Originally posted by Udie:
Basicly I grew up thinking that the Russian people were all prisoners. Is/was there any truth to that or was it all American propaganda?
Do / did the people believe propaganda?
Udie
We were prisoners, yes so the statement is true. But it is irrelevant. We did not have a concept of propaganda - it was the only thing we knew. Not only we did not know about other points of view, we had no idea other points of view were possible. Like a blind person who never hears about a sight.
So we trusted what we were constantly told. That capitalists/sionists headed by americans started all the wars. That the workers in western countries live like slaves in abysmal conditions and are on the verge of revolt. That our economy is more productive and we are overtaking the US economically and the only reason we did not do so yet is because we were ruined by the War and US was not, and that US is robbing the third world countries while we protect and help them.
But the outcome was predetermined. Besides our advanced political system, we had all the advantages of the country where steam engine, locomotive, radio and most of the other things were invented...
There were no alternative newspapers, journalism of any kind. Very few people felt the need to listen to the western short-wave broadcasts.
So no crash, catastrophy or problem was ever reported. The war in Afganistan was unknown for a few years.
Long dispance phone calls while reasonably priced, took a few hours to arrange and in most cities could be done only from the special office. People did mot move much from city to city, so you could not get much through the word of mouth, even if Big Brother allowed such kind of talks, which it did not. Nothing drastic - just a call to the office and a conversation. A siberian camp only for those who persisted.
Access to the rest of the worls was ceverely restricted even to the rest of the Soviet Bloc countries. Almost non-existant. And the people there only went in groups and were warned to the concequences of spreading capitalist provocations upon return.
Incidentally, it was difficult to get an SW radio in USSR and the broadcasts were jammed.
Even when people got them, few people believed them because they were completery at odds with all our world.
Of course we got full coverage of all slums, catastrophies, wars, strikes and demostrations happening in the rest of the world.
Voice of America broadcasted on May 15th that on April 26 an Chernobyl Electric plant blew up with more radiation then Nagasaki bomb and is poisoning the europe? What a load of lies, if something like that happened, wouldn't we know of that?
The only exceptions were jews who had some contacts via mail with relatives outside after the Iron Curtain was lifted. Nothing political was ever in the mail but it was obvilus from them that regular working pople live normal lives, actually quite spectacular by our standards - completely at odds with the common knowlege.
That is the reason why jews were restricted in many areas - they really were not trustworthy to the communist government, not because someone up there hated them.
The jews kept quied about what they knew, even from their own children, lest we get into trouble by saying something...
Of course a healthy dose of antisemitism encouraged among the people by the government just made sure that if some jew would say something, he would not be trusted. Nothing personal, you understand - quite a few people up top were jews, despite all of the restrictions.
In short we would have fought you evil capitalists tooth and nail and would have all died in the cause of the world communism so that our great-great-grandchildred could live free and prosperous.
Even now many (most) people there hate US and blame it for everything that happens to their country. Many people
there cannot allow themselves to believe the truth because it means that all their suffering were for naught and their future is hopeless because there is nobody to blame for it, so no single cause to overcome.
For all practical purposes, you can treat each individual russian as a misguided soul that can be easily converted if only shown the real american life even fir a day. They are good people who suffered a lot. You would not believe a transformation happening when you lead one through the regular neighborhood with a single family-houses and visit a supermarket. If US government provided free transportation to all willing russians for a week-long visit to the us, 99% would convert, go back and set their country straight.
You can also treat the russian people as a whole as an unpredictable threat and vicious and deadly enemy if it ever comes to conflict.
Personally, if it comes to that, I would cry while looking through the sight of my M16 at my former countryman.
Does that answer your question?
miko
[This message has been edited by miko2d (edited 09-27-2000).]
