Soviet propaganda: leaving Dr. Goebbels in the dust - Part II

The previous post has shown that in the beginning of nineteen seventies Soviet leaders have decided to make a clean break with the Marxist-Leninist position of the internationalism, racial equality and all the related slogans and buzzwords. At least where the Jews are concerned.

It is somewhat difficult to explain to the Western mind how unique and ground-breaking was this decision. In that regime every printed word and every text transmitted via radio or read on TV was controlled, sometimes by several functionaries, and every deviation from the official party line in the media was severely punished. Control over media items prepared for external consumption was many times tougher. To imagine anyone being able to slip unapproved content of the kind described is unthinkable.

But the case of the "USSR" monthly was only a tip of the iceberg. After the Six Days War, the world became sharply divided between supporters and enemies of Israel. USSR became the chief supporter of the Arab countries, while USA, up to 1967 somewhat hesitant, came heavily on the side of Israel. The lines in the Middle Eastern sand were drawn. Immense quantities of Soviet weapons were provided to Egypt, Syria and other, less directly involved in the Israeli/Arab conflict countries. The price of the weapons was laughingly low. Thanks to the quirks of Soviet economy that allowed virtually any price to be "profitable" and to special economic arrangements that allowed Arab countries infinitely delayed credits and  a partial payment in local products, the "business" flowered. Soviet citizens remember quite well cheap Algerian wine, for instance, shipped in huge vats and dispensed under some localized brand names. Or Syrian wool and Egyptian cotton... Only a few were aware of the reasons behind appearance of the unusual merchandise on the shelves.

On the propaganda front, at least for the internal consumption, all the ways and means were declared kosher. A great selection of typical Soviet cartoons of the time is made available by Kcmeesha here. However, the line where anti-Zionism crosses into outright antisemitism was rarely overstepped, each such move obviously being allowed by a fatherly wink from above. The final elimination of that line, as you can see, happened in 1972.

...of all the arts, for us the cinema is the most important.

(Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, April 1919)

Vladimir Ilyich certainly wasn't a slouch where propaganda was concerned, an this prophetic statement was taken to heart by the Soviet propaganda moguls. Creative imagery, coupled with tweaking of the facts can do wonders as far as brainwashing is concerned, and Soviets were masters of the genre. The "documentary" on Zionism presented here is a lesson to the Soderberghs and Moores of our times.



The first minute of the movie doesn't carry a voiceover, only music and imagery. Here are the main four images used:









I challenge the reader to find a common element in these images and leave it at that. The first text that appears in the movie says:



"The movie contains facts, uses documents and true quotes and testimonies."

The helpful uploader of the movie to Youtube says in the comments: "The movie was created in the beginning of 1970-ies by an order of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and with assistance of KGB". Why does it take KGB to make a movie, one should ask oneself...

And then comes the real reason that precipitated the movie, the article described in the previous post and much more:



Here is some information on the event from a Jewish source:

First World Conference on Soviet Jewry

1971

February 23-25. First World Conference on Soviet Jewry opens in Brussels attended by 800 delegates from 38 countries, and included prominent Israeli leaders David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin.. Moscow launches a media campaign against the event.

The initial info about the conference in the "documentary" seems correct. Well, aside of mentioning one of the organizations behind the conference as "Judeo-Masonic B’nai B’rith". Does the term "Judeo-Masonic" ring a bell? I can assure you that this term was a big no-no in the "normal" Soviet vocabulary. Anyway the conference was dedicated to the fate of Soviet "refuseniks" - the Soviet Jews denied the coveted emigration permit under different pretexts. And this is what made the Soviet ruling mafia mad. Mad enough for the mask of internationalism to slip.

And then the trickery starts. Around 2:30 into the movie there appears a demonstration in London, near the Soviet Embassy, for the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate. Some well-fed character appears in the middle of the screen (about 2.40 or so). And the voiceover: "How happy is this little Zionist agent! It is he who recruited and paid each demonstrator five pounds from the Zionist treasury". Hm... of course the habit of "organizing" demonstrations on every issue in Soviet Union by order from above, be it a local party boss or your manager at workplace lead the KGB thinkers to a conclusion that every demo in the West is paid... after all, what normal Soviet citizen will go to demonstrate just because he/she wants to?

Back to the conference in Brussels. The voiceover changes its pitch: "'Hold the thief!', cry those who grabbed most of the world's gold and of the capitalist world's industry and dream about new robbery and expansion. Their name is: Zionists." (around 3:10).Only after this passage the title of the "documentary's" makes its appearance:

"The Secret and the Visible - The Goals and the Deeds of the Zionists"

The first part of the movie is dedicated to the goals of the Zionists. Starting with a quote from the ubiquitous Vladimir Ilyich who declares these goals wrong (as his somewhat telegraphic style goes, he rarely burdened himself with the necessity to prove or explain. Like in his famous "The theory of Marx is all-powerful, because it is true"). Then the narrative moves to France for a demonstration of Zionist misdeeds. Why France, you may ask? Well, because of that name - Rothschild, which every grass-roots Russian anti-Semite absorbs with his mother's milk. And don't ask me why...

Follows a lengthy discourse on Rothschild's family history and their habits of hiding gold (again) from the taxmen. At this point in the movie, the word "Zionist" disappears, being replaced by "Jew"... And the imagery of the world being entangled in the Rothschild's web will definitely warm the cockles of any "anti-Zionist" heart. Even Marx, whose anti-Jewish views were loud and clear, is quoted, although Marx didn't express his opinions on Zionism - only on Jews in general. But at this stage of the "documentary" the difference between the Jews and the Zionists is already irrelevant.

