imperialist capitalist west didn’t care about their inferior economic status.

44.31 RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES

Angola archive “In the Angolan jungle, peasants watch a film about Lenin.”

AL HAIG

44.44 The Soviet propaganda machine er provided a panacea if you will, a solution for their problem, and it had a tremendous appeal for downtrodden people.

NARRATION

44.56 AT ITS MOSCOW HEADQUARTERS, THE KGB SET OUT TO FABRICATE ANTI-WESTERN STORIES AND DISSEMINATE THEM THROUGH THE THIRD WORLD. TO DO SO, IT CREATED A SPECIAL DEPARTMENT FOR DISINFORMATION, HEADED BY A FULL COLONEL.

45.11 LEONID VLADIMIROV

There used to be a Colonel of the KGB who was simply planting newspapers erm launching newspapers in other countries. And the rumours were of course carefully prepared.

It could be the spreading of AIDS by the American Secret Laboratory, it could be the, the erm, err biological establishment in Pakistan, producing mosquitoes spreading diseases, it could be the trade in the parts of human bodies from Latin America…

45.45 HERB ROMERSTEIN

A denial of the story didn’t always help because for one thing the story was by that time being used by KGB in other parts of the world, the denial would never catch up to the original false story.

NARRATOR

46.01 IN 1980 THE SOVIET INVASION OF AFGHANISTAN CHANGED EVERYTHING.

46.14 THE RED ARMY FOUND ITSELF BOGGED DOWN IN A BLOODY GUERILLA WAR THAT IT COULD NEVER WIN.

46.24 THE TEN-YEAR WAR IN AFGHANISTAN BECAME THE SOVIETS OWN VIETNAM.

46.36 PROPAGANDA FILMS SHOWED SOVIET SOLDIERS AS THE FRIENDS AND PROTECTORS OF A SOCIALIST NEIGHBOUR.

46.45 BUT THE OFFICIAL LINE WAS BEGINNING TO WEAR THIN.

46.49 JANE LITVINOVA

The Soviet media covered the invasion of Afghanistan in the most obvious way. It was er told er that er now we come to Afghanistan to help our Afghan brothers to live in a nice country, and er, to er, overthrow this er, er regime and er, all to be equal and socialist and wonderful.

47.05 VICTOR LISTOV

When we went into Afghanistan it was no longer a question of whether the propaganda was believable, as it had become just a formality. For the Soviet Union it was just another step towards the abyss that wasn’t far away.

47.23 TATIANA VORONTSOVA

I thought it was very bad when the war started with Afghanistan. It was of no use to anyone involved, not to us, not to them, they were managing fine on their own. At least now they are living their own lives. I don’t know why we marched in. I am ashamed that our men went into Afghanistan.

47.47 VLADIMIR POZNER

The Soviet's thought that it would be like a parade they'd walk in and it would be all over, turned out to be the opposite, turned out to be the Soviet Union's Vietnam in more senses than one, not only because they lost that war like the United States lost in, in Vietnam, but also the moral of the fighting man, and what it did to the country psychologically speaking is also very much what Vietnam did to the United States.

48.11 JANE LITVINOVA

We never knew what was going on from the state propaganda. From the state news or in newspapers……but some people went there. Some young boys er returned to some of them in coffins, some of their alive but wounded. Some of them wounded physically, some of them wounded morally….. and they told us exactly what it was like….. the feeling of horror, their amount of blood to the corruption of Lieutenants and Captains a lot of very brutal murders…

48.49 VLADIMIR POZNER

As the war dragged on, as it became clear …that we were not being told how many people were dying, mothers were not being told that their that their children had been killed, they were not allowed to bury them publicly. The truth about the war was being hidden from the population and that gradually became public knowledge…The Government was engaged in an unjust war and was lying to me, the average citizen, about what was going on there. And lying in the most horrendous way.

NARRATOR

49.29 AFGHANISTAN CREATED AN ATMOSPHERE IN WHICH PRESIDENT REAGAN COULD DENOUNCE THE SOVIET UNION AS AN EVIL EMPIRE.

49.38 SOF

“To ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.”

NARRATOR

49.51 THE MILITARY EFFECTIVENESS OF PRESIDENT REAGAN’S STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE, WAS NEVER TESTED, BUT “STAR WARS” WAS, PERHAPS, THE MOST EFFECTIVE PROPAGANDA COUP OF THE COLD WAR.

50.02 VLADIMIR POZNER

To Ronald Reagan, it very much fitted in to his the cowboy riding off into the sunset with the guns blazing and all of this, it is a great idea, we're gonna put up these, these shields and the United States err is going to be totally protected from the evil empire.

50.19 SOF

Cartoon “I asked my daddy what the star wars stuff was all about. He said that right now we can’t protect ourselves against nuclear weapons and that’s why the president wants to build a peace shield. It would stop missiles in outer space so they couldn’t hit our house, then nobody could win a war and if nobody could win a war, there’s no reason to start one.”

NARRATOR

50.48 IN MOSCOW STAR WARS WAS PRESENTED VERY DIFFERENTLY.

51.02 RUSSIAN SOF -SUBTITLES

Soviet Arch. Star Wars “As this animation shows, everything looks great but even the Americans themselves are always saying that a certain percentage of soviet missiles will get through and this will mean a catastrophe and universal death.”

51.16 GEN. AL HAIG

It created incredible nervousness in the Kremlin so in that context unconsciously it became a very important propaganda tool.

NARRATOR

51.31 PART PROPAGANDA. PART BLUFF. STAR WARS HELPED PERSUADE MIKAIL GORBACHEV TO SIGN A TREATY WITH AMERICA.

51.40 THE NUCLEAR ARMS RACE HAD DOMINATED THE COLD WAR. NOW, IT WAS OVER.

51.49 THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER PRESIDENT REAGAN HAD BEEN AN EAGER MOUTHPIECE FOR ANTI-COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA - IT FELL TO HIM TO BRING THE PROPAGANDA WAR TO A CLOSE.

51.59 SOF

Reagan toasts “General Secretary and Mrs Gorbachev, to your

Gorbachev health….”

NARRATOR

52.12 THE PROPAGANDA WAR LEFT MOST AMERICANS RELATIVELY UNSCATHED.

52.20 BUT FOR THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE ITS LEGACY HAS BEEN FAR MORE PAINFUL AND ENDURING.

52.26 TATIANA VORONTSOVA

I don't even want to look back at my life, because they led us. They said turn left and I turned left. They said turn right and I turned right. I virtually didn't have my own brain. I couldn’t think for myself because if I did I was afraid I would be punished for that thought.

52.53 VLADIMIR POZNER

I think that propaganda is the tool of governments, of power, and in the long run, it is average people who pay for it, and it's not soon that you're going to find people with any real kind of political ideals in Russia. They’ve been lied to so terribly that they no longer have the desire to believe in anything.

THE END

RED FILES: SOVIET PROPAGANDA MACHINE

PRONOUNCIATIONS

Pg6 Boris Yefimov

BORIS YE-FEM-OFF

Pg 11 Mikail Yefimov

ME-KYLE YE-FEM-OFF

Pg15 Tatiana Vorontsova

TATIANA VORONT-SOVA

Pg16 Pavlic Morozov

PAV-LIK MOR-ROZ-OFF

Pg 23 Nikita Khruschev

NI-KEETA KHRUS-CHEV

Pg31 Joe Adamov

JOE ADAM-OFF

Pg 32 Izvestia

IS-VEST-IA

Pg 32 Victor Listov

VICTOR LEEST-OFF

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