And then the voiceover delves into Judaism, "translating" the dictum of the Bible into popular terms, those easily understood by the Soviet citizen. But there is not need to repeat myself, just take a look at the previous post. Suffice to say that the same quotes from the Black Hundreds' ideologist that were discovered by Grigory Svirsky in the Soviet article appear here too.

As if this were not enough, the camera moves back to the much hated Zionist conference, where an orator, Nahum Sokolov is translated as saying that "Jews, without any doubt, are the cleanest (sic) and most civilized nation". Why would a man, even of such inhuman ideology, vent his views on Jewish cleanliness and civilization in general, when the subject of the conference, to remind you, was to help the Soviet Jews to fulfill what was their right - to leave the Soviet Union? But of course, the voiceover doesn't allow listening to the originally recorded sound...

It will be a long and thankless task to translate the lies - fabrications and distortions that comprise the rest of this poisonous cinematic opus of unbridled hate and racism. Suffice to say that even I, who considered myself relatively inured to this kind of propaganda, have had to take several breaks to get some fresh air. Revolting is a very weak description of the "documentary".

One funny thing should be mentioned, though: in spite of being leveled at Jews in general, during the rest of the movie narration from time to time slips into tirades about Zionism, only to go back to the Jews in general...

The propaganda department of the Central Committee with KGB at its disposal have done an exemplary job. Goebbels wouldn't be proud of it for one reason only: he will be consumed by envy.

The fate of the movie was strange, though. As the uploader of the movie says, "In spite of being created by order of the Central Committee, the movie was never shown on TV or in the cinemas". However, the explanation of the phenomenon is simple. Having its fingers burned by the fiasco in Paris with the revealed extensive quotes from antisemitic opus of 1906, the Central Committee decided not to tempt the fates and, according to this source, the chief Soviet ideologist of that time, Suslov, signed an order that forbade its screening. The movie, as I've mentioned, used the same material. And more...

And now we have to go back to the hero of the first part of this story, prof Svirsky. I am not sure that he indulged in poetry, there is no indication that he did, but the sharpness of his senses is certainly that of a poet. Based on the information on the exceptional campaign started by the Soviets and was only partly described here, he came to a true conclusion: Israel is going to be attacked soon, and Soviets will do their best to ensure that this time the Arab armies destroy Israel. He did his best to warn the establishment in Israel, however he wasn't taken seriously. Here is how he describes this episode:

I was brought to a little red-cheeked senior officer in the rumpled green uniform, from which - democracy! - you can't distinguish a general from a cook. He looked somewhat like a French "azhan" guarding the witness room at the French Palace of Justice. Thick round face, sleepy eyes and a barely noticeable grimace of disgust.

Ye gods, how the face of the strategist twisted in an ironic smile! He thought that I'll spread before him a copy of the plan of military action, photographed in Moscow, in the office of Marshal Grechko, or the secret marching orders of the Syrian army, at worst. And I am showing him some newspapers and a yellowed booklet published in 1906. Doesn't he read newspapers*?

Strategist yawned and did not even apologize.

- Another prophet from Russia, - he said [in Hebrew] to the officer-interpreter, who for some reason hasn't translated this.

-May I ask your name? - I asked as humbly as possible.

-When you are allowed to become a school teacher in Israel, and I will come to your class as a first grader, then you will ask for my name - he answered furiously and got up.

Three days later, I achieved complete success: I was no longer accepted anywhere ...

(*) Here prof Svirsky refers to his triumph in the French High Court of Justice. It was widely reported in most European newspapers and very briefly in the oh so provincial Israeli media.

The poetic intuition of the writer was a much better indicator of things to come than self-satisfied know-it-all military and political leadership of 1973 Israel, led by our dearest Golda. In a few months after the meeting described above, on the most holy day for the Jews, the Arab armies attacked.

Grigory Svirsky went to war, this time as a reporter for the Russian language radio station Svoboda (Freedom) and soon after the war left for Canada, embittered by the Israeli treatment.

Afterword: Russia today.

It may be unnecessary, but I have to say it: the dirty antisemitic concoction, this movie you were (fully, partially or not at all) watching on Youtube, was suppressed by its creators forty years ago. Kudos for freedom of speech, of course, and it's important for our youngsters to know about such dark years of history. But there are two sides to every coin. And the swiftly rising waves of neo-Nazism in Europe and elsewhere are greedily feeding on material like this "documentary".

It is not necessary to search far and wide. The comments on the Youtube page of this movie are the best indicator. Of course, some of the 254 comments express genuine revulsion by the opus. However - but I'll let one of the more recent commentators (one murowets) speak for himself, in two comments published five days before this post:

Zionists are the same fascists! They took over in Russia too! Putin and his gang are also Zionists! Putin is a Jew via his mother, he and Mendel(?) are Jews too! And all those in Kremlin today are Jews!

And:

Jesus is a myth! He wasn't a Jew. And was there Jesus indeed? Of course not.

It it easy to discard the comments as ravings of a demented mind. But there are many, many more of such "pearls" for comfort. And Mr(or Ms) murowets is very active on Youtube - probably in other places too. Not that he is alone.

Lest we forget...